Homage to My Favorite Film Genre

I have tried to craft this poem as a series of cinematic images that could have been lifted from some of these grainy crime dramas, though slightly more surrealistic to enhance the overall mysterious atmosphere.  You be the judge of whether I've succeeded or not.

Film Noir


call me the savior of moonshine
unfit to lick your Daddy's boots

call me the myths of regret reborn
the lie that always tells the truth

in the dark night of your soul
I'm the wound that opens like an eye

call me allegory of a burnt tick
jerking through your dreams
in 16mm

in mine
my words scale your body
like liana
for all the junkies to climb

call me sphinx
built by the slaves of love

I always leave the screen door unlatched
on the hottest nights
to hear the whirling of the fan
whisper your name
across the fields

call me singed hair
clinging to the bullet of a song

you're the smear of lipstick
staining the lips
of the empty bottle left on my nightstand

the alibi
for all my futures
forking perpetually through time