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Tijuana Gringo

12 Noviembre 2000.

Sometime around or after six o'clock in el piojito -- the louse pit -- as they call this movie house -- one film ends and the lights come up to reveal our bedraggled half-filled banks of seats, burnt-out young men and burnt-up middleaged men plus a few women in between one old movie and another.

The poet pulls out his pen and writes now, begin.

Writes the questions of the ages.

What is the meaning of life in a dark theater? How is the cause or effect of lights that enlighten? Who are we, telling stories in flashing images on the cavern wall? When are we in this old moviehouse only rebuilt after a fire ten years ago but looking even older now? Where is this place deep underground, flickering ritual fire behind locked exit doors? Why does nothing answer me but the creak of shifting seats and a distant bathroom door?

Six lines of ink, then seven, then nothing, are all the poet has to answer his meaning, to explain our questions. In the end only three come more, to breathe, to die, and be forgotten. Sooner. Or. Later.

From the corner comes the sound of someone snoring.

Z z z z x x x z z z z z .


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Copyright 2001 Daniel Charles Thomas