Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Good poets where mustaches, bad ones don't

From "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror":

The secret is too plain. The pity of it smarts,
Makes hot tears spurt: that the soul is not a soul,
Has no secret, is small, and it fits
Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
That is the tune but there are no words.
The words are only speculation
(From the Latin speculum, mirror):
They seek and cannot find the meaning of the music.
We see only postures of the dream,
Riders of the motion that swings the face
Into view under evening skies, with no
False disarray as proof of authenticity. (Ashbery ln 43-53)


Click on self-portraits for bigness.
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