Poetry: Candy Windows | clivejames.com
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Candy Windows

He runs in slo-mo with a wall of flame
Boiling behind him like Valhalla’s fall
In Götterdämmerung. He made his name
From being bullet-proof. He summons all
His skills to get the girl from Bucharest
To Rome or Paris or wherever suits
The budget. Somewhere she can get undressed:
The only scene for which we give two hoots.
The heavies blast the road or bomb the train.
The dialogue is dreck, the plot inane.

They make love. Breasts and bottoms fill the frame
When suddenly the whole motel explodes:
The bad guys in a tank. Devoid of shame,
He frisks her lovely corpse for the launch codes
Of the secret anthrax time-bomb missile thing.
They’re tattooed on her thigh. But look, she stirs.
The soundtrack fills with strings that soar and sing.
When has he ever seen a face like hers
Since his last movie? He, the Teflon star
Scoops up the jail-bait and runs for the car.

The enemy is an army: all the same
He kills the lot, but finds himself alone.
The girl is gone, and gradually the game
Changes. He fails to steal the new nose-cone
His HQ wants, and where once he could burst
Through candy windows, now he fears they might
Be real glass, and — much worse, the very worst —
The gathering night could really be the night
When he, immortal once, but not again,
Must bruise and bleed and die like other men.