I Didn't Know You Cared

A lonely boy awake
In bed reviewing scenes
From silent movies;
Life’s made cosier by dreams.
Purged of experience
By junior jury hell,
Submits to landscapes
Deep inside where all is well.

Silent films in black and white
And red and pink and blue.
He can sing the rainbow
Of young self-disgust, can’t you?
The dreams are livid once
And then they start to fade.
Celluloid it burns out quick
Especially when well-played.

He’s lost his will to love.
And these films aren’t enough.
There’s nausea in denial.
And someone has to give.

See the film director
Who has no control in life.
Love under microscope;
His heart under a knife.
A cast of thousands
Who don’t even know they’re there.
A spectral jukebox
For our boy’s jaded compere.

He selects a disc to spin;
A love song wrought of air.
The stylus shudders
Over someone slight and fair.
Somewhere love’s purity
Got putrefied by shame.
He seeks security
In silence, art and fame.

He makes the children laugh
By playing truth or dare
And risking neither,
Soul recedes, like his dad’s hair.
A drought inside speaks
Disappointment and despair.
He’s found an epitaph:
“I didn’t know you cared”.

Designed to implicate
All those who let him starve.
In dreams he’ll find some
Flowers to give, a tree to carve.
Hearts to initial,
Courtship, cinema trips and pride,
Where love and action
Might just actually collide