Pam Brown: Café Filmo

the Italians
go to Starbucks -
beam me up biscotti.
Pasolini, the charmer,
orders decaf.
last century
Federico Fellini
made films as if
everyone loved films
that was the gift, the key.
Pier Paolo filmed
like someone
who'd never been drunk
falling in love with wine.
it's long since
the dazey days
when ye olde avant-garde
sat through the world's
longest short film festivals,
when hillbilly dills on pills
optically distorted
nightmarish knots
in wood grain
close-up in 16 mm.
Nino Rota
lights a low tar,
hums to cool
a macchiato,
dotting staves
on napkins.