Metallic waves of people jar <br />Through crackling green toward the bar <br /> <br />Where on the tables chattering-white <br />The sharp drinks quarrel with the light. <br /> <br />Those coloured muslin blinds the smiles, <br />Shroud wooden faces in their wiles — <br /> <br />Sometimes they splash like water (you <br />Yourself reflected in their hue). <br /> <br />The conversation loud and bright <br />Seems spinal bars of shunting light <br /> <br />In firework-spurting greenery. <br />O complicate machinery <br /> <br />For building Babel, iron crane <br />Beneath your hair, that blue-ribbed mane <br /> <br />In noise and murder like the sea <br />Without its mutability! <br /> <br />Outside the bar where jangling heat <br />Seems out of tune and off the beat — <br /> <br />A concertina's glycerine <br />Exudes, and mirrors in the green <br /> <br />Your soul: pure glucose edged with hints <br />Of tentative and half-soiled tints.<br /><br />Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/portrait-of-a-barmaid/
