THE CASTLE AMUSEMENTS

The large corrugated iron shed – flaking

whitewash almost turned to grey – has been closed

and empty now since the last recession.

Some say the arcades of slot machines remain,

cobwebbed, darkened and muted, until

that last trumpet in an eye’s twinkle

resurrects their glare and the ring of money.

Visitors to the Plantagenet castle

opposite – driving up the corkscrew lane

from the coastal road – note the peeling plywood

nailed to the windows, and the fading sign

above the padlocked double doors up the steps,

where, beneath AMUSEMENTS, is the vestige

of CINEMA. Imagine, between the Wars –

on a stuffy summer night, the doors wide

for what little air there might be – the castle keep,

far, far above the sea, filled with sounds

from the rich arcades of Tinsel Town:

Laurel and Hardy singing “In the Blue

Ridge mountains of Virginia on the trail of

the Lonesome Pine…” – or Selznick’s Gone With The Wind,

and Atlanta burning.