Cinematic Stars
1: Post-Moderist Cinematic Sonnet
I was sitting in an old leather seat,
the kind
that bucked if you stood, in the
Russell Street
Forum Theatre - above, the cinema's
deep blue
and false-star night sky glowed above
the fake columns
and empty gargoyles of a paper mache
castle, a sky
from an older time of Hop-along Cassidy
and Roy Rogers,
later the Forum would become a drum
banging,
drunk gathering, bring-'em-all-in!
Revival Centre:
Two fake heavens cradling the
desperation
of lost souls - looking at the
technicolour widescreen
that had seductively appeared after the
red curtains
had been drawn up on a winch that
sounded like
a well-knowing sigh; the film was
rolling but my eyes,
though staring straight ahead, took
little in.
2: Lustful Free Verse Idylls
My hand lay on the thigh
of a girl I hardly knew, had met
her that sunny day
on the lazy train in to the city.
My hand, spread itself and clamped
down;
a crown of thorns submerged
in a pool of water as deep
as the luminous sky above me.
The heat between us
burned away the last vestiges
of childhood.
Behind us I could hear kisses -
exchanged like the distance bells of
bicycles
ringing in the end to the school year.
Out of the corner of my right eye
I was aware that a girl's blouse
was being undone; turned my head
for a moment to catch a glimpse
of a white bra and skin, not as white,
beneath.
Later, I heard the sounds
and knew someone had crossed over
and still
my hand lay in the pool, unmoved.
3: blank Blank Verse
Though childhood was deflating
it had yet to be replaced -
the uncomfortably cramped space
in my jeans
seemed to be yelling
it would soon be.
As the film ended, and clothes were
adjusted,
and the lights burst the secrets
and sent us all back to adolescence,
I looked at my hand on her blue jean
thigh
and saw across the divide of her hidden
zip
someone else's hand that also, had not
moved.
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