A Movie Lover’s Guide to the Stars

 A Triptych

i

The Movies Stay

While We Go Away

 

The movies stay while we must go,

with no intention of explaining away our pain.

 

The movies stay while we depart

for further vehicles of unforeseeable fame.

 

The movies stay as if they were

more real than we are ourselves.

 

The movies stay filled with the dead

in all their youthful beauty and health.

 

The movies stay suffused with

the light of all those magic hours.

 

The movies stay to bear the weight of

affinities that were never merely ours.

 

The movies stay like drawers for keeping

dreams in when we’re gone.

 

The movies stay while we go away

to immortalize what our hearts knew all along.

 

ii

Exteriors

 

A young girl adorns a scarecrow

with the hand-me-downs

of her dead father

securing him to a wooden cross

in the field beyond the house.

She speaks a quiet prayer

into the hay beneath the tweed.

That night, she awakens

to find a man standing

at the foot of her bed

soaking wet from the storm

that’s been battering

 the cornfield outside her window.

For a moment she thinks her father

has returned from the dead.

But when illuminated

 by a sudden flash of lightning

she realizes he is the man

she fashioned from scratch

in hopes she might go on

being loved.

 

 

iii

Memo From the Front Office

 

Of course, you’re being considered at this time

but who’ll direct and who’ll star is still up in the air.

As you know, you’re only as good as your last hit.

No one can rest on their laurels in this business.

Not even you.

However, I know for a fact they have faith in you

and your ability to move an audience to tears

if only with that gorgeous puss of yours!

I’ve always said you just needed a picture

that played to your strengths. Not another

comedy where you have more fun making it

than the audience has watching it!

“Saving the Day” was mired by too many damn re-shoots.

Let’s face it, you can’t afford another stinker.

Audiences want someone they can root for.

Hell, your last picture only made 40 mil

with your name featured prominently over the title.

 

Word has it your mother is being played by

that top notch stage actress Louise Fowler,

who was discovered by the Clifton Agency

while working behind the counter at Saks

selling bras and girdles…can you believe it?

We’re lucky to get Louise as she’s worked

tirelessly for decades for a role like this one.

She’s sure to give it her all.

And, get this, you resemble each other! You’ll see,

she’s going to give you something to play against.

That was the problem with “Into That Good Night”,

Verna Fogel was all wrong as your love interest.

Zero chemistry. You can’t quarrel on the set

 and expect to make a touching love story.

Just hang tight, this is going to propel you

into the firmament!

 

Peter Valentyne

03/16/22