A Sad Dream

It was a funeral

In a French mansion

A château

It had a grand sweeping gravel driveway

Gloomy inside

It was quite austere

The atmosphere was hushed

It was a mystery to me

Not knowing who had passed away.

They must have been well known

There were a few celebrities there

From the movie world.

Everybody except Steve and I

Were wearing old fashioned clothes

All in respectful mourning

Mostly black clothes but with a little white

White shirts and some wore white spats.

I was much younger than my current years

I had a velvet trouser suit

That looked quite modern

Compared to the outfits of others

Yet I know it must have been

At least fifty years ago

My hair was dark

Brunette

My natural colour

When I was young

The hair style was like Snow White

In the Disney movie

Steve was wearing his current ‘Funeral Suit’

That is about the only time he wears it

Isn’t that weird?

Most people wear dressed

In late Victorian or Edwardian clothes

I wore my sixties pants suit

My hair had been set in rollers

Bouffant.

Amidst the hubbub

I heard Alan Rickman’s voice

He walked into the room where we were.

He looked dignified and stately

As he so easily would

 

Standing a little way off from

Alan Rickman was a man in a white suit

Slim and looking tired and worn

I realised that it was Dirk Bogarde

He was wearing the clothes that he wore

In what may have been his last film

I racked my brain to think

Was it Death in Venice

I remember it was agonising to watch

In the latter part of the film

He sat on the beach in Nice

It was baking hot and he had a huge parasol

He sat on the beach in the blazing heat

All day long

Shirt, tie, waistcoat

Suit and hat, socks and shoes

Suffering his inner turmoil in old age

As he had in life

And as Dirk Bogarde had in life

And here he was

At the funeral in a Château

Still suffering

Quiet turmoil

His wonderful expressive eyes

In agony

A private grief

For somebody he loved

He always remained

Dirk Bogarde in a part

And yet expressed

The deepest feelings

With his bearing

and those eyes.

He wore that grief now

At this funeral

So devastated

That nobody spoke to him

Beyond comfort