.
Write a poem that casts a fresh eye over a classic movie—any form, any length, any mood. This challenge comes from the lovely Susan Jarvis Bryant. Her example is below. Post your movie-inspired poem in the comments below.
.
Wafting in the Wind
“Quite frankly, my dear, I just don’t give a damn!”
He declaimed as the curtain came down
On her high-cotton life as a wife to this man—
She’d been crazy to cling to a clown.
He had sucked the bold breeze from her billowing sails.
Scarlett’s cheeks turned as red as her name.
As the keen buzzards pecked on love’s steaming entrails,
Vexation held Butler to blame.
He had picked on a vixen equipped with the kick
Of a mule fueled by scorn and raw hate.
She flicked her cute boot in a trick so dang quick
The Grim Reaper appeared at the gate.
Rhett wafts in the wind as it wails through the night
While O’Hara plays coquettish host
To her shadowy cad clad in wild wisps of white—
She has thrown her stone heart to a ghost.
.
.
Great Gone with the Wind poem, Susan! Challenge accepted. Here goes:
ONE VON TRAPP TOO MANY
Everything was fine before she came
With wimple, old guitar and hidden mike.
All smiles and pluck, she calls us each by name
And makes us warble tunes throughout the Reich.
She traumatized us first with “do-re-mi”
Then yawn and on about her favorite things.
And now we’re trapped like rats with tunes of twee
Compelled to harmonize if someone sings.
Why must I stay in line like a trained poodle?
Why must I keep my youthful interests hid?
Won’t someone somewhere tamper with her strudel
And let me simply be a normal kid?
Tonight she’s pushing us to sing again —
A puppet show this time – her worst idea.
Just watch me sneak away! Auf wiedersehen!
That’s how you solve a problem like Maria!
Thank God someone else finds “The Sound of Music” unbearable! It is the most saccharine piece of drivel to hit the silver screen. Christopher Plummer (who played Baron von Trapp) always referred to the film as “The Sound of Mucus.”
The Sound of Mucus! That’s a good one!
Wow Brian!! What a way to open this challenge! Beautifully written and hilarious to boot… the closing line is a riot after the magnificent build up to it. I’m with Joseph on the ‘Sound of Mucus’ front. This film has certainly had a fresh eye cast over it. I love it!
This is not only interestingly and to me, uniquely humorous, but the rhyme and meter have excellent flow and the imagery is phrased with eloquence and pizzaz. Really enjoyed your imaginative take. Well done!
The Treasure of The Sierra Madre
The scent of ore sails on the breeze
with tropic mist that hangs from trees.
There gather ghosts of tall tales told
of ancient mountains gowned in gold.
The paupers sit beneath the trees
and there inhale the luring breeze
then dreaming seek the scent of ore,
in mountains rich with mythic lore.
Through tropic jungles, dense and hot,
where terror lurks, where bandits plot,
where stinging insects’ songs stir fright
and tigers’ eyes glow in the night.
Ahead that pierce the tropic sky
rise snow-capped mountains, wild and high,
and when the rising sun shines down
the mountains wear a golden crown.
With awe the paupers view the sight
of haunted hills in golden light.
The luring scent is strong and sweet
for gold lies here beneath their feet.
One night cold clouds engulf the sky.
White lightning strikes and paupers die.
Still tropic trees host tall tales told
of groaning ghosts consumed by gold.
The scent of ore sails on the breeze,
with tropic mist that hangs from trees.
More paupers sit beneath the trees
and there inhale the luring breeze.
Gail, I have never heard of this film, but intend to look it up having read your atmospheric and enticing poem. Thank you!
Gail, This was my first choice of a movie to write about but I couldn’t find a satisfying way to rhyme the line:
“We don’t need no stinking badges!”
Hi Susan: Novel by B. Traven, screen script by John Huston (with my fav. Humphrey Bogart or “Boggie”. I like to combine the original literature with the movie for research. I believe, classic literature is at the root of classic movies, and therefore, I’m inspired to add classic poetry to the established classic arts combined in both classic literature and cinema. I hope you enjoy the movie, it is quite famous. Thank you for reading and commenting. G.
Gail, I’m with you on the classic literature being at the root of classic movies front. I read ‘Gone with the Wind’ when I was around 12, having been blown away (excuse the pun, hehe) by the movie. I love the narrative and dialogue in the older movies… nowadays movies rely heavily on visual appeal, but words always win for me. I am certainly going to seek out this film after reading your poem. Thank you!
Hi Susan: I loved reading ‘Gone with the Wind’ many years ago. The book ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ was very interesting, and discusses gold treasure hunting in much broader terms than the movie, that’s why some circumstances in the poem go beyond the movie, which is, BTW, still in black and white. It won 4 academy awards. I do hope you enjoy the movie. Blessings.
(Beware: spoilers)
The Magnificent Seven were brave
fighting thieves and a pitiless knave.
At the end of the day,
they fought for no pay
and four ended up in a grave.
Paul, I love ‘The Magnificent Seven’. I’m glad I’ve seen it having read your revealing limerick. ‘Beware: spoilers’ is hilarious. Great fun!
Paul: Amazing how you have the whole movie down in one excellent and descriptive limerick. Well done!
Three Movies
La Strada (1954)
Gelsomina hooks up with a bruiser
Whose plan is to use and abuse her.
She meets a nice clown
But he’s whacked in the crown
And the bruiser winds up as a loser.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Two good-looking chicks cross the ocean
In search of true love and devotion.
With their legs and tight blouses
They land perfect spouses
And enjoy an erotic explosion.
White Heat (1949)
The boss of a criminal gang
Has a mother who’s sharp as a fang.
She helps him plan stickups
And murders and pickups
But her son goes insane with a bang.
Joseph, having read your three marvelous limericks with their excellent end rhymes (bruiser/abuse her/loser; blouses/spouses… my favorites) I think all film reviews should be written in limerick form. I’m tired of trawling through tedium to find a film that suits my taste. You’ve sold all three of these to me… in a flash. Thank you!
Joseph: All great movies you picked, and your limericks do a great job of hitting the spice of all three. La Strada my favorite, Great job!
I’ve got a couple, both previously published in The Magic Lantern Review:
Villanelle on a line from The Outlaw Josey Wales
Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms.
His enemies have failed to come to terms
With landscapes where the air is seldom hazy
And buzzards need to eat, the same as worms.
Their lack of preparation just confirms
His old suspicions: All of them are crazy.
His enemies have failed to come to terms
With mortal wounds and pathogenic germs
That threaten both self-starters and the lazy.
The buzzards need to eat, the same as worms,
And hover when a gut-shot body squirms
Before it pushes up a proper daisy.
His enemies have failed to come to terms
With streaming blood that overflows the berms
Of mountain roads, precipitous and mazy.
The buzzards need to eat, the same as worms,
And mercies, like albino pachyderms,
He shuns. (In Road House so does Patrick Swayze.)
His enemies have failed to come to terms
With buzzards needing meat, the same as worms.
Thank Heaven for Little Girls
It’s been two weeks since I remembered that
I’m not a star. Maurice Chevalier,
Enshrined forever as the true old hat,
Was debonair, with such sweet things to say
That everybody’s mother once upon
A time was charmed by him. But back to me:
While heading down the one-wat Autobahn
Of life, attentiveness and urgency
Aren’t necessary, and they’re out of place,
For over time one learns to float and drift:
As teachers say, “This test is not a race.”
A second bite at failure is a gift
That no one can refuse, and if success
Occurs, it’s something any Anderson
Will take in stride and cotton to, unless
The benefits surpass all understanding.
I’ve long pretended to enact the role
Of some laconic self-sufficient human
Being averse to living on the dole,
A character such idols as Paul Newman
Or Gary Cooper might have played. The truth?
I’m good at dishing, not enduring, pain,
An actor more akin to John Wilkes Booth
And nothing like a latter-day John Wayne,
Who made the world a living hell for cattle
And outlaws in the Technicolor West
But never let a lady feel like chattel.
The girl who knows me best and knows what’s best
For me is unbelievably forgiving.
When I lose track of what I am, she’ll grin
And somehow find a way to keep me living
The scripts where bad guys stand a chance to win.
C.B., these two poems are magnificent! You’ve knocked my “Wafting in the Wind” into a cocked hat, and I’m still smiling – such is the wonder of your words. Great stuff!
Pussy Galore was a hell of a chick,
With her bust bursting out in that “Goldfinger” flic.
With bold Jimmy Bond and his gadgets galore,
All shaken and stirred how we sat there in awe.
With “Odd-Job’s” steel bowler stuck fast in the bars,
And mealy-mouthed mobsters crushed flat in their cars.
The gold-painted lady was every boy’s dream,
But the table-top laser made most of us scream,
And big German blokes getting sucked out of planes,
We went back and watched it again and again.
But as for his latest, I just had to cry,
At the “Woke” transformation in “No Time to Die”
Jeff, I love this! Your poem explodes on the page like a thunderball, with all the wonder and appeal of a fun Bond movie. I’m with you on the clever closing couplet. Bollox to woke!
This is hilarious, Jeff! You nail it. I’ve seen Goldfinger at least half a dozen times and it just gets better with age. The great thing about doing a Goldfinger parody is it recalls Austin Powers which, in turn, makes one realize that the James Bond films (at least the classic, canonical, unrepentantly unwoke, entertaining ones) are almost parody already.
Jeff, you summed up why James Bond can’t, alas, really make the transition to this “woke” age. I remember watching “Goldfinger” in my early teens, and having a huge crush on Shirley Eaton (the gold-painted girl.) Thanks for the nostalgia.
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water
Here comes a shark to provide us a summer beach slaughter.
Blood in the water is one way to get our attention;
Music composed by John Williams adds dramatic tension.
Scheider and Dreyfus and Shaw are the stars being followed;
One of them doomed by the script to be chewed up and swallowed.
The movie’s plot-line is built on a premise prepost’rous,
But, as a blockbuster drama, its profits were monstrous.
Spielberg taught us the ocean’s a place people die in.
Later, however, he went on to save Private Ryan.
Thank you for this, James. Jaws scared me witless as a kid… I was so horrified, I wouldn’t swim in the deep end of our local swimming pool for some months afterwards. Steven Spielberg made me fear sharks – that’s how good his film was. I’m proud to announce, I stroked a few awesome sharks last year at our local aquarium and can now see their appeal. Mike refused to touch them… I wonder if he’s seen Jaws?! 😉
This one’s for Sidney Poitier, God rest his soul:
“The laborer is worthy of his hire,”
Exasperated Homer Smith demands,
But Arizona nuns have hidden fire
When answered prayers send them hardy hands.
And so, an egg the sisters deem sufficient
To recompense the man and feed his brawn.
Poor Homer disagrees, but, beneficent,
He grudgingly accepts; the deal is on.
He starts to build their chapel. Once begun,
The parish, whether Homer likes or not,
Lends many hands, as stubborn as the nuns.
Before too long, a blessing has been wrought.
“Amen!” he slips away (for hearts are healed),
Considering the Lilies of the Field.
I’ve got this film lined up and ready to go on Amazon Prime… because of your poem, Jack, I’m pushing the “Play” button tonight. Thank you!
The Time Machine (1960) (1978) (2002)
Time for a Time Machine
If I could have a Time Machine as penned by H.G. Wells
I’d travel to a time back when the right to speak came free,
And masks were worn by highwaymen, or pirates on the sea,
Instead of on the faces of the likes of you and me!
And there, in some much saner time, where wokeness meant to rouse
And facebook on a printed page was just a spacing glitch,
I doubtless would hear twitters, musical and rich—
Not the electronic kind to socialise and bitch!
By railway car or steamer, I would travel where I chose,
Without the need to prove I’d had a jab required by State;
And if I caught a lung disease, the culprit would be fate,
Or taking in the bracing air on winter evenings late.
Respect, in such a time would be expected and admired,
For elders and the rule of law, without the need for fires
Burning institutions down to ashes, just for liars
To satisfy their warped ideals and socialist desires!
Please let me have a Time Machine with fancy knobs and dials!
I swear that I would use it for the betterment of Man,
By writing science fiction tales (part of a cunning plan)
Forewarning of a later time when evilness began.
David, I love your poem and its sentiment… I think many of us would love to travel back in time… we didn’t realise we had it so darn good. I love your closing stanza, but has anyone taken any notice of George Orwell? Has anyone taken any notice of their forefathers?… I fear we will continue to make the same catastrophic mistakes forever… what a pitiful pessimist I’ve become! Thank you for rising to the challenge… your timely and topical poem on this much-loved classic rocks!
Susan… don’t you remember George the guy next door? He was old man Orwell’s boy. He was telling me that he figured out the year that everything went south… then that house and George disappeared last year…
Thank you Susan. Your “Wafting in the Wind” was the perfect introduction to this challenge. Unfortunately, it does seem that we never learn, or have to relearn what we should have known from past mistakes.
The Invisible Man is a bloke
misanthropic who hates normal folk.
He’s not one who dithers
at rock, paper, scissors
and these days plays punch, kick and choke.
H.G. Wells is a popular choice. I’ve watched the latest take… WOW… very scary indeed!
If you wondered why so many UFOs are being sighted near California… maybe this is it.
A Texan translation of ET
ET Phones Home
Hey Mom, it’s me, ET.
I’m calling from LA!
Everything is free!
I think I’m here to stay.
Since we’re minorities,
We’re first in every line.
The mad authorities
Just want your vote and mine.
So don’t y’all worry none.
There’s room for you and Pop.
Just head towards the sun,
The blue rock, that’s your stop.
Now, ring up all your friends.
It’s time to make the switch.
Here’s where our trouble ends.
We’re gonna ALL be rich!
Absolutely spot on, Mr. Bryant! Earth would look so much more attractive to ET these days.
This, Mike, was quite funny on several counts.
This, Mike, might be the funniest poem of yours I have read to date, and I suspect that this is not the last time I’ll say that.
Three More Movies
The Naked Jungle (1954)
A guy tries a mail-order wife
But only gets trouble and strife.
The jungle is scary
And things get quite hairy
When an army of ants comes to life.
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
A Dutchman is sailing the seas
In search of salvation, and he’s
Met by Pandora
And learns to adore her
And they’re caught in a Liebestod-ish freeze.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
A man wants a dukedom (the swine!)
But as heir, he is just Number Nine.
So he kills eight relations
By bizarre machinations
In order to shorten the line.
‘The Naked Jungle’ sounds like my type of film. It screams for popcorn! What could possibly go wrong with a hairy encounter with ants?!
I saw the movie in 1954 when it came out. I was just a kid, and it scared the living daylights out of me. Savagery, shrunken heads, people eaten alive by rampaging soldier ants… Whenever I see it as a rerun on TV, I’m still petrified. It’s one of Charlton Heston’s best roles, and Eleanor Parker is drop-dead gorgeous as his mail-order wife.
Remember the guy in the film who had one job – and fell asleep?
Apparently the ants were not showing much interest in Charlton Heston (making it visually boring), so they smeared honey on him to attract them.
There was another guy (the evil red-haired Gruber) who also fell asleep in his canoe after getting drunk. When Heston and the Commissioner found him, they lifted up his hat, and all that you saw was a skull with red hair. He had been totally devoured by the ants. That shot is encaustically fixated into my memory.
Oh, yes, I remember the red-haired Gruber scene.
The scene that always got me though was the guy who was meant to turn a handwheel and flood some fields, but fell asleep (at the wheel, ha, ha!) and woke up getting swarmed.
A skull with ginger locks beneath a hat after the ants had feasted on their Gruber banquet! Nasty!… I think I’ll pass on the popcorn. Mind you, those ants are smarter than cats… they’ll never suffer with hairballs.
These were all so delightfully clever and entertaining. Thank you.
Norma, have a go! I would love to read one of your poetic takes on a classic movie… I know it will be good. I’ve thrown down the gauntlet. 🙂
Thank you Susan for your vote of confidence. I hate the expression ‘my muse has left me’, but lately, it seems to be so. Too much time spent stressing over losing our freedoms perhaps. Like you and many others, I am so worried about the possible long-term effects of these vaccines on our children and youth, not to mention the plans to poison babies eventually. All vaccines cause harm to varying degrees but this fact is well-hidden from the average person.
Your poetry and that of so many others, is amazing and keeps me busy reading and entertained. Thank you again.
Norma, we are living in very tough times. I often feel helpless. I want to do so much to bring the truth to light in a world crammed with propaganda. I know it’s highly unlikely that I’ll make a huge difference where these evils are concerned… but, I’m going to continue to be a thorn in the sides of those supporting this madness…. by telling the truth – the immutable, proven truth. It’s getting out there bit by bit, mainly via trucks at the moment. I have hope.
This is a lovely chortle inducing piece. It sent my mind back to the famous ‘Singing Nun,’ a parody of which appeared in one of those gloriously unwoke “Airplane” movies. I love poodle with strudel by the way, a great rhyme.
The Little Girl
Was a bad seed
Stealing a medal from her classmate
She decided it had to belong to her
And drowned the boy and hid the medal
She was wearing her pretty dresses
And pretty smile
Hidden inside her brain her plots to kill she sealed
As she skillfully hid her bad deeds
And offered her parents basketful of kisses
Fooling them and everyone else
The mother whose child she murdered
Knew the little girl was bad
And so did the gardener
She ended his life by putting fire to the barn
She ended badly herself as she reaped what she sows
Plotting away she ended up in the bay
And if all the evil was in her DNA
It all stayed with her
Amen
From the film
The Bad Seed
By Norma Okun
Thank you, Norma. I’ve just looked this film up online… it just goes to show how deceptive looks can be. What a dreadful child. It’s a film that’s popular with the audience… I think I might give it a go… after I’ve watched those ants through my fingers with pursed lips and no popcorn.
Thank you, Susan. I am intrigued with Henry James books about children. I love What Maizie Knew. She is so beautiful, unlike this little girl and the ones that he describes in The Turn of the Screw.
“12 angry men”
Look my Lord, what fools these mortals be!
They don’t know as jurors who summoned them?
They talk about a crime supposed to be
committed by a boy living in slum.
In a locked room under the blazing sun,
his crime’s about to be proved in debate.
But, do they not know if they judge someone,
they too will be judged at some future date?
“What is truth?”retorted jesting Pilate
when Jesus our Lord was accused in court.
Could anyone give an answer so clear-cut?
If so, what his sentence would be, in short?
When one god-fearing man stood up
and pointed out witnesses were mixed-up,
then he saved not only innocent soul,
but heaped on the jurors’ heads burning coal.
This is one of my favorite films, Toshiji. It’s great to see it in poetry form on this page. Thank you.
Susan, thank you for your comment.
I also like its satirical adaptation “The Gentle Twelve” produced by Koki Mitani (both in movie and theatrical play). Unfortunately no English title is available, you can watch the theatrical version on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jErMFYG3eGM
With Falling Tights and Baby Swine,
Two Hours of Laughs art Surely Thine
When Bad Someone usurped the throne
Of England, claiming it his own,
There lived too a fake Robin Hood,
Not good with bow, nonetheless good—
An anti–hero named Will Hawkins
(Saner and merrier than Dawkins)
Who found a job, on hope’s fair wing,
As jester to this cruel king.
From that point on the laughs don’t stop,
As Danny Kaye heads up a crop
Of players tearing through cliches
Of jolly England’s storied days.
And all is put to right at last,
With kisses on the true king’s ass.
Verdi Should Have Known
A Night at the Opera sends up the genre
With silliest slapstick and double–entendre.
The Marx Brothers’ victim was Il Trovatore.
They made of that warhorse a really sad story.
“Miserere,” indeed! Those terrific clowns served
Up what one critic claimed Il Trov truly deserved.
Recycled Dust
That Red Dust was a hit;
The fans were Gable–bit.
The crowds all loved that show;
Producers loved the dough—
So much so that, applying crafty wit,
They recycled him, and it, in Mogambo.
Great stuff! Thank you very much for rising to the challenge, Julian. This page is now my go-to place for looking up the next film to watch. I have spent hours scouring film sites to much disappointment.
Jurassic Park Limerick
An old dude brought dinosaurs back,
but some learned to hunt in a pack.
The villain got nailed,
the heroes prevailed
and most of the sequels were cack.
So very, very true – said with poetic panache!
I agree… you have encapsulated the movie….
Titanic: From the View of the Ship
They will say I wanted salt air,
Cross-Atlantic and with a high fare,
What no one announced,
Was that one single ounce,
Of water made this ship damn scared!
The high, lofty nobles came first,
Oaken trunks that would be their hursts,
The deckhands relieved,
Luggage of filigree,
Not knowing it would have no worth,
Steam billowed as anchor was weighed,
Onto the platform passengers strayed,
Young Jack jumping on,
With a ticket he won,
Pretending to be the first mate,
Young ingenue soon to meet prince,
For now, a pauper distanced,
Some new money clothes,
His reputation sure, rose,
Two scenes away from a rinse,
The tempest began then to swirl,
As she stripped down to her fine pearl,
A steamy sex scene,
Made all the girls dream,
“Jack, paint me like one of your girls!”
The iceberg was far too late spied,
By crewmen that clearly were pied,
Had they not been so drunk,
They might not have sunk,
All imbibing still as they died,
With lifeboats for only a few,
Fiancé lost Rose as he spew,
The cad was de-spoused
With passengers doused,
There was nothing more they could do…
“Jack, I’m flying!” left far behind,
As they ran the race against time,
One hand to hold,
Until it went cold,
And this ship has finished its rhyme.
Allison, what a unique take on ‘Titanic’ – you’ve most certainly cast a fresh eye over it… thank you very much! I took my son to see this film in Leicester Square in London when it first premiered. The cinema had a piano player there to set the mood and my young son was thoroughly impressed… more with Kate Winslet than the Titanic, I think. Thank you for this.
Beauty it is thou dost create
With steady lens and mellow heart
My senses they, are left agape
In the presence oft thine art.
The fluid lines, the light so soft
With music mingle to form a whole
My soul revels, is lifted loft
I cry to others “this art, behold”.
The lines of either breast or face
Head or toe where erst thou start
The shallow shadows fall in place
On the world you leave your mark.
All of this transpires and yet
Who could prompt such a poem?
Romeo and Juliet
Photography in best of form.
Phil, this poem is beautiful… you capture the wonder of bringing words to the screen. There have been many fine portrayals of Romeo and Juliet, but when you have the lighting, the camera angles and the genius of a fine director… the big screen will add to the fans of the Bard… and that’s a good thing in my book. Thank you very much for this gem of a poem.
Thank you, I wrote that many moons ago after seeing the movie shortly after it was released.
A Tribute To Animal House
I crawled across the frat house floor
as drunk as I could be,
and I thought I saw a cockroach
Just staring down at me.
The restroom it was there I knew,
I could not find the door.
I scratched and clawed the paneled walls,
some help I did implore.
When at length I reached the restroom,
I heard a rocking band.
The door swung abruptly open,
some girl stepped on my hand.
I was getting really dizzy,
the room began to swirl,
my roommate poured draft beer on me,
I felt like I would hurl.
I crawled up to the toilet bowl,
but could not raise my head.
I saw my girlfriend on the floor,
I thought that she was dead.
Alive was she, but smelling bad
looking slightly tarty,
but all in all I have to say,
it was a damn fine party!
Huge fun… I love it! I’ve not seen “Animal House”, but now, it’s on my list. Thank you!
“I met Death today. We are playing chess.”
~ Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal
In the darkened, box-shaped room
the Swedish film cast loops of light.
A knight, his windswept hair pure white
played chess upon this Day of Doom,
while meeting Death– magnesium
faced. My startled students blinked
at this figure, bored and numb
by epidemics that they linked
to barking throats and missed alarms.
I watched them as they each consumed
the mad girl caught and soldiers harmed,
soon burned for sinful sex presumed
with impish devils, as the knight
climbed the kindling — in her deep
and devilish eye could God or light
be found?– but nothing, as in sleep,
an “O” of terror, as I gazed
into the students’ eyes that cast
back nothing, while my own eyes glazed,
like Bergman’s dreaded atom blast.
Royal, I’m sold with this atmospheric, sensual poem that has me scouring the streaming platforms for this intriguing film. The imagery in your poem is as stunningly beautiful as the leading lady… I must see it!
I wanted to get away from the news and the war as I have written
A few poems/ doggerel, I can’t really submit. So I wrote this instead
And then noticed the similarities. Some things you just can’t get
Away from, however hard you try.
Anyway apologies for my doggerel
The Godfather
Michael my boy, listen, it all
Depends on you now, no don’t
Sit down, stand tall, you can
Make this family proud, for
They’ll all try to take you down.
Remember, they’ll try to kill you
Anyway, whether you are in or out.
I know you care about the family.
It’s no good pretending you’ll run
You are not a coward and too
Honourable for that. Besides you are
My son, I know you’re the only man
Who can stand his ground. What’s
More where will you go, you who can’t
Forget what happened long ago.
Your destiny, whether you like it or not,
Has been chosen for you; Michael you are
A Corleone to the bone. Promise me son that
You will take the crown, but remember this
Is a matter of life and death and those who
Don’t want to be the first to do the necessary
Deed are always the ones that end up dead.
Mia, poems on favorite films are much better for you. The Godfather is a powerhouse of a film… thank you for your contribution.
Tamara, this is one of my favorite films and your poem has captured the depths of despair rippling under the surface of the dark humor… thank you. After watching this, I never wanted to hold a dinner party or swing from the chandelier again! 😉
Thanks, Susan for commenting. Yes, it was one of my favorites, as well.
I had asked Evan to remove the poem, because it was free verse, but he hasn’t yet responded.
Susan, I couldn’t find the reply button to your Gone With the Wind poem, but wanted to tell you it was spot on.
You have a special talent for poetry and it is evident in all of your poems. 🙂