Yes I like the beauty zeroing down to 'the woman's' pupils, Max. The light and dark works well too. Not sure of enchantment/enhancement but unlike you, Pat, happy with the rounding off with a bit of a Keatsian flourish.
Bill
> On 14 Aug 2014, at 1:48 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> AH, but Max, your ‘beauty’ comes on the heels of a bunch of such terms, which as they pile up become somewhat concrete, it feels, that being the mystery of language at work. And I really enjoy the sly pseudo-self-deprecation at work in the poem, its humour…
>
> Doug
>
>
>> On Aug 13, 2014, at 4:35 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Pupils
>>
>> The woman at the opticians,
>> who takes me into her dark room
>> for intimate transactions,
>> is exquisite - fine-featured,
>>
>> slow to smile, elegant of hand
>> and hip. She shines her light
>> and herself deep into my eyes.
>> saying ‘you have small pupils’!
>>
>> (My lack of success with women
>> explained by yet another reason!)
>> I begin a sly campaign
>> to survey her pupils’ fluctuation -
>>
>> now large in the dark, now less
>> in the well-lit corridor, smallest
>> out in the public space where frames
>> are chosen at great expense
>>
>> to enhance one's chances
>> of glamorous enchantment.
>> She’s put on spectacles herself,
>> as if her looks need some enhancement.
>>
>> Fair girl, unframed is best. Fair
>> young men, fair children - smile on.
>> Our eyes are all on you, as yours
>> are on each other. We were young once,
>>
>> though scarcely knew it. Old now, leaning
>> back - yearning back - at our sunset hour
>> it dawns on us: Beauty is youth, youth
>> beauty, - that is all we know on earth.
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>
> Something else is out there
> godamnit
>
> And I want to hear it
>
> C.D.Wright
>
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