The Movies

The Movies


C.L. Bledsoe


It starts with a British scientist,
preferably played by Peter Cushing,

and a dashing strong man,
it really doesn’t matter who.
Cushing builds a drill,

atomic powered, state of the art,
and they are going to the center of the Earth.

Because, as everyone knows,
the center of the Earth,
like the Moon or Mars,

is populated with scantily clad women. Simple.
None of that bullshit about science or advancing

the course of human endeavor;
it’s the babes.



When they arrive, after leaving the ship
to marvel at the cardboard fauna,
Cushing and his intrepid sidekick,

we’ll call him Toby, encounter natives
who speak perfect English,

but with a guttural tone.
If our heroes befriend one, notice
that he tends to have a British accent.
The Undermen

have been enslaved by people in lizard costumes.

In the really good movies,
the overlords are Amazonians,
desperate to mate with Toby

because the virility of the British
is legendary,
even in these backward climes.


War breaks out, and Cushing,
though a bit emaciated,
and very obviously confused most of the time,

devises some clever stratagem
to save the day,
such as hitting people about the head
with his umbrella.

Toby throws a few punches into the mix,
and victory is assured,
though some of the more guttural sounding
natives may die.


Now Toby must make a choice: go home,
or stay with his new bride,

as there is always a bride; a princess,
or an Amazonian
who’s seen the error of her ways

and realizes that all this ruling the world
business is overrated;
domestic bliss is the life for her.
Just in the nick of time,

a volcano explodes, tidal waves bear down,
and Cushing and Toby
are free to take the princess and leave
everyone else to die.

They return home, settle in Lancashire
to live out the rest of their days
drinking a lot of tea, and reliving
the genius of their youth, wishing

they had thought to bring a couple
more natives back
to help out with the dusting.


Posted over on Frigg Magazine
In 2005, Cortney noted:
I wrote these poems while attending a terrible year at an MFA playwriting program, so there’s a lot of anger in them. All I can really say is that “The Movies” is funny. I love old sci fi and horror films, which are often silly without meaning to be. I despise prime time TV, which often means to be silly but fails. What does that all mean?