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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 7:53:48 GMT -5
Fine ladies soon are all forgotten, And goldenrod is dust when dead, The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten And cobwebs tent the brightest head.
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 7:55:08 GMT -5
Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!-- But time goes on, and will, unheeding, Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn, And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 7:57:07 GMT -5
Selections from Turns and Movies
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 7:58:46 GMT -5
I. Rose and Murray
AFTER the movie, when the lights come up, He takes her powdered hand behind the wings; She, all in yellow, like a buttercup, Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings; And with a silent, gliding step they move Over the footlights, in familiar glare, Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love, He fawning close on her with idiot stare. Swiftly they cross the stage. O lyric ease! The drunken music follows the sure feet, The swaying elbows, intergliding knees, Moving with slow precision on the beat. She was a waitress in a restaurant, He picked her up and taught her how to dance. She feels his arms, lifts an appealing glance, But knows he spent last evening with Zudora; And knows that certain changes are before her.
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 7:59:02 GMT -5
The brilliant spotlight circles them around, Flashing the spangles on her weighted dress. He mimics wooing her, without a sound, Flatters her with a smoothly smiled caress. He fears that she will someday queer his act; Feeling his anger. He will quit her soon. He nods for faster music. He will contract Another partner, under another moon. Meanwhile, 'smooth stuff.' He lets his dry eyes flit Over the yellow faces there below; Maybe he'll cut down on his drinks a bit, Not to annoy her, and spoil the show. . . Zudora, waiting for her turn to come, Watches them from the wings and fatly leers At the girl's younger face, so white and dumb, And the fixed, anguished eyes, ready for tears.
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 7:59:26 GMT -5
She lies beside him, with a false wedding-ring, In a cheap room, with moonlight on the floor; The moonlit curtains remind her much of spring, Of a spring evening on the Coney shore. And while he sleeps, knowing she ought to hate, She still clings to the lover that she knew,-- The one that, with a pencil on a plate, Drew a heart and wrote, 'I'd die for you.'
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:00:07 GMT -5
IV. Duval's Birds
The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness, Circled three times above the upturned faces With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings, And then returned to stagger on her finger. She bowed and smiled, eliciting applause. . . The property man hated her dirty birds. But it had taken years--yes, years--to train them, To shoulder flags, strike bells by tweaking strings, Or climb sedately little flights of stairs. When they were stubborn, she tapped them with a wand, And her eyes glittered a little under the eyebrows. The red one flapped and flapped on a swinging wire; The little white ones winked round yellow eyes.
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:00:32 GMT -5
VI. Violet Moore and Bert Moore
He thinks her little feet should pass Where dandelions star thickly grass; Her hands should lift in sunlit air Sea-wind should tangle up her hair. Green leaves, he says, have never heard A sweeter ragtime mockingbird, Nor has the moon-man ever seen, Or man in the spotlight, leering green, Such a beguiling, smiling queen.
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:01:13 GMT -5
Her eyes, he says, are stars at dusk, Her mouth as sweet as red-rose musk; And when she dances his young heart swells With flutes and viols and silver bells; His brain is dizzy, his senses swim, When she slants her ragtime eyes at him. . .
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:02:07 GMT -5
Moonlight shadows, he bids her see, Move no more silently than she. It was this way, he says, she came, Into his cold heart, bearing flame. And now that his heart is all on fire Will she refuse his heart's desire?-- And O! has the Moon Man ever seen (Or the spotlight devil, leering green) A sweeter shadow upon a screen?
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:03:01 GMT -5
VII. Zudora
Here on the pale beach, in the darkness; With the full moon just to rise; They sit alone, and look over the sea, Or into each other's eyes. . .
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:03:31 GMT -5
She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand, Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand.
'A lovely night,' he says, 'the moon, Comes up for you and me. Just like a blind old spotlight there, Fizzing across the sea!'
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:04:21 GMT -5
She pays no heed, nor even turns her head: He slides his arm around her waist instead.
'Why don't we do a sketch together-- Those songs you sing are swell. Where did you get them, anyway? They suit you awfully well.'
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:04:59 GMT -5
She will not turn to him--will not resist. Impassive, she submits to being kissed.
'My husband wrote all four of them. You know,--my husband drowned. He was always sickly, soon depressed. . .' But still she hears the sound
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Post by ---gush!--- on Jun 18, 2007 8:05:43 GMT -5
Of a stateroom door shut hard, and footsteps going Swiftly and steadily, and the dark sea flowing.
She hears the dark sea flowing, and sees his eyes Hollow with disenchantment, sick surprise,--
And hate of her whom he had loved too well. . . She lowers her eyes, demurely prods a shell.
'Yes. We might do an act together. That would be very nice.' He kisses her passionately, and thinks She's carnal, but cold as ice.
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