Starry Eyes
Truth, Reality, and Perspective
Hello Friends, Family, Mentors, and Readers,
This past Wednesday, if you weren’t there, I read Starry Eyes at the 9th Collection. If we missed you there or on our livestream, we hope you can attend in the future. The 10th Collection is on January 7th (ironic? read on…) and we are quickly approaching a full year of these live magazines. Check us out and stay up to date at our webpage: https://www.arielbasom.com/collections
Starry Eyes is previously published and you can check it out by looking through my writing on my website where you can also find some other digital publications: https://www.arielbasom.com/writing. It was published by Bitch’n Kitsch: Volume 14; Issue 1, back in 2023. I am very fond of this publication and it is an honor to be a part of it.
The poem is a hybrid piece, playing with elements of screenplay, and it toys with the perceptions and fuckery around truth. The star of this film is Catsquatch after Shyama Golden’s amazing painting in which Sasquatch is “made up entirely” of cats. When I wrote Starry Eyes we were in the wake of the January 6th insurrection and what many called the big lie. The big lie, of course, was the whopper that Biden had stolen the election and it was, back then, the coup de grâce of so many smaller lies. All of this may seem like small potatoes in the current political climate in which our democracy is under siege by extreme capitalists in search of oligarchy, but it still rings as important as we still struggle, as a country, to recover from January 6th and everything that went into it and came out of it, including the pardons of all of its participants.
In my view, one of the political parties of our democratic system is harboring a fugitive. Take that as you may. Is it truth? Is it propaganda of my own design? Have I, myself, perhaps, been conned by the left to believe the right is after my rights? Does Catsquatch mean to destroy all we have known or is this super predator just too damn cute [read: incompetent] to be taken seriously?
Look, I don’t have the answers. I am simply a reader. A reader of tea leaves; a reader of trends; a reader of faces. It seems to me we are in big trouble if the truth isn’t revered, sought after, or at the very least honored.
Now, please enjoy Starry Eyes and be sure to stay on the alert for the clown-spies in your life.
Starry Eyes
by Ariel Basom
after Catsquatch by Shyama Golden
586:
Memory is a movie, the real, too real
of a history clouded by cuts and damaged film.
Audio crackles, an unreliable narrative, persistent propaganda,
the haze of age and distorted claims, but one thing is clear—
a figure crosses a river, lumbers in a chaos of meows.
Pan and zoom on a plane over this shadowy form. A plane that hums,
is populated by so many clowns that spies are harder to spot. Some spies
are clowns, others are not. They are the circus government; a secret cabal.
These clowns, spies, and clown-spies come equipped with binoculars,
cameras, kaleidoscopes, and sneers. Their clown footage,
in fact, is spliced into the reel and captures the lumbering sasquatch
—made up entirely—
of cats. The bird’s-eye views of the creature confirm the narrator’s assertions:
586b (voiceover):
“A caucus of cats, a feline conspiracy, gathers in the woods,
piles in cacophony, leaves enormous and mysterious paw prints
in the snow and baffles lawmakers and naturalists. Catsquatch sees
in all directions, naps intermittently, prefers the night, is a danger
to society. A super predator individually, collectively she rules.
Her existence, their existence, is undeniable—is visible.”
587:
The golden hour has ended. The moon, not clouded,
illuminates starry myriad eyes. Clowns and spies
and clown-spies levitate balloons—a dangerous proposition
around so many claws. Is it an experiment? An alternate reality?
Are we being tested, lied to, our patience stretched, disposed?
Do our own starry eyes remain deceived?
Who dares to tell us what is true and not true? We infer
what we wish—a sasquatch made of cats is an impossibility,
no amount of proclamation will change that
—the film is a fraud.
Special effects stand in for reality. A large person in a fur coat,
surely,
roams the mountainside. The rest is done in post-production:
paw licking, tail chasing, furniture scratching.
In all, none of it proves
beyond a reasonable doubt: Catsquatch exists.
588:
Catsquatch, on the bank, investigates a swarm of gnats
as clowns ready the spies and clown-spies to jump from the plane
and get a closer look—prove the existence of Catsquatch.
The clown-spies insist it exists. Who can be trusted if not clown-spies?
Odd giggles resonate in the hollow cabin of the plane and so many
balloons come flying and explode at the touch of too long
needles—surgically surprising—unbothered by the popping, delighted
by the destruction, the troupe of clowns blow up the balloons for the cruelty
of the popping. That is to say, the popping is the point.
589:
Catsquatch stretches, purrs. Without a second to consider the spies,
glances up. Polka dot parachutes fall like acid rain and Catsquatch knows
that existence is proven by sensations, a subjective and undeniable knowledge.
Yet memory persists and distorts memory until the legend of Catsquatch
is all we have—the furry and impossibly adorable stands in for belief in all else.
589b (voiceover):
“Without Catsquatch, they have nothing. They cling to the oversized lie
to avoid being exposed. History is revealed incrementally. Eventually,
the truth is known and we can begin to rebuild. When we expose
the fabrication, power disperses, cats scatter and, instead of cuddles and purrs,
the clowns and spies and clown-spies must stop the reel, admit to hidden objectives,
give Catsquatch up. They can keep the secret circus a silent circus for only so long.
The lights come on and we, in the dreamy theater of memory, blink awake
—to reality.”
So, let’s try to take good care of each other and stay close to our communities. We need to remember what is important when there is such an enormous effort to make us forget.
All my best to you all,
Ariel Basom
Reader | Writer | Teacher | Advocate | Poet
http://www.arielbasom.com
http://www.arielbasom.com/collections