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THE IDEA OF ORDER IN HORROR MOVIES
The
stars look like tears tonight.
Who spilt the sky’s milk? Who’s crying over it?
All the fruits of suffering are on the table,
Gray and wet as organs but lined up like lemmings
In the twitchy light and ready to plummet.
The
man protagonist is smarter than the rest.
He can shoot straight and hit zombies in the head
Even at a run, even from fifty feet away.
The one who shoots the still-lying corpse
Twice, just for good measure.
The
woman trips in her high heels because she’s
Looking back over her shoulder while running.
She falls in a ditch. Thin breasts heaving under thin
shirt,
Her spine strung like beads. A full moon blowzy and
green,
A forest, a Satanic cult. She smells like incense and
apples.
She trades a crucifix for a pentacle, virginity for
power.
She learns to see in the dark, to feel the catkins of
a man’s
Fingertips. She dies first. She wears a bloodpack
close
To her chest ready to squirt. Carries her intestines
Like a spaghetti dinner, close to the vest. Buckets of
Ketchup, a rubber retractable knife, a soiled,
dispensable life.
The
film critics are social psychologists. There are no
monsters,
Only people in monstrous circumstances.
The horror fans collect serial killer trading cards.
For them people don’t exist in context.
There are only vampires sitting on cracked stools
At the diner, ordering blood in plastic glasses.
Only mummies sleeping in textile warehouses, ready to
Ravel up the sleeve of the next unsuspecting Joe.
Magdalena Alagna is a freelance writer and an editor
at Long Shot magazine.
She first appeared
on Poetz.com in 2000. |