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"But I, whose virtues are the definitions Of the analytic mind, can neither close The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech." -- W.B.Yeats
In the Museum
Came down the long halls faster and faster, Ghosts of lost nations at my heels, All the impedimenta of perished countries Grabbing at me from glass cases. Set my feet down strangely in the marble rooms Where unanswerable sphinxes still looked questions And turned through a small door with hope Quickening for a restroom, new and disinfected. No. There, beyond plush ropes looped on brass, Here, with creamy cupids leaning over-- I halted like a caught thief, an unwanted stranger In that green and gold Venetian bedroom. I stood there, trapped, waiting for the lady Who was coming to comb out her Titian hair. Her brush had waited there on the gilded table, And the mirror was tarnished after four hundred years. The wall-blinded windows which had seen the gay canal; The threading tapestries that but remembered color; The light preserved from an antique afternoon; The tall bed soft under the frayed brocade. Wanting to flee yet fearing, I thought Of her white Venetian thighs and her cupped breasts Under the coverlet. And of a gondola scraping outside As she raised her head, lips parted, waiting.... Waiting with anxiety, I saw the lover toss Away his crimson cloak and take his love. And turned Away then, thinking still of all the bird-boned Girls and all the knees that strained in that deep bed. I left, still hearing their faint, immortal cries, And walked down the hall laughing at whole centuries.© Carl Selph, 1952 First published in Prairie SchoonerThe Antiquarian
At ten o'clock in punto Signor Fausto's key turns in the lock and the articulated bars fly up, reponsive, in the mercantile chorale performed six days a week in this old street of shops and palaces. He has arrived, as always, small, upright, upon a tall, black bicycle, his head seemingly unaware of his rotating feet, and steps into his world of busts and choice bibelots, of velvets sumptuous with gold, marbles inlaid with malachite, rock-crystal chandeliers.... A friend stops briefly, struck to see displayed among the gems a mouldering pink flamingo, late the property of a straniera scandalosa. Fausto looks a moment at the old, amazing bird and then, hands clasped, lips pursed, toward the skies. The company he keeps has kept him young. "Feathers are back," he says.© Carl Selph, 1999
Glamour Girl, Firenze
for Jan She's called "La Romanina." Everyone in town knows who she is! Who else would step from a Mercedes dripping mink, with shorts and halter underneath! Who else attract the biggest magazines when wed in the Comune to a Greek! Who hasn't read the book that tells it all -- Io, la Romanina, story of the beautiful but poor -- and gutsy -- blonde who has it rough but with true grit and luck and heaps of sex soon makes it to the top -- to cars and real estate and love, true love! To think she started out as just a boy!© Carl Selph, 1999
Foreign Student
Saïd from Baghdad sells cheap leather goods At a stand on wheels under the Uffizi arches. The Iranians have killed two of his cousins. He won't go back home. "Non sono matto," he says. Seven years ago he entered the university. He hasn't yet quite finished his thesis, he explains, To the blonde agreeable northern tourists And the men he meets some nights at the porno cinema. Right now he's giving a sunburned Swede a good-bye squeeze. What he gave her last night will require a course of treatment.© Carl Selph, 1995 First published in Poetry Motel
A Curse Upon a Rich Old Man
who refuses to pay an honest debt You started poor but married rich, Well paid to scratch a neural itch, Look good while riding in the back Of a Rolls-Royce or Cadillac, Select the best bordeaux or hock, Know who designed a woman's frock, And when all other dirt was said Tell who did what to whom in bed. May God, who is not over-fond Of large-ish frog in small-ish pond, Afflict your limousines with flats, Your house with rising damp and rats, Deprive your pencil of its lead, Drain off the trivia from your head, Remove the sources of your rents, And fill your empty skull with sense. In life a most severe affliction, For which God gives his benediction, A punishment which has no match, Much like an itch without a scratch, A constant and exquisite pain, Is being broke but with a brain.© Carl Selph, 1999All text on this page is copyrighted by Carl Selph and appears here by permission. All rights reserved. It may not be archived beyond one personal electronic copy for offline reading; such a copy must include the entire text of the present notice and the author's name. It may not be printed, posted on a web-site, distributed publicly or privately, used or quoted in whole or in part, or published in any manner or form whatsoever without the author's explicit permission. E-mail Wordreign to contact Carl Selph and your request will be promptly forwarded.
Carl Selph Poetry Index Original Writing Page Images from Myst © 1993 Cyan, Inc. and Riven © 1997 Cyan, Inc. All rights reserved. Myst® and Riven® are registered trademarks of Cyan, Inc. Used by permission.