Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.
When Jack-as-Harry is crawling on all fours from the bed to the bathroom, the girl who's just slept with him is watching him--repulsed. The voice-over is Harry's, reciting e. e. cummings.
i like my body when it is with your
body.
Jack-as-Harry tries to win over the pierced-lip girl with a love poem by Ted Hughes, but a little of Hughes goes a long way, too. The girl is out the door before he can finish the first stanza.
We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:
No clock counts this.
Harry's more self-pitying moments--repeatedly banging his head on a bathtub drain, unable to climb out of the slippery tub--are pure pathos. (The voice-over to the bathtub scene is Harry's recitation of George Wither.)
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
The Love Poet is a noir love story--more noir than love story for three quarters of the film, more love story than noir at the end. Jack-as-Harry meets a recently crippled young woman in his gym. She is wheelchair-bound, too. Harry can tell it's her first public outing in her new but permanent condition; she's tentative. She's being introduced to various weight machines and exercises by a blowhard personal trainer whom Harry despises. The girl is what wheelchair veterans like Harry call a "newborn."
"Leave the newborn to me," Jack-as-Harry tells the trainer.
Harry then proceeds to demonstrate every weight machine and exercise in slapstick; he drops things, he stages spectacular falls.
"See? This is easy!" he tells the newborn, imitating the hearty bullshit of the personal trainer. Jack-as-Harry hurls himself out of his wheelchair as awkwardly as possible, demonstrating to the recently crippled young woman that nothing is going to be easy for her.
When they fall in love, the voice-over is Harry's; he's reciting A. E. Housman. (In a gym, of all places.)
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
Shame on Jack Burns--that month in New York, he was not as well behaved as Harry Mocco. He met a transvestite dancer at a downtown club. Jack was distracted by her strong-looking hands and her prominent Adam's apple. He knew she was a man. Still, he went along with the seduction-in-progress--up to a point. Jack let her wheel him through the lobby of the Trump, and into the hotel's bar. She sat in his lap in the wheelchair and they sang a Beatles song together, the bar crowd joining in.
When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a Valentine,
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?
Jack tried to say good night to the transvestite dancer at the elevator, but she insisted on coming to his room with him. All the way up on the elevator, they kept singing. (She sat in his lap in the elevator, too.)
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,