"errol" poems
you caused this fire
with a dimpled smile and a plane ticket
can’t suffocate a blaze with a match
petrol running down my legs
wanna watch me burn at the stake?
7,000 miles of wildfires called me by your name
like a moth drawn to a flame
we kissed on the light up floor
your fingers inside of me, it was divine to me
surrendering my soul to my god
left my lipstick scars all over you
i ate the apple from the softness of your hand
our garden of eden was no holy land
i let you knock at the door of my spine
no malice in my voice, come inside
but baby, you weren’t expecting
me to multiply
like a moth drawn to a flame
i bit your tongue in the break of day
wanted to taste your blood for a change
nothing like a little emotional
devastation to get me through it
yell it más, señor
til your vocal cords are ******
oath taken in sacred silence
tragedy and insanity and is
it all a game to you?
because you hid while i sought
yell it más, señor
yell it más
and when i told you of the flower blossoming within
you cried like a boy for his mother
you see, there’s no way we can keep it
not for your career
and the next day on the 405
my soul wrung empty inside
suffocating loneliness, all-consuming
75mph, nearly opened my door
told my therapist i wanted the asphalt to eat me alive
they took me to the madhouse
while you had a pint and a laugh miles from my hospital bed
they said
“she wants to end her life with a baby inside, oh, what a terrible state she’s in”
the doctor watched me as i cried
with cigarette breath and roaming hands
forced the wand inside of me
at the same time i jumped over the ledge
and did you know i laid in silence
while he whispered in my ear
“good girl, it’s a girl”, you see, oh?
can’t you feel the joy?
of creating something like God herself?
like vines sprouting from the soil?
but Oceania, so much panic, yeah
too far, didn’t wanna come near
my ash-strewn wreckage
like a moth drawn to a flame
blazing light, burned just right
i wanted you to suffocate my pain
pretended it didn’t exist for our
transpacific love games
i’ll be Marilyn and you be Errol
the actor who can’t survive any longer
and the one who devoured a woman whole
yell it más, señor
oh god i’m bleeding on the bathroom floor
so much sacrifice for paradise
but isn’t this what it’s for?
tragedy and insanity and
oh no, it’s all a game, i see
yell it más, señor
yell it más
aliel
enaj
Apr 25, 2022
Apr 25, 2022 at 8:08 AM UTC
I'm the bran bucket boobie
I'm the dollar bargain bin
I'm the prize that they still give you
Even though you didn't win
I'm the chipped cup in the cupboard
I'm the last sweet in the tin
I'm the cheap dime store necklace
that irritates your skin
I'm the actor on the telly
or at least I am his twin
that's the one I'm Quasimodo
wishing he was Errol Flynn
I'm the tattoo after drinking
I'm the one night stand and sin
and the hope that you're not pregnant
or I was too drunk to put it in
I'm the pill in the morning
and the mourning for more gin
I'm the prize they always give you
Even though you didn't win.
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 8:14 PM UTC
I like a classic movie
One with Bogie and Bacall
Kate Hepburn in her heyday
Or Errol Flynn in a brawl
A Cary Grant comedy
Irene Dunne at his side
Bette Davis raising hell
Or Frankenstein's scary bride
I think of Ingrid Bergman's smile
The sweetest nun appearing onscreen
And Mae West's sassy manner
As she lit up every scene
Spencer Tracy wowed us
Charlie Chaplin made us roar
Great stars, great stories, great times
The movies I adore
Jul 19, 2015
Jul 19, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
buzzing and landing,
not demanding,
any attention at all,
on the wall
rather be not visible,
life can be miserable,
things can go boom
while I'm in the room,
if someone tries to flatten my face
stand back and just give me my place
on the wall
on the wall
that is all
I want,
is to hang out,
and hang off,
near the air as it
floats by, with treasured
aromas
to be tasted
at my leisure,
unless one of them
goes into a seizure
and begins to beat
space and time,
some surreal pantomime,
missing me
strike one two three
why are they not out?
Errol Flynn they are not,
caped crusader,
or
Darth Vader,
hero and villain,
in pursuit of a fly,
my oh my, such moves, such grace
all to flatten my face against a wall,
I am so glad, with such a mess, I was small.
©DWE012014
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 7:58 PM UTC
I was in a red phone booth
in Rockingham Street
looking for coins left behind
in the little cups
in the phone machine
my old man knocked
on the glass window
of the booth
I looked at him standing there
his deep set eyes
his Errol Flynn moustache
I came out of the booth
and let the door shut
behind me
what are you
doing in there?
he asked
looking for coins
left behind
I said
were there any?
no none at all
he nodded
and looked in the booth
shame
sometimes punters do
he said
I looked at him
he had a hollow look
about him
sunken cheeks
just as well
it was me
and not your mother
who saw you in there
he said
yes guess so
I said
well got to go to work
he said
how about
going to see a film
this weekend?
sure be good
I said
John Wayne film
cowboy film?
no war movie
Pork Chop Hill
I think it's called
he said
ok be good
I said
he nodded and left
I watched him go
and out of sight
I opened my hand
and looked at the coins
I found in the cup
of the phone machine
I pocketed them
and walked to Baldy's shop
and bought
some bubblegum
and a drink of pop
and walked back to the flat
I ought to have shown
my old man the coins
but I didn't
and that was that.
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 1:46 PM UTC
Amy
Brian
Cynthia
Denise
Errol
Frank
Gigi
Hector
Izzy
Jazzy
Kara
Leo
Matt
Nick
Oscar
Patricia
Quintanilla
Richard
Summer
Trish
U(no one)
Veronica
Williams
X(no one)
Y(no one)
Z(no one)
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 2:04 AM UTC
Just now,
after two ***** cranberries
Errol burst into tears.
He began with an aching whimper,
but loud,
and my little self boiled with indignation,
this "how dare you take my time--this is my time"--
my time to watch pause-able movies, and read endless Facebook posts.
Secondly, after a tiny moaning cry
I run into the room
and in the black find him
to pluck him from his sad dreams.
There is the happiness
though,
the thing those mothers yap about
covered in hair, ***** from a week's sweat,
the tired, collapsing hug of an infant
wakes me from my drunkenness
to weep.
I bring him into the light and he releases from the crook of my neck to stare with wrinkled eyebrows
and I wonder what I am:
This woman,
a smell,
a voice,
a flowing, shadowy goddess who rescues a sad boy from sick dreaming.
Then he plucks at my nose and nnns.
Then ears.
Then laughs.
Then sighs in a real, big, adult way that shrinks me.
As I carry him sideways into the kitchen I wonder,
will he write stories about the late evenings and his mother's red glass?
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
Benedict's old man
was one of Monty's lot
in North Africa in ww2
in tanks across dry deserts;
getting a taxi into Cairo
while other soldiers walked.
And those back street ******
did he as with others venture
their dark shores?
Benedict never asked
he was just a kid
after war's end.
He did see photos
of his old man in khaki
leaning against a fence,
smoking a pipe
an English looking Errol Flynn.
Never spoke much
of war or times there
just of tanks and Monty
standing in powerful stance
and his old man
watching in a trance.
Sep 27, 2017
Sep 27, 2017 at 1:18 PM UTC
Why don’t the Portuguese have their own main?
Errol Flynn fights only Spanish baddies
Who twirl their moustaches in sneering disdain
And the villains are never Portuguese ladies
When ships do battle on Warner’s sound stage
The English are haughty, the Spanish snooty
Prince Henry’s brave men are never the rage
And the heroine is never a Lisboan beauty
Harken unto this repeated refrain:
Why don’t the Portuguese have their own main?
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 8:51 AM UTC
Like a switchblade my middle finger flashed out
Angry, self righteous, without any doubt.
A weapon or protest stabs innocent air,
skewering injustice and all things unfair.
Well oiled and oft used it stands at the ready,
Resolute, on point and ever so steady.
It leaps forth with such speed I could swear the air sang
with defiant rebellion and an audible twang.
It appears on the seen without much provocation,
except for my own insecure invocation.
Ah those were the days with scalpel like ease
and Errol Flynn skill I’d carve all that I please.
A happily buoyant juvenile revolution,
which had much to do with my evolution.
But now quiet and still in its scabbard it sits.
Tired, wrinkled and dull like my wits
Slightly arthritic and just a tad slower,
My weapon of choice now a disdainful glower.
Are there simply less things that annoy me enough
to expose prodigious digit with a great huff?
Do things matter less with the passing of time?
My insurgent uprisings reduced to sad rhyme.
Has peace come at last to this humble shell?
Tranquility now no more raising of hell?
My memories defiant and still fresh, they do linger.
But now it’s unlikely that I’d lift a finger.
© Copyright 2017 Robert C. Leung
Jan 28, 2020
Jan 28, 2020 at 3:30 PM UTC