Michael Brandonisio


Nighttime Video Camera

I am a video camera in motion in the nighttime. In low-light corridors, long and narrow, I amble down a merry-go-lane labyrinth. Going down and around, past opened doors of unoccupied motel rooms. Down the length and breadth, I wait, and then coast. Cloaked in half-light, moving in slow-motion, 72 frames-per-second, built-in camera microphone records at regular speed voices that whisper a mix of secrets and white lies. I pause to trace bygone images captured in lines of pixels, sourced from classic films. I spend time pondering these optical illusions, static in ethereal outlines, while listening all the while to Larry Clinton singing My Reverie transmitted over a Zenith radio, when Zenith radios were all the rage.

Former human lives built on maneuvers linger as remnants of the old time hit-and-run routine. Hard cut to the next scene. Rewind. Reprise. I hear some funky music down this shadowy merry-go-lane labyrinth. Going down and around. Future specters appraise each other. Each one plays a character based on self-styled scripts. No second takes/second chances. Suddenly, image and sound go out-of-sync. Last thing seen is a blinding white light, accompanied by a heavy groan, followed posthaste by a crushed sigh. I wonder: What does Apollo think about all this venting of the Dionysian spirit?

This life-is-an-underground-movie-within-an-underground movie will eventually be sanitized by a couple of imported Mr. Cleans. Yet ghost images provide an intimation of the future past. You decipher bleached graffiti that says: James Dean was here.

As the hour grows late, it is time to depart. Passing under an EXIT sign, a silhouette walks out into the rain-streaked night.

Double Jimi

Storm Watch

The Quest for Immortality

My Dear Sonia

After a few fine bottles of vintage wine, your broken English got chewed up. You said, “I zink I pee-pee leek de boorjuazi.” That is what I heard. Regardless, Sonia, you could not have said it any better. When I watch you pee and laugh, watch you pinch your girlfriend’s butt, watch with delight as you kiss each other while I bare assed sit on fine leather upholstery and sip a splendid cognac, inhaling the lilac scent in the air before I pop the cork on another bottle of Lafitte for you and Marissa, and then handing you both more of your favorite French perfume - a parting extra gratuity for your excellent work – it makes me feel that all is right with this crazy world.

Sonia, your urine splashed across my hair, face, and chest is a heaven sent panacea. As it dribbles down the length of my naked body, your urine (as well as Marissa’s) sends me into states of euphoria that I cannot find words to describe. Jettisoned from such lovely creatures, the pleasures that your hot extravagant jets induce are heaven sent gifts for one like me given to water sports. I’m so glad that I met you that night at Lorelei’s.

Just now contemplating your luxuriant liquid contained in this antique pink heart-shaped miniature bottle from 1750, or thereabouts, sitting here on top my 1930 mahogany desk helps me get through another taxing day in this cesspool of a city. Ensconced high atop my ivory tower, trading these damn derivatives, I count the days, hours, minutes and microseconds till our next delightful tryst. It always satisfies.

Perhaps you and Marissa will consider intensifying our next session by a notch or two. Just thinking about it parches my mouth all the way down to my throat. Thank heavens I have the yellow in the pink. C’est magnifique!

How about 2 weeks in Moscow, just the three of us, at the end of July? I bet you’d like to see what’s happening in your old hometown. So would I. Those Moscow girls really knock me out.

All for now, my chéri. Till our next encounter.

Yours in fun and sprinkles,
The General

Michael Brandonisio is a creative writer, visual artist and photographer. His work has appeared in Word For/Word, Eunoia Review, Otoliths and elsewhere.
 
 
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