Toby Dammit (1968)

Toby Dammit (1968) c. 30 Min. Color. In the third episode of the film anthology Spirits of the Dead, Fellini freely improvised on Bernardino Zapponi’s gothic screenplay of Edgar Allen Poe’s “Never Bet Your Head on the Devil,” keeping only the ending from the original.

 

Fame spreads its miasmic glow,

Airport to airport, yellowing

Beneath clinical fluorescence.

 

Nuns giggle and flee, people gasp

And draw back; any flies swarming

Forward must be the paparazzi.

Itinerant and distraught

Imitation of Poe, a failed talent,

Toby, mocks the fake adoration.

                              

LSD makes the brain more flexible

By breaking down what keeps

 Neural circuits separate,

                     

So he feels one with God

Or the Devil, cross-talking from

                   

Ego depletion and color saturation.

Apostates from the Vatican

Sanction this Western Crucifixion

Film to sell Christ to pop culture,

But the gypsy refuses to read Toby’s palm;

“Dusky death…dusky death,” the Scottish play

 

Goes, making him laugh and weep.

Cult of the personality has taken over.

There’s even a stunt double in Mexican

Rawhide who rides in to pose beside him.

 

What you see is what you get; depth

Has left poetry, Poe, and its sounds

Are dubbed in during post-production.

 

Caricature doodles across burnt-out

Walls gleeful images too self-aware

Ever to be taken seriously,

 

But Toby has lost his head over

A Ferrari, blood red, with which to speed

Down Roman back roads.

 

Catacombs loom, a barista doll

Bobs like a stuffed penguin, road

Blocks keep popping up,

 

But Toby will have none of it,

Gunning for his Lolita

On the other side of that bridge.

[Disposable Poem April 17, 2016]

Dr. Mike

 

 

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