Cinema
In the low budget indie comedy
of my experience,
I am always on the road
between destinations of heartbreak
or stranded on lonely trains
in the windblown junctions
of elsewhere towns, with their shepherds
and forests and hooch.
My gunmen are bewigged fools,
coming clumsily through the door
of the cold Chinese restaurant
where I eat cheaply after work
or I speak in imagined German
in the back tents of circuses.
The trapeze artist is mournful and abrupt,
the dead clown is my epitaph.
………………………My iconic car chase
is a taxi ride in a foreign city,
with you, one bright afternoon,
waiting in the tailback from the cross city train.
The light and suddenness of it all
is preserved in high glimmer
when I close my eyes, the chrome and dust
of that foreign highway,
and when we slipped across the rails
and you reached for my hand,
you pulled me into a moment of grandeur
hitherto unknown. I always see us here.
Daniel Bennett was born in Shropshire and lives and works in London. His poems have been published in numerous places, and his first collection West South North, North South East is due out this summer. He’s also the author of the novel, All The Dogs.
atriumpoetry.com 