- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Real Critics Don't Buy Tickets
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On sticky floors the rip of soles yet haunts
the still twilight behind these curtained walls.
No windows light discarded cups and popcorn bags.
nor one forgotten glove. Deserted rows, now show
as tawdry rags of glitzy silk, worn thin beneath blue
denim jeans, designed by skinny men in purple underwear.
I feel the faded splendor of an Oscar-studded walk
down plastic imitation of a crimson carpet path
toward a black paint replica of dark in the matinee
of noon; struck hollow from bell-tower clocks.
This marquis blinks tired shades of ghosts in madness blown
like gum stick cellophane through boardwalk cracks,
the dusty streets of Dodge or washed off a Gotham
avenue, mere sewage down a grate. Old movies never die.
The ratchet of a finished reel clucks urgent taps
to an acne-blotched projectionist, a pimply youth
who sucks free soda through a plastic straw.
Melted flashes of a burning film flickers on this screen
to yet another absent audience. On every aisle an empty seat
is saved for Siskel's shade. If the critic's ushered in,
I'll pretend to wait for his thumb's up or down,
but here, outside of Hollywood, no one really cares.
U40
- COMMENTS
Angelineabout 15 years agoand it occurs to me that somewhere in the last few years you've really moved to another, higher level of writing and this poem is a good example of it, imo. You got so many things going on: it's a description of an old theater, it's a statement on the fleeting nature of time, of Hollywood and fame, it's an evocation of another time, it's an image-fest that throws many, many different and evocative sensations at the reader. And yet you balance it all equally well and manage to do it at the same time you're maintaining a form. Do you realize how good that is? I've watched how hard you've worked at writing over the years, the practice and the discipline, the careful thought. It's really paying off. Somebody needs to give you a publishing contract, missy. :-)
UnderYourSpellabout 15 years agoA wonderful read and a great addition to the Survivor poems well done
WickedEveabout 15 years agoLove the part about an empty seat being saved for Siskel. I was a Siskel fan. I didn't entirely connect with the first two stanzas. I read them several times and they bounced off of me. But the third stanza is a different story. It could stand alone as a marvelous poem.
