And a poem in the trad. way - Cinematic Stars

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.