Cirque Du Soleil Poem by gershon hepner

Cirque Du Soleil

Rating: 0.5


People who’re of every origin
come to LA, where they flow
haphazardly, not fitting in
too well with all the others though
they somehow manage while at work.
It’s on the freeways that you know
that in the soleil there’s a cirque
to which the whole world wants to go,
and may, although the traffic won’t
allow them to move on. Alert
to problems right and left they don’t
progress, forced sometimes to revert
to measures that they took in places
from which they came, where highway codes
were not enforced. Despite the stasis,
they don’t choose secondary roads,
because, like swarms of ants, they like
the way that they are forced to crush
together. With a motor bike
it would be easier to rush
ahead, but they prefer to be
enclosed, entitled to possess
the vehicle that makes them free.
They’re stationary, well, more or less,
except in Sig-alerts, of course
when they are motionless as in her sleep
was Sleeping Beauty, till a force
of highway cops helps them to creep
along again. They think they’ve made
it in the shade to come to where
they try so hard to make the grade,
despite the car-polluted air.
Of every origin, the people drive
in all directions, and they know
as long as they remain alive
they must go with the freeway flow.

Inspired by Manohla Dargis’s review of Wayne Kramer’s movie, “Crossing Over” (“Thorny Path of Immigration, Post-9/11, ” NYT,2/27/09) :
In “Crossing Over” immigration isn’t just a problem, it’s also what defines and limits each and every character. Yet, much like the characters’ diversity — the huddled masses include a Mexican mother and son, an Australian actress and a Korean family — immigration isn’t really the point here. Violence is. When a zealous Muslim teenager, Taslima (Summer Bishil) , the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, delivers a naïve essay on the Sept.11 hijackers at school, the speech doesn’t prompt any soul-searching. It isn’t meant to: it’s simply a device to show (prove) how wretchedly bigoted everyone in this rainbow coalition actually is, from the black teenagers who hurl insults at Taslima to the white F.B.I. agent who comes cataclysmically knocking on her family’s door. If Mr. Kramer’s outrage felt honest, his film would be easier to respect. But time and again, he undermines his own righteousness by pumping up the violence (gangbangers threaten the Korean family) and stripping down his talent, including the Australian, Claire (Alice Eve) , who, after attracting the sexual interest of a sleazy immigration bureaucrat, Cole (Ray Liotta) , ends up taking really long showers. Cole is married to an immigration lawyer, Denise (Ashley Judd) , who wants to adopt the African child (Ogechi Egonu) languishing in the same detention center that Taslima lands in. It’s all just one big circle of life, which doubtless explains why Mr. Kramer routinely tries to bridge these stories with aerial images of Southern California freeways, where people of every origin flow together except, you know, during rush hour.

2/27/09

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