Turn on again, that old, once new film of your life - <br />it's called the 'establishing shot'; and as it pans <br />across your once-favourite city, corny in the sunshine, <br />arty in the dusk and rain, the home to all your dreams, <br />the music slides in, takes the reins, the heartstrings of recall... <br /> <br />New York: for some of certain age, the needle hiss <br />before the recording studio draws in, lung-deep <br />the low lights, the clink of glasses, murmur, <br />- the film's in blackandwhite, the evening suits, the faces too - <br />as the silky rhythm, the syncopated beat <br />tells the old old story of a love that's sour or sweet.. <br /> <br />Pacific Coast: a background seethe of waves; <br />the studio's Zen-silent; reminiscent saxophone, <br />a dreaming horn, a rhythm barely sketched; <br />is it the silence that draws out the sounds, <br />or sounds (as in the haunting - plink - of Japan's films) <br />that serve to paint the silence? ... <br /> <br />Paris: rooftops in the rain; and yes, its blackandwhite again: <br />accordeon plays first, a cardboard lung <br />wheezing out a memory of the dance of love <br />or barrel-organ, cranking out a background <br />like an old toothpaste tube; it's only half-believed <br />like some street-beggar's story; but you both know <br />that memory's longing for this sweet dipped madeleine <br />of romance and the words of love, from that endless source <br />and flow of Seine, its quays, its honest poverty, <br />its silver-grey and words of love...<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sound-of-cities/
