Real Critics Don't Buy Tickets

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