  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-spirting 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. |
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