Flicks – Pen Kease

Flicks

We never believed it, not really. All
that Technicolor. Searing purple pinks
of jacaranda splashed on whitewashed walls,
speedboats peeling foam through turquoise ink.

We sniffed in the dark with bundled coats, sighed
with sore knees, steaming slightly from the rain.
Didn’t want our own grubby Wedgewood skies,
oily grey streets, black-flied runner beans on sticks.

We yearned blues, greens – intense as actors’ eyes,
salacious as a lover’s kiss. We took it all home,
that Glorious Technicolor, every dream and lie.
And it kept us warm. On the bus. With chips.

…

Pen Kease used to be a secondary school teacher but now writes poems instead. Pen has a recent MA in Writing from the University of Warwick and her poems have been published in a range of literary magazines and websites, including The Interpreter’s House, The Recusant, Militant Thistles, and Prole Magazine. She lives in South Oxfordshire with husband and cat, and cares for a scattered family as best she can