© 2009 Lyn Lifshin

LIKE A JUGGLER, A MAGICIAN

tearing rabbits out of a

hat and then juggling them.

Knives and umbrellas,

a cup of poison, bombs

shimmering in the air

and dazzling like a slight

of hand, wild glitter to

keep the audiences off

balance, hypnotized by

terror as Hitchcock, who

made a game of identity

in his films,  did in his

stories of his own life,

with shifting plots and

events mutating, sequences

becoming more and more

flamboyant the more

times he tells it

ALWAYS, SOMETHING IN THE FILMS, VULNERABLE

as  children in school

singing “with every stroke

she shed a tear,” – the

children under the teacher’s

direction in The Birds.

Something’s on the verge

of disorder, chaos when

nothing is as it seems.

The nonsense of a nursery

rhyme means more. When

a jungle gym with black

birds fluttering down on

it is no longer for play,

ease is strangled like lemon

trees in drought where no

one can still drift off

to the murmur of black

swans in a lagoon

FANTASY VOYEUR

as if sure everyone

else was doing something

dark and forbidden,

kinky sex and loving it,

as if something in him

was not up to it,

never was, he’d blurt

out blue passages,

suggest a gin and

menstrual blood drink,

whisper something that

would titillate a blonde

beauty, get a rise from her

in the one way he could

ALMA, THE ONLY ONE HARDLY WRITTEN ABOUT

no one sees her

as soul, as diamond

or beauty under her

charcoal and brown

loose shifts. What

her name means

dissolves. Alfred

does nothing to

make her feel any

thing but the hand

maiden to stunning

blondes, the ugly

step sister, there to

be counted on, to

work hard but

never adored

IMAGINING HITCHCOCK ON FACEBOOK OR TWITTER

If he wondered if it was

ethical to go just taking

photographs of people.

Would he find everyone

saying what they are

doing bizarre? He wanted

the sense of a city, not

what they say. He might

not care when which

blond was taking a nap

but then, maybe, he’d

love it. A voyeur checking

out who saw who to

which man, a minute to

minute spying on some

actress he wouldn’t have

to follow. It would be

intimate as reading Tippi

or Grace’s diary, swooping

on the screen the way a

camera moves down a

stair case, each tweet, a

circle within a circle

like his images of wedding

rings and boxing rings,

round drums, carousels,

roller skating rinks. He

could have friends he

didn’t have to deal with

THE CAMERA SHOULD NEVER ANTICIPATE WHAT’S TO FOLLOW

Hitchcock said the

way a poem shouldn’t

tell, shouldn’t

mean but be.

If the camera

technique comes

before the

action instead of

accompanying it,

the public can

guess what

the character is

about to do, not be

there in the

moment,

with them

WHEN I CAN ONLY WATCH THRU GLASS

a torn tendon. When I can just

watch the dancers thru glass

I could be the wounded man

in Rear Window. Or even

Hitchcock himself. Devoted

to picture taking, the man in

the chair not so different from

me, not different from Hitch

cock. All of us with a tele-

photo lens, mine’s under  my

hair, spying, close-ups of the

charismatic man who no

woman can resist. The three

of us peering in thru windows,

making up stories we believe

or want to. The rectangular

windows identical to the

apartment at 125 West 9^th

St, lit up, almost  glowing

from outside in the dark, an

exhibitionist’s dream. When

I see the women, the young

beauties I’ll never dance

as perfectly as, esp. with a

cast on my leg, what’s real

fades in and out, is dreamlike

as in one of his films. Each

of the dancers, like the

neighbors in Rear Window,

makes me shiver at what I

could become: old and

fat or the young girl with

rivers of night hair down to

her buttocks. Fantasy,

imagining—starved for what,

like Miss Lonely Hearts,

the one, if I could pick him

up and take him back with

me would make me

hyperventilate, be the

opposite of what I thought

I wanted

All work is property of Lyn Lifshin.

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