The Mad Poet of the Year blog posts share the poetry of a long-time Mad Poet. This year-long appointment provides readers with a deep dive of the writer’s work and thoughts on poetry. We are thrilled to have Ray Greenblatt serve as the inaugural Mad Poet of the Year for 2021.
DREAMING IN THE MOVIES
by Ray Greenblatt
(camera eye slowly opens)
Benny & Claire honeymooned
in Maine. In their big
Auburn—bright red, of course—
they drove right through
George & Marian Kirby’s ghost car.
City-bred they shivered all night
in each other’s arms at
the baying of a hound.
Morning the surf brilliant,
Claire bought a small balsam pillow
whose scent is still with us
a hundred years later.
“My Funny Valentine/sweet comic valentine/you make me smile with my heart/your looks are laughable/unphotographable/yet you’re my favorite work of
art” (Rogers & Hart, 1937)
Stopping for a nightcap
in their dentist friend’s
--a bridge pro and
jazz aficionado—
new Art Deco apartment
high up in the Philly clouds
(camera: scene grainy, sepia)
in the living room
the hot ruby glow and
pungent reefer smell
was circling a giggling room.
When lights came back on
among the clique was Bing in
bowtie and two-toned saddle shoes.
“You Go To My Head/like a sip of sparkling burgundy brew/and I find the very mention of you/like the kicker in a julep or two” (Coot-Gillespie, 1938)
Benny & Claire drove west on the Pike
to the Big Band Ballroom
where in a sea of tuxedos
they danced while in the
mirrored ceiling Fred & Ginger
aped their every step
(camera: angled shots, slow-motion
& speeded up).
At intermission
Benny jingled the piano
and Claire did the Lindy
quivering and shimmering
in her knife-pleated skirt
till sun rested on the roof.
“A tinkling piano in the next apartment/those stumbling words that told you what my heart meant/a fairground’s painted swings/These Foolish Things remind me of you” (Marvell-Strachey-Link, 1936)
At a birthday party for a cop
Nick & Nora Charles were there
he once a cop who knew gangsters.
(camera: quick cuts and close-ups)
A pile of guns in holsters
on the hall table.
Clusters of liquor and beer bottles
on dining room table.
Benny’s worried face. Claire querulous.
“Hon, let’s get out of here!” “But why?”
“Let’s just go!” “Oh, okay . . .”
Early morning headlines: Deadly police
shooting on Rosewood Street.
(camera dissolve)
Benny & Claire lived till 1990 when at age 90 they passed over hand-in-hand.
They were my parents.
(fade & finis)
Since this is my final contribution as Mad Poet of the Year—a great pleasure and honor—I want to highlight my parents whom I loved dearly. My father was a jazz pianist and my mother loved to dance. Music, popular as well as classical, surrounded our family. This poem touches on real moments in their life, using strains of music special to them. Much like a past poem “What Is French,” this poem is written in fun, as a dream sequence in a movie.
Ray Greenblatt has been a poet for forty years and an English teacher longer than that. He was an editor of General Eclectic, a board member of the Philadelphia Writers Conference, and is presently on the staff of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. He has won the Full Moon Poetry Contest, the Mad Poets Annual Contest, and twice won the Anthony Byrne Annual Contest for Irish Poetry sponsored by The Irish Edition. His poetry has been translated into Gaelic, Polish, Greek and Japanese.