Shaving fair

A problem with being willing
to confess to permitting one-
self a degree of enjoyment in
poetic imagery, not fully ad-
apted to that pleasure, is a
reputation to which this can
give rise, of unfairness to
the work of art. I find I am
habitually unfair to the work
of Anne Carson in this way,
and it's not much exoneration
to confess, she is not alone.

And one does like exoneration.
It's just not why I read her.
I find a music in her phrases
I could not exchange for any
glossary, any rosetta stone.

Some may call one to surren-
der naïve belief, given the
catastrophe pending from it
every day, by cruel design.
What evangelic genius is at
work, to serve such scorn?

          It takes practice to shave the skin off the light.

          Polarity

                  means

                        plus or

                                minus

                        total

          night.

          Penguins topple like astonished dice

          But

              New York

                      barbers are good

                 on

          ice.

          Morning swings in a moonsplashed hole

          Time 

               zones

                     jam together

                                  at

                               the

          pole.

          His scissors blaze on open black water

          She

              likes

                    the

                        quiet she

                                  may

                          be

                     his

          daughter.

          "Whatsoever of it has flown away is past.

          Whatsoever remains is future."

             (Augustine, Confessions, XI)

Anne Carson

Men in the Off Hours

  The Barber Shop

op. cit.

Random House, 2000©

Louren Groenewald

Johannes Westerwald

Bettina duToit, photography