Charlie Clark

DEVIL AT THE MOVIES

 

When he steps into the theater

it doesn’t matter that it burned

down in nineteen sixty-three

and no one ever tried to rebuild it,

the fallen blackened wooden

frame gathers up around him

and the carpeting runs back

red. Even the hum and burn

of three popcorn machines,

the awful lobby music tinned in

by speakers hanging from exposed

wire, and body upon smoking

body streaming into still black

rooms shafted through with light.

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CHARLIE CLARK’s poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2011, The Journal, The Laurel Review, Smartish Pace, West Branch, and other journals.

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Read more work by Charlie Clark:

Blackbird
Verse Daily