Thursday, April 12, 2012

Charles Laughton


There is no star I can identify
with anymore, except you: Captain Bligh,
Rembrandt, Henry, Hunchback, married to
the bride of Frankenstein. I look at you,

I see myself behind the hand that hides
half of the Hunchback’s face, the mouth that cries,
“So beautiful!” to Esmeralda,
embarrassed by its ugliness. A stellar

performance, that eclipse. The shadows your
fat fingers cast across the screen endure
like unreciprocated love. It was
a gesture of pure poetry because

you poured your soul into Quasimodo’s
one good, glistening eye. I suppose,
a soul was all you felt you had to give
the world, so that great gargoyle could live.

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