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
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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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