Cinema Poem
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 11:05 pm
We’d go to the cinema in the afternoons
Then for coffee later.
She’d studied film for four years
And when discussing it afterward
She sounded like a police mortician
Diagnosing the cause of death,
The more lavish and Hollywood the affair
The more bloated the corpse,
“Exposition, complication, climax”
She'd say and draw a curved line on a napkin
Depicting the three stages of composition.
One day she said,
“Only life can teach us how things explode”
And it was true I thought-
Most men drop dead
In the middle of their story or
Have nothing resembling a story at all.
When she finally left
I carried on visiting the cinema in the afternoon
I sat so long in the dark
That my senses grew confused
The most simple story perplexed me
I found myself laughing at death scenes
And weeping at the jokes.
Even years later the random sight
Of falling buildings and planes
Had similar effect,
Now nothing made sense at all
No matter how well explained and
Beautiful the arc.
Then for coffee later.
She’d studied film for four years
And when discussing it afterward
She sounded like a police mortician
Diagnosing the cause of death,
The more lavish and Hollywood the affair
The more bloated the corpse,
“Exposition, complication, climax”
She'd say and draw a curved line on a napkin
Depicting the three stages of composition.
One day she said,
“Only life can teach us how things explode”
And it was true I thought-
Most men drop dead
In the middle of their story or
Have nothing resembling a story at all.
When she finally left
I carried on visiting the cinema in the afternoon
I sat so long in the dark
That my senses grew confused
The most simple story perplexed me
I found myself laughing at death scenes
And weeping at the jokes.
Even years later the random sight
Of falling buildings and planes
Had similar effect,
Now nothing made sense at all
No matter how well explained and
Beautiful the arc.