Tuesday poem: 'When the lights go down'

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I’d like to say that I’ve been doing lots of poetry writing instead, but that’d be a lie. I have been writing a little, but I’ve been thinking a lot.

Anyway, what has dragged me out of temporary blog retirement is Mary McCallum’s new Tuesday Poem thing – movement perhaps, or maybe I’m being a little optimistic.

Basically, Mary has started posting a poem on Tuesdays – one of her own or one of someone else’s, and has invited other poetry/writing bloggers to join her. Other Tuesday poemers are: Tim Jones, the Paradoxical Cat, Harvey Molloy and possibly Fifi Colston.

To begin with, I’m posting one of my own, but most likely I’ll be more often posting out-of-copyright poems by other people.

Anyway, so this Tuesday’s poem is one of my cinema poems. It has previously been published in Sport 37.


When the lights go down


One

I can’t be sure, but I think
it was my first time

in the dark, while the white snow beasts yowled
my mother at my side

Possibly I fell asleep

It was for my brothers really
I think my mother wore her white coat


Two

It seemed unlikely that it was my first day of school
but this was later confirmed by reliable sources

There were lions and elephants
and someone rolled jaffas down the aisle

I guess it must have been educational


Three

My first time alone, I was already twenty-two
I went in the afternoon

It was disappointing –
a lust-piece for the beauty of youth and Tuscany

very nearly put me off Jeremy Irons forever


Four

The longest was a three-at-once
or rather, one after the other

Water, Snow, Blood
My intermission burger was mundane

When I came out, it was raining
and already twilight