Metallic waves of people jar
Through crackling green toward the bar
Where on the tables chattering-white
The sharp drinks quarrel with the light.
Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles,
Shroud wooden faces in their wiles -
Sometimes they splash like water (you
Yourself reflected in their hue).
The conversation loud and bright
Seems spinal bars of shunting light
In firework-spurting greenery.
O complicate machinery
For building Babel, iron crane
Beneath your hair, that blue-ribbed mane
In noise and murder like the sea
Without its mutability!
Outside the bar where jangling heat
Seems out of tune and off the beat -
A concertina's glycerine
Exudes, and mirrors in the green
Your soul: pure glucose edged with hints
Of tentative and half-soiled tints.
Portrait Of A Barmaid
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
(1)
Poem topics: hair, murder, people, sea, sometimes, water, soul, blue, white, bright, conversation, pure, sharp, iron, noise, beneath, green, light, I love you, I miss you, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Portrait Of A Barmaid poem by Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
Best Poems of Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell