Mutoscope Poem by Jenny Kalahar

The fading old Wild West roadside attraction
Had mostly stopped attracting a decade before, but limped on
The gun-fighting stuntmen fell for just three or four kids
The old-timey musicians stood on the dance-hall stage
practicing more than performing
And the once-crowded gift shop of rabbit furs and wooden toys
Had simply let its penny candy grow stale

But I came once more, compelled to drive for miles through the rolling hills
To stand alone in its antique arcade with whirring, flashing and clanging
Glorious, garish and varnished-wood machines of a century past:
Fortune tellers, boisterous nickelodeons, hand-grip muscle-testers
("Are you a man or a mouse? ")
With their flashy come-on panels daring even the most timid of men to try

I turned slowly, kept turning, drowning in the dancing reds, greens, yellows
A monkey's clang-clang cymbals slapped a beat
for mechanical banjos and pianos
Until it all swirled dizzily together to make its own planet of noise
I felt exhilarated - it was now a show for only me, only me alone
Alone here except for a wooden cigar-store Indian
And clown automatons in their faded, thread-bare costumes
A painted clay dog with his loosely-nodding head and darting wooden tongue
And eerie, motorized Madame Isis in her mysterious horoscope booth
Who flashed horrid yellow-lit eyes at no one, and at all

I stepped back and bumped into a Mutoscope viewing machine
For five cents I could see, for sixty seconds
A wondrous moving picture show
Very private, very risqué
"The Kiss of Claudine" could be viewed if I was over twenty-one
It promised to surely ignite mad, passionate flames
As I peeped in at handsome David as he entrapped a lovely, innocent maiden

It was as irresistible as it had been through all of my visits through the years
In went my nickel, my payment to again gaze at David - bold, dark and exotic
I turned the crank and lowered my face to the bronze viewer
The title flipped by on several of the photographic cards
And then there was David, golden and gypsy-dressed in silks
With dark-rimmed, smoldering eyes
Flip flip flip
Hiding, he spied poor, beautiful Claudine in her claw-foot tub
Bathing in only a slip
Flip flip flip
Her hair coiled limply in dampened ringlets above a pale, peaceful face
Flip
From behind dark and heavy draperies he appeared, and leered
David seized his prey and carried her, kicking and squirming
to an ornate, tasseled sofa
Flip
Where Claudine, her fingers like claws, nearly scratched him
Then, seeing his beauty, her heart was won
Flip flip
Her eyelashes batted and teased
Flip
Before he grabbed her coiled hair to force a deep, rough kiss right on her
Flip
Lips and yes, they parted and her delicate slip fell from a shoulder and
Flip flip
Claudine swooned in his muscular arms, waiting to be ravished
Flip
But oh, time shifts from under my feet
David has risen and he is looking right at me now
Right at me, right as I stand in the arcade alone with the noise now forgotten
Flip
His demanding, lustful eyes are on mine, as if he remembers me … recognizes Has been waiting
And Claudine is left on the sofa
Flip flip flip
He has stepped away from her
She is incredulous, un-sated
She yearns with arms outstretched to him
As he steps closer
Flip
Closer to me
Flip
Closer
Flip flip
And out of the Mutoscope and into my open, open aching arms
Into my world
The noise and flashing lights float away
I embrace this wild gypsy lover, now my own gypsy lover
We recklessly, violently crash and lunge
Until
In our madness we are swept out of the arcade and into the full sunlight
And he is melting
My celluloid lover in sepia tones and transparent silks is melting
Has melted on the modern-day pavement
Melted there along with bits of chewing gum and cotton candy
And I am left unfulfilled, left gasping, grasping my shirtfront

One arm at my forehead, the other left bare where David had ripped my shirt
As a player piano beats ragtime dramatically in the distance, for my ears alone

I returned to the cool arcade, to the Mutoscope
And inserted another nickel, desperate to see him again
But this time, as I turned the crank and the images flickered
It was only Claudine I saw, alone on the sofa, bewildered
Flip flip
After having thousands upon thousands of breathless encounters with David
She now sits alone, unsure of how to act after one hundred passionate years
Until
Flip flip flip
For the first time in her history
Flip
She returns to her bathing, sinks slowly against the tub, her hair spilling free
Flip flip
Her celluloid eyes at long last close
Flip
And Claudine smiles, relaxed in the sepia-tone steam
Flip
As the Mutoscope's spring-loaded catch closes, forever, the door on my view