Poetry: A Love Scene

Going through my laptop last night i found some stuff i had written in 2008 and this is one of them. Thoughts may be the same but, i think the words would be different if i were asked to re-write this poem... anywho, read and (hopefully) enjoy.

An angel derailed by a lonesome burden

Longs for life to meet a pleasure

On paths that wind

To long unheard of nevers

Her mind hoped for a passion unseen

But her misery faded

When in stolen moments her life bypassed meaning

In a shady ally

Where the holy never tread

She found her glory

Tall dark and handsome

Looking rather scary

But when he spoke

It was evidence of God making an attempt at poetry

 

Engraved on lust, a want for the flesh

It was on a street corner that they met

Where love intersected passion

Life met pleasure

Giving birth to a tale

The first scene had begun

When he took the bait the fantasy could not fall through

 

I would spell it out but I know you’re not dump so…

One two

Skip a few

Scene four began with a knock on her door

 

Fade to black

A lover’s moan

The lights return

They lay in a pool of touchy feely

My dad would kill me

Though I am not sorry

I love you

I love you

I do

 

Still he caressed her feelings

Though ripe with the sensuous healing

Felt only when you hear a woman gasping and breathing

I love you

I love you

I do

 

They had become a meaning

A word defined as a definition

Travelled to places where shooting stars shoot at ones will

And rosy cheeks are a felt feeling

He loved her

She loved him

They did

Rant & Rave: Was it a Disgrace

You know when you imagine what a character from a book looks like, when you see them, know how they smell, how they walk, their hand gestures, the way their eye lashes flap about when they blink, you know the sound of their voice and know all the intricacies of their persona. I feel I know a huge chunk of the characters in the books I have read, I even identify things I consider unique to them amongst real life human beings.
I remember once I saw a little girl with a messy blonde bob, lively and mischievous looking and I could not help but, think “oh my, she looks exactly like Scout from the book To Kill A Mockingbird.”

It is therefore always interesting to see movies based on those very familiar characters from one’s favourite books but, I imagine it must be the most daunting of tasks to attempt to make accurately visual all the detail contained within a book. You have to find the right setting, the right props, work with great precision on the dialogue and cast the right actors.
On countless occasions I have found that film buffs rely on their audiences to be stupid and inattentive, expecting to be spoon fed and do none of the thinking for themselves. I think sometimes they live in hope that we may not have read the book and that they can then make additions or subtractions or pointless modifications to a storyline that may have great as is.

I was excited to come across the movie adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, a book I have come to hold in very high regard. The book tells the story of a Middle-aged divorcee whose life takes a detour after he is found to have been sleeping with a student at the Collage where he works as a lecturer. He moves to his daughter’s farm and for a time he finds calm in being there, this till a brutal attack by three young men on him and Lucy (his daughter).
The narrative deals competently with issues of aging, sex and power shifts all the while being smart and real. The movie attempts this and although on some counts they manage to do a good job or replicating or rather adapting the book to the movie, there are things I think are vital to the story that the movie does not deliver on. They sourced the location beautifully but, this could not have been easier for them since the books author went into great detail describing the scene. The characters were a bit hit and miss for me, for one; I think the casting director did a great job of casting for the characters of Lucy, Soraya and Bev Shaw but, missed the mark with regards to the protagonist David Lurie (played by John Malkovich), playing the part of the tall, handsome man (as described in the book) is a shabby looking, scrawny and not at all handsome boy, Patrick who is described as having a weathered face and shrewd eyes is played by a man who looks timeworn as opposed to weathered and no wisdom can be found in his eyes in any form.

Some of the story’s peaks are lost in the movie, due to minute inconsistencies and a failure to mind the detail.

I understand that a movie is limited by time and sometimes even budget and that an author can afford to be as detailed as they wish without having to pay these two factors much consideration but, when taking an original work and replicating it, I think it is always best to either go big or not go at all. I think turning a book into a movie can sometimes be like putting a beautiful Amel Lerrieux or Adele song over some mundane and futile house beat all so someone else can reap the benefits of somebody else’s hard work.

Never the less, here are some movies that were adapted from books that I think were done pretty well: