Beautiful Helplessness

Beautiful Helplessness

I am not willing to accept the world is without a man

of unfathomable range & a remarkable inventory of art

I wonder if he let himself be surprised by his grandeur

the kind that broke through the noise to quiet our cores

I imagine him falling upwards in beautiful helplessness

his endangered spirit held hostage by an addict’s bargain

measuring a severe distance from celluloid to Heaven

a banal romance expressively trenchant & lastly ruinous

I am not willing to accept the world is without a man

who delivered a tiny fraction of what he was meant to do

to touch the marvelous depths of every breathing thing

to tabulate immaculate perception through artful elations

I imagine me rescuing him from a tremendous darkness

to return his pensive stare & wicked smirk & muted orange

hue back to the refuge of earth & oceans & sooty city streets

a valiant response to his urgent audience in profound mourning

I am not willing to accept the world is without a man

whose efforts leave me inconsolable & arrowed in the heart

yet fortified in my creative disposition & ambling toward ecstasy

the trajectory of his brilliance was boundless & commanding

it projected an upside down reflection to be staunchly revered

I am not willing to accept the world is without a monumental man

& just how his absence will be calibrated is yet to be determined

those of us drowsy flowers left behind bend in the sad music on the wind

bankrupt of the currency lost in a single drought of one incomplete story

I am not willing to accept the world is without a man who smoldered

until his last breath shattered him into a billion pieces of silver star-lite

**

Philip Seymour Hoffman's death had a grave effect on me.  He has long been one of my favorite actors and I have always appreciated his creative process, his work ethic and his incredible body of work. When I learned he had passed, I began a long homage to him by way of watching and completing my collection of his films.  My tribute via this film festival has been an incredibly inspiring and at the same time a gut-wrenching experience.  He is commanding in every single scene he has ever done, whether he has a cameo, does a voice-over, is a supporting actor or the lead.  He makes you take notice, he demands your undivided attention, he envelopes you.  It is surreal that he has expired.  It is unbelievable that we will deprived of his cinematic genius forever.  The above poem may be trite and cliche and somewhat elementary but not since Heath Ledger's death has any actor's passing touched me so deeply and caused my heart to ache.

I love Philip Seymour Hoffman, I always have, I always will.  This, my tiny eulogy to a man worth so much more than a few pithy words in a poor poem by an amateur.

In propinquity,

Nic