Director’s Cut

Though I am too much of a man's man to share this with the crew
I weep inwardly at the end of every shoot
Each hot lamp extinguished on the set snuffs something out in me
Like all the hopes I have assembled being snapped into a set of cold friezes

My proscenium arch formed of inspired chance, guesses, collisions of people, various ephemera, a framework of contention, pure skill and artistry
A dream world that I created
More real than reality
Disintegrated
And I have to hold on tight in my teeth, heart and feet
So that the drama which unfolded here
The polemic, the tears, the nostalgia and fears
All held together by a human spin of light
Does not become finite

A sparks walks by killing my lights
One by one
No feeling in his sulphurous hands
Putting on the house lights
God damn him
Oblivious to the destruction of my unity
Of time, place and space
Bare daylight walls appearing everywhere
Exit signs, rusty rafters, stairs.

But wait

His dirty hands consciously seek a wavelength on a radio
And a beautiful aria fills the air

Now the only sense in my welling breast
Is a remberance of future feelings melding with those that have passed
As my film comrades, fellow artists and artisans
Wrap and strike the set
Moving in time, in ebb and flow,
To the charm of the Soprano.
I feel rhythms of thought beyond computation
Harmony expressed in our devout silence

There is so much that is simply embraced
Rather than understood in the aura about us
And who will deny my truth that when I leave this earthly stage
My epiphanies will live on in these tableau moments of pure emotion?
Resounding in resurrections from age to age
Evanescent glimpses of the inextinguishable light beyond death.


Composed in the Smurfit Print Works, Glasnevin (Baile Átha Cliath) in August 2008 as filming for my 1968 documentary series for RTÉ came to an end.

 

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