ISSN 1758-6488
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Three poems Poetry |
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Golden Age
Glendale, 1925
A day's events provide the starting point.
When the crew runs out to catch a burning school
the script man looks at what they've got in cans:
He'll want those firemen for a reliable
jolt of Keystone anarchy. And use
the fat guy too, in close up, puffed cheeks pale
with shock. Then shots of kids (the current rage),
with dog--if they can drag him from the kennel.
It's hot. It's late September in L.A.
where anything can grow but nothing will
unless you pipe in water--and they do.
So everything, in the end, seems possible.
Beneath a thumping cast-iron ceiling fan
I see the script man sketching out the titles:
Uh-oh. . . after a glance at the hotfoot
flaring in the principal's shoe. The Rules
mimed by a cranky face behind pince-nez,
a bony shaking finger: Miss Quiggle,
or better yet, Miss Quibble. Then Freedom,
at last!--a close up on the gleaming bell
with its furious blur of arm (a standard trick,
the audience watching sound made visible),
students flooding the steps, then cut to a door
cracked open, a lit match--Young Criminals
as the boys skulk off, leaving a book in flames.
The crew's job is to bring back a newsreel:
the place ablaze--ladders, hoses and trucks
too much to fake, a backdrop of the real
that gives the plot its edginess. A sense
of danger--a safe danger--leavens all
the greatest scenes. The wall comes down, but not
on us. A slow burn only makes us smile.
If we fall from the ledge, we always bounce.
The classic films are seamless, yet I'm still
intrigued by what's behind their final cuts.
If we could see the crew there in a jumble
of soot-streaked skin, sweat, curses and blank stares,
what kind of movie would that be? Details
their lenses couldn't catch would stick with them:
a shriek, a whoosh of sudden flame, the smell
of burnt desks. When the comedy is done,
the crew is lost inside it. If they felt
sickened by the job when they returned,
dumping their equipment in the hall--
the tripods, reflectors and unwieldy screens,
all but the precious cameras--we can't tell.
