FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   >>  
into my ears. The breeze whispers at the shutters and mutters queer tales of old days, and cobbled streets, and youths leaping their horses down marble stairways. Pale blue lavender, you are the colour of the sky when it is fresh-washed and fair... I smell the stars... they are like tulips and narcissus... I smell them in the air. The Dinner-Party Fish "So..." they said, With their wine-glasses delicately poised, Mocking at the thing they cannot understand. "So..." they said again, Amused and insolent. The silver on the table glittered, And the red wine in the glasses Seemed the blood I had wasted In a foolish cause. Game The gentleman with the grey-and-black whiskers Sneered languidly over his quail. Then my heart flew up and laboured, And I burst from my own holding And hurled myself forward. With straight blows I beat upon him, Furiously, with red-hot anger, I thrust against him. But my weapon slithered over his polished surface, And I recoiled upon myself, Panting. Drawing-Room In a dress all softness and half-tones, Indolent and half-reclined, She lay upon a couch, With the firelight reflected in her jewels. But her eyes had no reflection, They swam in a grey smoke, The smoke of smouldering ashes, The smoke of her cindered heart. Coffee They sat in a circle with their coffee-cups. One dropped in a lump of sugar, One stirred with a spoon. I saw them as a circle of ghosts Sipping blackness out of beautiful china, And mildly protesting against my coarseness In being alive. Talk They took dead men's souls And pinned them on their breasts for ornament; Their cuff-links and tiaras Were gems dug from a grave; They were ghouls battening on exhumed thoughts; And I took a green liqueur from a servant So that he might come near me And give me the comfort of a living thing. Eleven O'Clock The front door was hard and heavy, It shut behind me on the house of ghosts. I flattened my feet on the pavement To feel it solid under me; I ran my hand along the railings And shook them, And pressed their pointed bars Into my palms. The hurt of it reassured me, And I did it again and again Until they were bruised. When I woke in the night I laughed to find the
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   >>  



Top keywords:
glasses
 
ghosts
 
circle
 
dropped
 

ornament

 

Coffee

 

cindered

 

coffee

 

stirred

 

tiaras


mildly

 

protesting

 

coarseness

 

beautiful

 

pinned

 

breasts

 

blackness

 
Sipping
 
railings
 

flattened


pavement

 

pressed

 
pointed
 

bruised

 

reassured

 

laughed

 
servant
 

exhumed

 

battening

 
thoughts

liqueur

 
living
 

comfort

 

Eleven

 
ghouls
 

narcissus

 

tulips

 

Dinner

 

washed

 

delicately


silver

 
glittered
 
Seemed
 

insolent

 

Amused

 

poised

 

Mocking

 

understand

 

cobbled

 
mutters