love me...love me not
pretty petals in the wind remind me of Valentine’s day soon. back stage, a theatre dressing room sparks off this poem...
In the dressing room of the Swansea Grand we find…
Miss Cora Goffin glued to a fan
well you got to have a gimmick.
‘No you got to have a pair of shiny tights that are not full of holes’
She cries, then the Stagehand yelps,
‘Beginners on stage.’
She growls,
‘You think this is easy…this putting on of slap;
this cramming of heels…into last years shoes?’
She gestures like a grand dame:
‘It’s laddered again. It was laddered before.
The heel on my nylons is gone, gone, gone.’
The crowds on the Prom watch the tide come in
like Swansea is the South of France.
Last weekday matinee of the season and the fan has waited
this long to say, ‘You are my idol,
you melt under spotlight Miss Goffin and I melt when you melt.’
She replies, ‘Have you seen the conditions I put up with here?
Frost on the radiators.
They’re calling me.
But – Tights?
No - you don’t.
But I do – want a cigarette
I have a great set of legs don’t I?’
Pausing for breath the fan pipes up,
‘You are dressed as a boy Miss Goffin.’
‘The theatre world is for misfits or losers,
for the rest of my life
I’m going to be a good wife and live.
Happily ever after,
tonight I retire.
You love long hours and Stars caught
on the exit of their careers;
Not the reality of stage door rats, razor blade fights
and the bitch slaps for juicy parts
that ended last night in my pair of wrecked tights.’
My Blog
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
