THE BIG CHILL
THE BIG CHILL
I just bought this movie on DVD (an old favourite) and found it not nearly as funny as the first time I watched it. Still brilliant but very thought provoking. I lived in apartheid South Africa at the time of the movie’s release and it has its echoes, from university student idealism and romanticism to casualties of this war called life. So I decided to write a poem of the same title. This is MY view of the BIG CHILL:
Take a pill for the desire
another for the rentboy to collect
on time
oh time of the also ran
through the brushes with the law
I have my army call-up letter
in a frame on my wall
memories of life that separated
us into those who did and did not
Fear brings us close to forgetting
the useful embrace
of a mother who chooses
now to forget and reject
us. There’s not enough room
for us all on the wall chart
marked Afrika.
Everything seems to come from the South
these days. I stand in the moist wind
and enjoy its soothe, mixing with
my tears.
Nothing is as it seems.
