Developmental Hell (Open the Window)

Every night just before I fall asleep,

my inner director starts pitching ideas

to my inner producer.

Some of these ideas have been pitched for months

but get stuck in developmental hell.

The worst kind of stuck follows the lack of follow through

that ideas have when I describe them to another person orally as in

"I'm gonna write something about" and then I flesh out

the idea to the listener who usually responds :

Oh that's a great idea

What have you been smoking

I can't wait to read that

You have such a vivid imagination

'Bout time somebody wrote about that

That could be a movie

That's freaking hilarious

etc.

I very rarely get back to any of those ideas.

The time never seems right.

The idea cools off

or more usually

something else comes along

the one that leaps through

the window of opportunity

that starts typing itself and before long

it's on paper with zero time in development

like this one here and wonders where it came from

Beneath what sea and how many fathoms deep

And mixed in metaphor

overlooking Serenity Street

And Parsells Avenue, while closing the distance

Defenestrating and floating safely to the ground

while the others linger somewhere in there

Hidden behind venetian blinds

the one explaining once again the difference between impeachment and indictment

with Spiro Agnew as the main character

the one where Jacques LaPlumer and Bull Donlelfechski

get captured by the jungle queen and avoid behing turned ito skin boats

the one where I explain curfews in female dorms

the one that begins "all men like to be on a first name basis with their boss"

the film noir interlude between Tee and Ruth who meet in a dive 

begin their fatal dance with a hot conversation

that uses the feline line "you shouldn't be wearing legs like that"

as they pursue the legendary leopard skinned pill box hat.

The one about the ghouls

The one that is so bizarre that if I write it and my wife sees it

she might take me for a weirdo.

All of those are hanging around

Don't count on reading any of 'em

Their chances further diminshed by their utterance

reducing them to the bullshit heap

of ideas without implementation.

Rooms without windows

Truth is I don't know what's next

 I think it might have something to do with Jezebel and Elijah

or Julis Caesar and Decimus

which leads to fake friendship,

mendacity, treachery and assasination

which leads to the last episode of the Sopranos

which I might have written about today

but instead decided to try and describe the process of development

which got in the way of the story about Julius and Tony

which means Decimus might never be captured by me in the words I wanted to use before I got carried away with this thing.

Who knows

Oh yeah

There's also one about Daffy Duck

Thre's one about the jitters of repressed hypersexual hysteria

And one about when ny friend Dogs met my friend Cat

And ths son of a bitch who stole my gal

and the one comparing folks who love each other and have arguments with the folks who love arguments and have each other

And the ongoing disinformation campaign of Merle Seton

And the fate of Thornton Krell

and the de-evolution of Mastin Thrust

And the love story of Haylen and Rebecca and the sex toys involved

All of them gleaming for a moment

Before slipping further away. 

Ready to be pitched again each night

Just before dreams take over

And the window of darkess

Explodes into vivid black and white

With the voice of Robert Mitchum

Calling for children