Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Drink With Me

                              Sargent

CARRY ON TUESDAY
asks us to use the first line from the song sung in
'Les Miserables'

DRINK WITH ME

Drink with me to days gone by!
Forget that they were flawed.
Time adds glamour to each scene.
Memory's a two-edged sword.
Gaze at his misty photograph.
Ah! That, indeed, was love.
The smiles, the kisses, the romance...
That's what you're thinking of.
Time has blotted-out the hours
Of waiting for his call;
The fact that he could be so brusque
And make you feel so small.
In deep recesses of your brain
The imperfections cower
Yet you remember living through
A truly shining hour.
One imagines ancient ladies
With only sweet recall,
But I have now discovered
It's not like that at all.
A certain nasty realism 
Has crept into my thoughts.
I have memories of passion
But there are other sorts.
I'll drink with you to days gone by
But I'll only sip because
Although I'd like to fantasise
I remember how it was.
*
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PERSPECTIVE

There is something about perspective that is very satisfying,
Something which seems, artistically, so right.
One's eye delights in tracing lines which, eventually, disappear,
Arrowing to nothing, out of sight.
I've heard talk of 'discovery'; how people, long ago,
Didn't understand perspective in the least!
But how could they not notice the diminishing of lines
And not appreciate this visual feast?
Brunelleschi and Alberti  first 'discovered' what is seen
Quite clearly by the un-artistic eye!
I can't believe that no-one else had noticed this before!
That something obvious just passed them by!
I'll never understand this fact, but here is my home town,
With beautiful perspective on display.
The Middle Ages may have been blindfolded for a while,
But perspective is a joy that's here to stay.
*

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