I know what you're all thinking: Alan Rickman may be old...er. But that doesn't stop him from being talented, intellegent, beautiful, or sexy, does it? He's been in multiple theatrical and cinematic productions and he's almost always cast as the villan. That's be cause he's got an amazingly withering glare and sarcastic smirk that fits his most recent character, Professor Severus Snape on Harry Potter. Did I mention that if velvet was a sound, it would be sir Rickman's voice?
Christmas
'I'm blind,' I say. I don't speak again
for a very long time. Of course,
I'm lying about being blind: if I look
out of the window, to where
the children are singing carols, I see
how the snow seems to fetch a rainbow;
I see frozen songbirds fall
from the branches; I see a butcher haul
a slaughtered lamb down the street.
It is night. An icon burns in the stove.
There's a seamless drone from the airport
that makes me want to weep.
'I am blind,' I say, 'I am blind.'
She doesn't say a word. She beats
the Devil's tattoo on the tabletop.
'I've forgotten,' I whisper. I don't speak again
for a very long time. Of course,
I'm lying about having forgotten: I think back
to hoofprints in the snow and dogs on a leash.
It was a manhunt. I remember my father laughed
when I barked at the birds.
'Have you ever noticed how a vacuum-cleaner sounds
like a plane in take-off, or how
a TV left on too long will fix a room
with a hot and heavy smell? Have you noticed
the depth of frost?' I ask her.
'Have you noticed this incredible frost at all?'
She's got nothing to say for herself.
She might not have heard.
I won't speak again. I'll sit here and watch
the traffic lights adapting endlessly
to whatever's best. That's me, I'm just like that.
A whole universe buzzed above
the control tower: isn't that strange?
Fish in the depths are strange--the way they live.
The smell of hay in an orchard
is too strange for words. Now and then,
someone winks from the bottle:
the genie, the Puck of plum brandy.
'Can you see me?' I ask. 'Can you see me any jot
of me, any tittle?' She nods, but of course
she's lying. As if I cared, as if
she could understand the half of what I say.
