Revisionist Poetry – “Close-Up on a Broomstick Moon” – Ready for my close-up, Mr. Deville, v.4

Note: Imagine Tom Waits commenting on the photoshoot…

They roll the lights in like rolling thunder — a couple of cheap halos and a broomstick moon.
The director, he’s wearing a shabby fedora full of old applause, squints through the viewfinder like a man checking the bottom of his glass.
Those little white flowers — holy little lunatics — stand on their stems like tipplers on a back-alley stage, all silk and scandal, whispering secrets nobody can cash.

Camera breathes — click, click — like a pocket watch coughing up time.
The leaves go black like a gambler’s hand, and the background melts into bokeh, round as lost quarters.
Petals fold and unfold like somebody flipping a cigarette between his fingers. They don’t ask for mercy, they ask for attention.
Pollen drops like coin from a busker’s jar. Veins map the inside of a night.

The lens is hungry; it leans in with the menace of a stray cat.
Director murmurs into the dark, “Come on… come on… give me the truth.”
The flowers arch like old actresses remembering applause, and the shutter gulps it down — a little confession captured, pressed and dried.
Somewhere a fan whines, a light hums, and the smell of dust and halogen hangs like a memory at the door.

You can see the petals pretending to be champagne — all spark and pretence — while their stems hold the truth: small, crooked, brave.
Close-up makes saints out of them for a breath, then tosses the image into the drawers of night.
The director pats his pockets for meaning and finds only the echo of applause.
We stand and we watch, mouths full of smoke and poetry, watching a tiny world get lit and swallowed and spat back as an off-white postcard.

When the lights go down, the flowers keep their secrets — little rascals, smug as saints.
The director pockets his ghost and the camera yawns like an old dog.
Outside, the city coughs and the gutters hum a low, slow song.
Inside, for a heartbeat, those tiny white ladies were queens of a cheap, beautiful kingdom.
That’s the cruelties and the kindnesses of a close-up: you steal the soul, tip your hat, and walk away humming.