Bloody Footprints
the movie opens
on a busy sidewalk
someone with a knife
stabs a stranger
keeps on going
while the victim collapses
remember the knife
the flash of it
the thrust
blood blood blood
people stepping in it
as they step over the body
on their important way
bloody footprints
quickly splotching the sidewalk
as the camera
pulls up up
the police arrive
the credits roll
over the expanding trail
of bloody footprints
steps lead to smart shops
to offices
into elevators
down marble corridors
over carpets in hotel hallways
cafe floors
washroom stalls
blood gets on hands
trying to clean shoes
the fingerprints on mirrors
coffee cups
documents
dried flakes fall between
keyboard keys
smear smart phones
traces tracked undetected through
airport screening machines
splotches on luggage
the blood travels around the world
the sidewalk
with the outline of the body
is a pool of blood
after crime scene photos have been taken
after cellphone photos have hit the net
city workers come to clean it up
the camera looks for the stabber
pushing through crowds
roving over heads shoulders
no faces
hands washing
blood pooling in sinks
almost dripping down the walls
of apartments
seeping out of TV screens
bloody footprints
lead up to a door
the bell rings
you reach to open the door
the closing credits roll
Much like Psycho Zombies in the Rain this piece is very cinematic – in fact it includes camera angles 🙂 The opening is one that I saw decades ago in a movie about a serial killer, I think. My memory of the plot is rather vague of what happens after the victim collapses other than people annoyed & reacting as if the victim was drunk not dead.
The rest is inspired by CSI, when I used to watch the show, by how they followed clues to unexpected locations. The poem is a list poem of various places this blood could have been tracked to. I realize it probably wouldn’t stay on shoes long enough to get where I take it, or that it would stay wet enough either but this is poetry not a text dealing with blood spatter theory.
Each of the bloodied locations would get its own screen time while the audience sorts through the clues to figure out which ones are relevant because narrative logic dictates that some of these locations must pertain to the identity of the killer. This is one the frequent plot ploys on many detective shows – too many clues to sort through.
I like the overhead camera view of the corpse with all these foot prints leading away from it. Prints made by people oblivious or perhaps indifferent to the body, to the crime & later miffed by having to clean the blood off their shoes.
The ending is a riff on surprise endings where the narrator turns out to be the killer – it is a bit of a cliche mind you but I couldn’t resist. Here it is ambiguous – has the killer come to your door or have the bloody footsteps lead the police to your door? Either way you’ll get what you deserve 🙂
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