Children should never be cheated of being a child, you took me their thru your eyes, breaks my heart~

Heavy sigh...sometimes just sharing those feeling with a piece of paper then releasing them to go on to have a life of their own helps free the trapped pain that has, for so long, lived inside. Your words are like a movie within themselves.
Take care,
Sherry

So very sad, and you've managed to dredge up some powerful childhood memories for me. My father was always working two or three jobs, and about the only time he had to relax was at a movie. He was a real movie buff, and I loved going with him on a Saturday afternoon, and we saw that movie, too.

On the bright side perhaps you didn't have to share the popcorn?
What a poignant and heart-reaching write, Jude!
Blessings,
Christine

Hey Jude,

It's funny how most people our age can relate to each other's memories. It was a very good time to grow up and it was a not so good time to grow up. My parents never went to many social places with us kis (5 of us), the closest thing was going to the drive in movies with my father to see Elvis movies and Clint Eastwood westerns...He drank himself to sleep and when the movies were over he would wake up and drive us home...It was really scary not knowing if you were going to get home okay or not. So I can dig what you are saying in the poem, our past really does shape us as adults, but somehow we all survived and I feel are better spiritually than some people that aren't as old as we are...



My scariest movie memory was Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds...that movie haunted me for years.





Thanks for the memory, Kid!



Muchh peace, light and love,

Amber

Sitting near you in the darkened theater..your guiding us through
your experience and your feelings.. well done ~jude~
Lady Mary Ann

Really poignant, Jude. I remember a lot of being let down by the adults in my lifer when I was a kid, and it was scary....

Chip Bergeron

The collimates in this are telling. Anticipating something you never got, but ending up with a unique understanding that followed you throughout your life. Another one of those experiences that has formed the fine and talented poet in you. Enjoyed ... richard

A living childhood memory that is perhaps not "foreign" to many of us, Jude; we have thought such "petrified" moments to have died within us along with that moment of connection we have so desired, but they are still tenderly raw and vividly technicolour when their synaptic nerve is twitched. This snuffed longing for intimacy - so much more to be desired than the mere passing of shared time - rattles my own volcanic bars, but what strikes me also is perhaps the perceived exhaustion of the parent/adult alongside the offhand apathy; world-weary adults can be so slow to understand the real needs and yearnings of children. This strongly imaged work yet again endorses my long-held view that we are ALL the three-year old child we once were, conformed to being adult. I am not surprised that what impacted you about the Rodans was their loyalty and connection: such beauty becometh even the beast :)) xx

Don't know who the man was. Father? Probably. If so I can relate. My father and I couldn't string three sentences together to speak to each other. He was a quiet man, I was awe/scared of him. Enjoyed this dark poem.

There is an sense of imminent suspense throughout this voluble verse that kind of coalesces into the somnolence of indifference, stasis resignation, replete with the resonant juxtaposition of the Tokyo cave with the darkened movie theater, a study in similarities: in both cases something big is about to happen... as always, your poem looms larger than life, Rodanesque and rare... exquisite poetic fare.

Good story, jude. Reminds me of the time when I was five and my dad took me to the movies for the first and only time. He got up to go get some popcorn, and someone else took his place. I cried and cried. That was when I learned the phrase This seat is taken.