Like Blade
Runner
ABC Cinema Falkirk
Don’t look
for it now,
It’s long
gone –
Final
overpriced Westlers hotdog,
Final screen
oil blobs and bad music,
Final lights out,
Final Pearl
& Dean ads,
Final
trailer,
Final
feature,
Final lights
up.
But jump-cut
back to
September
1982
Me alone
Just 12
years old
About to
turn 13
In a week or
so
AA
certificate
No-one under
14 admitted
Easy illegal
wrangles
Bored staff shrugs
In under the
wire
To Cinema 1.
Went upstairs
and entered
Dark and booming
Ushers
cleaning the theatre
Never could
reach the years of mess
Accumulated
in the orchestra pit
You could
look and gob down into
Over the
brass railing
From the
former balcony
Dim echoes
of the
Grand
Theatre,
Dance hall
reels
Jigs and
jitterbug flings
Lent from a
previous extinct
Entertainment
incarnation
Of the
current cinema past.
Whispered
rumours of Charlie Chaplin
Strutting
his bandyleg stage stuff
Forever and
a day and night ago
A flickering
monochrome legend
Right there
in front of you in
Transient
three dimensions
For the lucky
remembering few.
But back there and then
I was in just
a wee bit too early
Film was
still on
Caught the
ending
Ruined it
for myself – damn it!
Roy Batty, replicant
(I later
learned)
Versus
Rick
Deckard, replicant hunter
Two
synthetic peas in a pod
Clash of the
noir titans
Future
techno-heaven intimations
Chases, broken
buildings,
Crossed
brain wires, madness words,
Vertiginous
escapes, borrowed human fears,
Self-crucifixion,
smoke and robot mirrors
Rain
pouring, nose dripping Deckard
Hanging above a terrifying
Splatty concrete
death storeys below.
Then forgiven
assassin redemption.
Batty hauling Deckard up
Back onto
the roof
Saving his grateful
life
And doing
his beautiful
Spacebound
poetry:
“Attack ships
on fire
Off the
shoulder of Orion, I
Watched C-beams
glitter
In the
darkness at Tannhauser Gate.”
He exhaled precious secrets
At the no-battery-charge
Forever end
of the
Never-alive
universe
Before his
truncated replicant spirit
Kicked off
forever
For the no-mystery
stars,
Time to die.
(And the
Slightly overdone
Flapping wet
wings crack
White dove
of inner peace
Taking off
just after the last word
Into the
ultimate switch-off void)
That was 40
years ago now
Back when
everybody I loved
And cared
about was still alive
Smiles glittering
in the darkness
Of brief match-lit
memory streets
Before
fading, waving goodbye
Off into measurable
infinity
A different
country and time
A different tale
and town
A different pre-pedestrianised
era
Ever more difficult
to walk to
Across a lengthening
Darkening internal
continent
Of dimming technicolour
memories
Lights up,
colours down
Escapist
spell broken, heart slowing
All these
moments will be lost in time
Like tears
in rain
And we all
know how much
It always pours down
In Scotland.
THE END
https://whorattledyourcage.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-man-behind-magic.html
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