Theatre of Dreams

Down at the end of Charters Street

In a dim-lit part of town,

There stands the old Alhambra and

They’re going to pull it down.

We warned them up at the council, but

They said it’s a waste of space,

There’s not been a film for twenty years

Since the Carol Ransome case.

 

Carol was found in a pool of blood

By the curtains, up on the stage,

Somebody took a knife to her

In a crazed, death-dealing rage,

They never discovered just who it was

But the cinema closed right down,

Nobody wanted to go again

In this hick, one hotel town.

 

That was the end of our childhood fun

Our own theatre of dreams,

No more Saturday Matinées

Or milk shakes or ice creams,

Nothing to do in this one horse town

But to chase the girls in the park,

And get some serious kissing done

When the day was getting dark.

 

So Al and Joe and Mary Ann

And me, I must admit,

Broke on into the cinema

And found ourselves in the pit,

Right in front of the dusty stage

Where the curtains hung in shreds,

Barely hiding the giant screen

That was covered in old cobwebs.

 

We’d played in there for an hour or so

Running between the rows,

Making the Hammond Organ screech

Like a fat man touching his toes,

When suddenly there was a swishing sound

And the curtains began to part,

And something flickered up on the screen

As if it was going to start.

 

We stood stock still and we held our breath

When the speakers grumbled and groaned,

‘It looks like we’ve got an audience!’

A voice on the speakers moaned.

Then faces peered from the ancient screen

From the days of black and white,

But there wasn’t a single projection beam

From the room where it used to light.

 

A shimmering glow from the screen fell on

The first few rows of seats,

And one dimensional girls appeared

With ice creams and with treats,

The figures spilled from the silver screen

And onto the wooden stage,

Dracula, framed in black and white

And Frankenstein in a rage.

 

We were all of us petrified by blood

And Al was thinking to run,

But ‘Don’t you move!’ said an ugly hood

On the screen, and pointing a gun.

They made us sit in the second row

And paraded their long-gone fame,

Bela Lugosi’s fangs and cloak

And the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

 

Then as they faded a woman walked

From the wings, and out on the stage,

And a man that we knew as Grocer George

Flew suddenly into a rage.

He knifed the woman a dozen times

And he beat her down to the floor,

And over the screams of Mary Ann

We made a break for the door.

 

The screen went dark and the stage was bare

And the curtains hung like shrouds,

We said that we’d never go back in there

As we lay, looked up at the clouds,

But we each went in to the grocery store

And we whispered, ‘Carol’s back!’

‘We know what you did,’ said Mary Ann

And George’s eyes went black.

 

He chased us out of his grocery

And he closed the store for good,

Then policeman Andy found him hanging

Down in the Maple wood.

They’d better not take the Alhambra down

Or the ghosts of the silver screen,

Will all get out, and they’ll roam about

Without a theatre of dreams!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Marie]

Oh that's a chilling tale. All the ghosts in that theatre waiting to live again.

A theatre called the "Alhambra" was closed here in this city long ago. But all the downtown movie places closed, due to the new complexes built. It's not quite the same...

[spiritwind]

that was chilling
I do not often feel nervous of the dark from reading a poem but you often have that effect on me
it goes w/o saying that you are a master of this style of poetry
shiver

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

You made me look straight away at my bookcase at one of the most beautiful books that I own entitled, 'The Alhambra' by Washington Irving. It's a collector's edition by The Easton Press, bound in leather, with gold embossing alone the spine and the front and back covers. Inside it's lined with yellow silk, the pages are gilded along the edges with gold, and there's a silk ribbon for placemarking. No connection to your lovely poem other than that the name of the theatre reminded me of this book.

I am a tactile person, and I love the feel of well-bound leather books. As a child, I used to go to a little book store called "Grandma and Grandpa's Paperbacks." I absolutely loved the books. While I didn't have the money to buy, he offered to let me clean the store in exchange for books, which I would borrow, take home by the bagful to read, and return when I was done to exchange for more.

As an adult, I would spend many lunch hours at Givens Book Store, in the basement, which is where all of the old books were. I loved the smell of that musty old basement; and I loved to go shelf by shelf, row on row and run my hands over the spine of leather-bound books, pulling them one by one, reading and perusing, deciding which ones I was going to buy. Sadly, the old store was torn down; and Mr. Givens built a new one. Needless to say, it's not the same; and I no longer visit.

This poem has that same type of appeal to me. The actors of old spilling from the screen. There's just something irreducible about yesteryears and bygone things. We are more technologically advanced but seem to ever grow further and further away from the things that matter most. Thank goodness you hold that history in your hands and give it new life through your words.

You are such a magical writer, and you always take me to lands unknown.

[Mark]

For a second there, I thought you had flown trans-Pacific, and landed in New Orleans, as there is, in the middle of the French Quarter, a street called "Chartres"...and the "haunted-ness" of the FQ has NEVER been in doubt!
Had you not been such a prolific sculptor of words, you might have been an Orator of the Word, i.e., a Preacher, as so many of your tales are cautionary in tone: the wicked seldom escape their just desserts, the greedy rarely rewarded, the shallow hardly ever tolerated, while both the worthy and the oppressed often obtain redress. Salaam, Mufti-agha!