Skip to content

From the archives

Carbon Copy

In equal balance justly weighed

Dangerous Grounds

Coming soon to a democracy near you

Tax and the Canadian Psyche

Elsbeth Heaman in conversation with Shirley Tillotson

Elizabeth Taylor

 

Her white skin glowed as the movie screened

in my school’s gym. It was National Velvet.

Were her eyes as truly violet as they seemed?

Father of the Bride was Tracy’s film. She beamed

with a maidenhood real life made her forget.

Her radiant skin glowed as the movie screened.

If you look behind the images, no one dreamed

how much pain she was feeling—a true starlet—

yet were those eyes as violent as they seemed?

Todd, Fisher—I’ve omitted many—were weaned

from her charms as venomous Cleopatra spat

romance like sloughed skin as the movie screened.

London’s Inn on the Park installed seaweed crammed

in the walls so Liz and Dick could have it out;

she was who she was and more than she seemed.

Montgomery Clift, Laurence Harvey all steamed

by like ships in a sea of love. I liked Butterfield 8.

Her white skin glowed wherever movies screened

and her eyes were just as violet as they seemed.

Bruce Meyer is author of 34 books of poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, literary journalism and pedagogy including the national bestseller The Golden Thread (HarperCollinsFlamingo, 2000). He is a professor of English at Georgian College in Barrie, where he teaches for Laurentian University, and also teaches at Victoria College in the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s College. He is the inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Barrie.

Advertisement

Advertisement