Industrial Cleaning Products and Chemicals, Graffiti Removal - Chela, UK

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At the Pictures

I’d not been to the pictures for many years,
ten, fifteen, twenty, I just don’t know,
nor can I remember all that I saw.
I do remember Saturday minor’s club,
with flickering black and white
Flash Gordon, Hopalong Cassidy,
The Lone Ranger.

We queued, excited young children
clutching sixpence for admission,
a few pennies for Kiora drink cheap sweets,
before tumbling in to the vast auditorium.

Sometimes an organ rose
on a swell of jolly music
as a small ball of light
bounced from word to word
of the song projected
on to the giant silver screen.

We roared, when the film broke,
projector jammed or perhaps at the delay
as one reel finished and another began.
Claps, boos and then cheers
as the jiggering image and hollow sound
took us back in to our fantasy land.

I remember all this as I sit with
popcorn drink and straw, waiting
for the film to begin.

Now the Art Deco building is gone,
there’s a bloody Tescos in its place.

I watch slick, grand adverts for perfume
trailers for films yet to come
and, as in the Savoy,
fuzzy, dull slides of local emporia,
in an old scratched analogue film.
Bold notices appear on the screen
Do not smoke, do not litter or cause a nuisance.
No phones, no pagers

My popcorn’s half gone
as I settle to watch
the fabulous digital image
and listen to Dolby sound,
become one with what I see,
as all around me disappear.

It’s over and tears run down my face
as we rush away when the credits run,
a long list of names no one reads.
I’ll never know who the grip or gaffer were
but I’ll remember going to the pictures in Dubai.

© Anthony Fisher June 2000

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