Fylm Cynara Poetry In Motion 1996 Mtrjm - May Syma 1 May 2026

No public records exist for a poet or filmmaker named May Syma pre-2000. However, “Syma” appears in the credits of a 1998 underground zine Grass Limbs as a contributor. The name could be a pseudonym for Marianne T. R. J. M. (the initials reversed as “mtrjm”).

One plausible identity: May Syma = May Simmons + Yma (an anagram of “May” + “Syma” = “Amy Samy”). The “1” might indicate this was her first public work — a student film at NYU or CalArts, never commercially released.

I imagine “fylm Cynara Poetry in Motion 1996 mtrjm - may syma 1” as an 11-minute black-and-white 16mm short, directed by an obscure New York downtown artist named May Syma (or her persona).

Synopsis (speculative):
The film opens with a typewriter carriage returning with a ding. On-screen text: “For Cynara, gone with the dial-up tone.”
We follow a woman (Cynara, maybe a librarian) through rain-slicked Brooklyn streets, reciting fragments of Dowson into a handheld tape recorder. Overdubbed is a minimalist glitch soundtrack — sampled modem handshakes, slowed-down poetry readings.

Midway, “Poetry in Motion” literalizes: a subway train’s windows become scrolling lines of verse (pre-digital typography, actually hand-painted on celluloid). The phrase “mtrjm” appears as a subway station code (MTR J/M — imaginary stop). fylm Cynara Poetry in Motion 1996 mtrjm - may syma 1

The final segment, “may syma 1” — the filmmaker appears as a reflection in a puddle, whispering “May symmetry one” — a nod to kaleidoscopic structure: the film loops four times, each with slightly altered frames.

Two likely references:

There are tapes that were never meant to be found. Not lost in the catastrophic sense—no fire, no flood—but misplaced by intention, buried inside a duffel bag under a stairwell in an East Village walk-up, 1996. The label handwritten in faded Sharpie: fylm Cynara – Poetry in Motion – mtrjm – may syma 1. No barcode. No credits. Just the weight of a summer that refused to name itself.

fylm Cynara exists as a rumor between zines. A one-off project—maybe a person, maybe a collective—rooted in the blurred margins of downtown NYC’s post-Kids hangover and the humid pre-dawn of dial-up poetry forums. Poetry in Motion isn’t an album. It’s a 47-minute VHS transfer of a live installation: spoken word submerged in dusty MPC loops, 16mm film burns, and the ghost of a sampled Coltrane sigh. No public records exist for a poet or

The first track, may syma 1, opens with the sound of a cassette being crushed into a deck. Then her voice—detached, tender, like rain on a payphone receiver. “May syma / isn’t a name / it’s a latitude you reach when the train forgets to stop.” Over a single, woozy bass note and the distant rhythm of a subway car, the words collapse into a field recording of pigeons taking flight from a fire escape. This is not lo-fi as aesthetic. It’s lo-fi as necessity—recorded on a borrowed four-track, the red light flickering like a candle in a brownout.

The “mtrjm” tag—often debated in obscure forums—might stand for motion through ruined jazz memory, or perhaps a misspelled homage to a forgotten Detroit radio station. Either way, the production feels suspended: chopped breaks that never quite drop, vinyl crackle that breathes like lungs, and a piano chord held so long it turns into weather.

Lyrically, Poetry in Motion moves between Rilkean ache and downtown diary entries: “You wore a Carhartt beanie in July / said it kept the visions from leaking out.” Cynara—a pseudonym borrowed from Ernest Dowson’s “non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae”—rewrites the fin-de-siècle longing for the世纪末 of the 20th century. Instead of absinthe, it’s 40s and Camel Lights. Instead of velvet, it’s thrifted denim and a single silver ring.

The closing piece, syma 1 (reprise), is just a heartbeat and a half-whispered address to someone named May: “I kept your note inside a copy of House of Leaves / now the margins are growing teeth.” Then static. Then a woman laughing two rooms away. Then silence. RIYL: Slint’s Spiderland if it were a mixtape

Why does this matter now? Because Poetry in Motion is the blueprint for a certain kind of 2020s revival that doesn’t know its own origin. Every sad girl with a SP-404 and a copy of Crime and Punishment in her tote bag is unknowingly chasing the ghost of fylm Cynara. But the original can’t be streamed. It can’t be reissued. It exists only as a third-generation dub, traded for a pack of American Spirits, watched once on a cracked laptop at 3 a.m., then passed on like a secret that was never yours to keep.

may syma 1 is not a song. It’s a season you almost lived through.

RIYL: Slint’s Spiderland if it were a mixtape left on a bus seat; early Lush dubbed to a worn tape; the smell of rain on asphalt just before sunrise.

Cue the first line again: “May syma… isn’t a name.”