Biographies & Let’s Go Out To A Movie Show by Ron Tobey
biographies
two red squirrels in Audrey field livestock tank
climb in for water in hot weather / can’t climb out / drown
first MLK then Bobby / for them I walk city ghettos and pothole streets
grow a beard in grief / start writing / believe words change the world
do they / maybe not / anyway I can’t stop / history fucks you
let’s go out to a movie show
let’s go out to a movie show
to see a film no one recommends
we would sit in the theater’s last row
and for our little tiff make amends
our love renew in the flickering dark
the audience with their backs to us
while watching the screen
do you remember your teens
I’d whisper to you
do you dare
to place my hand on your thigh bare
during explosive and loud scenes
you moan when I touch there
recall that evening behind the concession booth
when you lifted your Bob Marley shirt
and pushed my mouth to your breasts
and said catching your breath
give me a going-steady ring
to drape on a gold chain around my neck
I’ll take nothing less
do you know that name of that boring film
we didn’t watch
while singing the lyrics of love’s hymn
“Regarding ‘Let’s go out to a movie show’, I thought for a while about writing erotic poetry, and tried, but after widening my reading in erotic poetry, especially in the adult section of All Poetry, I realized that women write better erotic poetry and stories than I could and ever would. So, I just abandoned the piece. Re-reading, I think that was the right decision, as the poem is so teen boy POV that it never gets exciting.
‘Biographies’ has too much self-pity in it. I think that good poetry rises above self-pity. Again, it’s a youth’s poetry, not mature. Is there anything of worth in it? Maybe, if you were an activist once.”
Ron Tobey grew up in north New Hampshire, USA, and attended the University of New Hampshire, Durham. He and his wife live and farm in West Virginia. He is an imagist poet, expressing experiences and moods in concrete descriptions in haiku, lyrical poetry storytelling, recorded poetry, and in filmic interpretation. Ron is active on Twitter, where announces publications, discusses projects, posts personal notes and photographs, and converses with other poets and writers. Handle @Turin54024117