In the misty hours before it gets bright

All in the still of the night

Not a sound can be heard

Except for an occasional bird

Looking at photos from decades ago

People you knew whom left long ago

Are they still near

When you begin to hear

Deep back in your mind

Stories they told you more than one time

It’s like they are standing there

All while you stare

In perfect pitch

Your memory turned on a switch

The sound of them speaking

Is just what you’re seeking

Pt 1: Standing

I clutch the side of the counter and curse under my breath. My vision blurs a little and I start seeing white spots. (Does anyone else do this when they are about to pass out?) I focus on my breathing and pray no one notices. God help me if someone asks what’s wrong. 

Pt 2: Sleeping

I woke from a horrible nightmare once where I was being stabbed, feeling the blade slide in under my stomach. Thank goodness I woke up to... feeling like I was being fuckin’ stabbed and peeing at the same time.

Pt 3: Sitting

I can’t stand. My legs feel like jello. I can barely sit. Everything down there aches and sitting feels like a metal bar is being shoved up... yeah. 

Pt 4: Shower

The water’s cold, but I’m worried I’ll ruin the mat and maybe the floor if I get out...

Please tell me again why it’s irrational for women to be a little cranky sometimes.

Firetrucks are red

Police cars are blue

I lit your house on fire

wee woo wee woo

The greatest sacrifice

In my own humble opinion

Is time

Time is something that can be given

But never taken back

Once its gone

Its gone for good

There's no rewind

No pause

No stop

There's only play

And so

Time is the most precious gift

That anyone can give

Yet its rarely ever given free

Because we never think we have enough

Not for ourselves

And for others as well

Time is but

A misconstrued concept

Turned into a product

Always highly in demand

But remember...

There's always someone out there

Who needs your time more than you

©CJ

Blonde. James (or Jane) Blonde. 

Atomic Blonde is the new action spy thriller movie starring Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones, and John Goodman. It is the end of the Cold War and elite MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (played by Charlize Theron) is tasked with finding a list of a list of double agents after a fellow agent was killed in the process. She lands in Berlin where she meets an eccentric station chief (played by James McAvoy) and a sexy French operative (played by Sofia Boutella), and the clock is ticking to find this list on the eve of the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

This movie looked cool. The trailers made it look cool. It looked like a mix of James Bond meets John Wick. But after seeing it, I walked out thinking, "Meh."

So the good stuff, Charlize Theron kicks ass. Personally I think Theron can perfectly play one of two roles: a badass or a bitch. Here she plays a badass bitch, and she does it effectively well.

The supporting cast is also good. Boutella was hot and sexy, and she had good chemistry with Theron. James McAvoy is a helluva lot of fun. I feel if you put him in any movie in any role—good or bad—he will be the best part. 

The action was very cool too. I think the best sequence was there as a part when Charlize Theron had to fight a bunch of guys on a stairway. There was gunfire, punching, kicking, ball-sacking, there's a lot of shit going on during this sequence.

Unfortunately there is nothing that felt original, or anything new to make this film stand out from other spy movies. It felt like I was watching the same movie that I've seen a hundred times in other spy movies. The plot is about a list of agents, I've seen that in Bourne Identity. The movie is very gritty and violent, I've seen that in John Wick. Even that totally cool stair fight sequence I've mentioned in the paragraph above, I know where they might have gotten that. Somebody may have been like, "Hey I just watched the second season of Daredevil, and they had a cool fight sequence involving a stairway. I think we can do something similar."

You could argue that this film has a hot lesbian sex scene involving Theron and Boutella; and while admitting that it was kinda hot to watch, this is no different than any other sex scene involving spies and the "Bond girl".

And the pacing, fucking hell, I felt like I was there for an extra hour because this movie felt way too slow. The film shouldn't have to feel like it's been dragged on. And worst of all the editing is kinda a mess. The whole movie is told in flashback. It starts with Theron being interviewed by Jones and Goodman, and then the real story starts. There are also moments where there's a flashback within a flashback and sometimes the flashbacks don't transition well enough. See the film, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Overall I wasn't really blown away by this movie. I think that it is a stretch to call this film female James Bond. However, that's my personal opinion of the film and you shouldn't feel discouraged by this review from seeing it yourself. Maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did, or maybe not. 

                                   Positives:                              Negatives:

                                  -Theron is badass bitch         -Slow pacing

                                  -Supporting cast                   -Choppy editing

                                  -Cool action                         -Adds nothing new

Final Grade: C

So there's my review of Atomic Blonde. Have you seen it? What were your thoughts? Can you name a badass blonde? Please be kind, leave a like and comment, and check back again for more reviews here on Prose!

Best Quote:

Russian Comrade: "Take this, bitch!"

Lorraine Broughton: "Am I still your bitch now?"

T. S. Eliot, 1888 - 1965

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,

Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question…

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep… tired… or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

“That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.”

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old… I grow old…

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Published in 1915. This poem is in the public domain.

By Merrill Glass

Remember the time you lent me your car

and I dented it?

I thought you'd kill me...

But you didn't.

Remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was

formal, and you came in jeans?

I thought you'd hate me...

But you didn't.

Remember the times I'd flirt with

other boys just to make you jealous, and

you were?

I thought you'd drop me...

But you didn't.

There were plenty of things you did to put

up with me,

to keep me happy, to love me, and there

are

so many things I wanted to tell

you, when you returned from

Vietnam...

But you didn't.

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.

- Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.

Oh starry night! This is how

I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.

Even the moon bulges in its orange irons

to push children, like a god, from its eye.

The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,

sucked up by that great dragon, to split

from my life with no flag,

no belly,

no cry.

Anne Sexton

It is impossible for me to write about how I feel. I realized this around the fourth grade when feelings I couldn't control keep rising in my head, reminding me that I am nothing but a shell of skin that cannot do anything. I cannot even control my own thoughts. Back then, I'd futilely try to write what I felt but only ended up with a blizzard of paper balls next to my desk and the husk of a spiral notebook. Nothing could articulate the storm going on inside of my head. Then, in the 10th grade, when a substitute told the class to find a poem and write about it, I stumbled upon this poem.

I learned about Vincent van Gogh in the fourth grade, amidst my hailstorm of feelings, and became enamored with his craziness. From his lilies to his nights to his severed ear and thirst for deadly yellow paint, I wanted to know everything about him. That was what intrigued me about this poem. But as I read more of Sexton's work, I realized she wasn't talking about the painting, she was talking about him and his feelings. Their feelings that they shared. So, for the next phase of the project, I researched her.

I share a lot in common with these two. For one, I too experience their crazy. Anne Sexton and Vincent van Gogh were both diagnosed with bipolar disorder, the main suspect in the case of what's making me feel so weird. As I delved deeper, they became more like me. They tapped into their art forms to escape the reality of what happened in their heads. They both attempted (and later succumbed to) suicide and they both felt alone for long periods of their life. Which is what led me to both. I got a B on my project, but I am a long way from finishing. I want to become an author like Anne Sexton. I want to have my pieces sell for millions like van Gogh. But most importantly, I want to live the happy life that neither of them seemed able to grasp.

This poem is more to me than just a poem. I am going to figure out how to articulate things that I feel, even if I have to use every notebook I can find to do so. This poem showed me that sometimes you have to use other people's feelings to articulate your own, something I am trying to master now.

On the day they met, he

told her of the yeti

in High Tibet he had found.

She thought his tale

frolicsome, if a little

neurotic; some part of her

wanted to run.

He related his fear of death

so near, saying oh who'll

deliver my capsule

of cyanide, such a fate so

abominable I face!

An honorable constable

in crampons and rope

took pity and gave me hope,

he went on. Back safely

at camp, by the light of a lamp

we all of us stood

as a hippopotamus would,

surly and mannishly proud.

She listened with polite 

interest, nodding and making

no gaffe. But toward tale's end

she saw walk in a friend,

the tall one they all called Giraffe.

With a smile and a yawn, 

she stood and was gone,

and he gaped as he heard her

wry laugh.