(no subject)
Angel always made me laugh.
It wasn’t that she walked to a different drummer, it was that she was her own drummer. A drummer, anda pied piper. We’d have followed that girl anywhere.
Except in death, apparently.
I have clips of her. Scenes. Shots. Close ups and. Angles. And.
Her eyes sparkled. She was more alive than anyone I knew.
Her image, caught on film, they still are more alive than my own reflection in the mirror on any day of the week. The memory of her still makes me smile.
I don’t laugh much now, except at myself, and that is less laughing and more bitter chuckling. Snorkling? Snortling? Are those words?
There is other laughter though, with Joanne of all people, at Maureen’s expense, which in theory I feel bad about but in reality? No. Not so much.
I pick up the camera and focus the shot, and sometimes I laugh because I remember standing there. Where Joanne is. For better or worse.
It doesn’t feel like disconnection there. I am not numb. The lens isn’t separating me from what was.
I feel.
And laugh.
What do I want on my tombstone?
Mother fucking artist.
I think that would do.
Dolly forward through the grass. Wet grass. Grey grass. Black and white, low contrast. Water clinging to the blades. Rain falling? Focus on the ground. Dolly forward to the grave. A deep dark hole. A coffin. Slick with rain and dirty as the earth crumbled in.
Shoes, scuffed, approaching. Wilted flowers dropping in. One. Two. Three.
Shoes, retreating.
Dirt, raining down.
Tilt up.
Focus on the tombstone.
Block letters, carved in dark stone.
Dark letters, darker than the stone.
Mark Cohen.
Mother-Fucking-Artist.
Yeah, that’s me.
Focus.
Close up.
Hold there.
Hold.
Hold.
Cut.
The fucking end.
Mark Cohen,
From the musical Rent