Reflections on a Moving Image
Those golden days I do remember
Of a celluloid image on a silver screen
The like before I’d never seen
The hazy smoke across the screen
And from a portal shone a beam
That beam it shone so clear and bright
Like a comet in the night
Oh how I miss those halcyon days
As I sat within that scented haze
Above me, the beam’s reflection
My childish wonder at its projection
That moving image in black and white
Took me on a wondrous flight
A magic carpet of great illusion
Showed me things in great profusion
The cowboys on the open plains
The struggle of the wagon trains
When the Indians fought, they never won
But to my childish mind it was only fun
The cavalry came with their bugle sound
To win the fight, they were duty bound
It was all up there on that silver screen
Supported by that flickering beam
The good the bad and the wicked queen
And as I sat in that picture house
I laughed and roared at Mickey Mouse
Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops
Those silent heroes were the tops
I saw the advent, I witnessed change
The talking pictures to me were strange
Al Jolson sang about his Sonny Boy
and little Shirley Temple danced
Another world of wonder, by sound enhanced
Jimmy Cagney and Alice Fay
Those movie stars of yesterday
Now it’s gone and in the past
Oh that magical era and the spell it cast
It’s sad to think those days of yore
Of my childhood memories are no more
But -what a privilege to have seen
Those movie idols of the silver screen
But perhaps one day on some heavenly plain
Perchance I’ll meet them all once again.

AJ Shannon