Thursday, August 22, 2013

Perspectives



 Perspectives on a Lake
 

On that shore small people move,
walk tiny dogs, sit on small benches;
on this shore birds patrol their grove,
slow and long-legged under green branches
that etch the unrelenting rays
in bars of complicated shade.
Stretched wide, out there the sunshine plays
easily on tree,  colonnade

and path. Perspective grinds them down
to semblance on a tapestry,
a distant likeness of the town,
pastiche of inches, lacquered sky.
Whilst here, an insensible curved rat –
still wet from the swim that made her great.

 
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3 comments:

Unknown said...

Bars of complicated shade. Yes.

Lucy said...

Beautiful pictorial images, then that very strange ending!

I enjoyed this.

Roderick Robinson said...

Fourteen lines, ABAB rhyming, but not iambic. So it's not what I thought. But it solves a problem that recurs with me - a tendency towards polysyllabism. Sooner or later I find myself up against the need (perhaps the secret desire - and because it looks clever) to insert a single word which eats up most of a line. I have never managed to sustain simplicity and I envied your first four lines straight away (plus others of course). I conclude: showing off will always undermine my attempts to write verse. Even when the sentiments are heart-felt. Is there a cure?