for Gift 3: Cinema — Edinburgh Filmhouse
The Charge of the Movie Brigade
Look! From the Gods to the upper circle
Virtual reality has crossed the line
Riders whose horses thundered over Europe
Pour from the painted screen
All the dead soldiers, putting the spur to their mounts
Re-enacting, over and over, battles, bombing, bloodshed
The audience has caught fire,
A banker down in the stalls, battered by rifle butts
Bleeds into his popcorn, his right eye blown
Deafened by gunfire, women cower in the aisles
A tiny bassoonist down in the orchestra pit
Is squashed by a cannon wheel
Careering by, stage left
It’ll all be showing twice nightly with weekly matinees
Only the characters change, the plot and the war’s location
No one bows to the audience after a war
Steps forward and confesses to muffing the lines
That might have averted it all
The tragedy is, that no-one faces the music.
© Sheena Blackhall 2012
© Sheena Blackhall 2012
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