MARLON BRANDO STANZA FROM WAITING FOR THE PERFECT WAVE

Marlon Brando, so the story goes, spent weeks on a beach waiting to shoot the perfect wave for the one and only film he directed called "One Eyed Jacks".  He squandered so much studio money that he did not direct again.  Perfectionism or obsession?  Perhaps both.

One-Eyed Jacks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brando

A broken Brando cursed to

Stay in an anonymous one eyed Studio Apartment 

Delay, decay, I see no blinded Cylopes here,

He no Greek Hero he an Italian

Stallion or so I hear,

Beware no horses head,

May end up in Don Brando's bed.

Telescoped and cinema-scoped and

All at sea.

"Get out!"

Exclaims the big man exhaling old World curses and cigar breath threats.

"You'll never work in this town Again, For so freely taking liberties."

Time,

Who will prevail with interest,

To those who dare waste her providence,

To those who procrastinate behind Locked doors like a dirty

Family secret,

Fifteen minutes of flame like Cronus,

Bloated on your throne of faded Glory,

A fatter cheque for fathering

A superman,
Is in the post.

Catullus or is it Welles that sends You this telegram, "Brando dear Buddy,

Hail and, Farewell!"

Stephen Evans 2014

Long Distance II

A poem that does to me what "It's a Wonderful Life" does through cinema.  like the Rilke poem I included recently, the final two lines guarantees to bring some "tears idle tears" to my eyes "unused to flow". 

Yorkshire born Tony Harrison's poem written in the 1960s captures perfectly the constant battle between love and  logic.  Many people take a rational view that there is no life after death but still would wish there to be something beyond this life, and with it, the reuniting of loved-ones.  Literature can grant a form of immortality as Harrison does for his beloved mum and  dad, in the same way Ben Jonson's son, who died aged seven, will, through verse, in the poem, "On My First Sonne" live forever.

I think it captures perfectly the nature of people, especially men to share their emotions and the age-old frictions between fathers and their sons.  

Long Distance II

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time 
to clear away her things and look alone 
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name 
and the disconnected number I still call.