POESIE PUR

Among the students last night I heard
Yahuda Amichai. The poet hunched
at his lectern – desire and a Roman arch

plus cheering confusion, since every twelfth word
disappeared in his accent's lush oasis,
the reading perfect, the poems all love,

no bills to pay in severe black folders
to waiters brushing at crumbs in their search
for larger tips of meaning, only

thorns, blood oranges, Negev warmth
and The Poetry Girl, the soft-voiced one
who'll take a boy home if he's lucky, who writes

out back afternoons at her coffeehouse table,
distant gaze, pen at her lip,
serious sun in her copious hair.

Time, this once treat beauty fair.
May her legs even now clasp around her lover
in chill dawn up in her one room flat

where late last night over jasmine tea
they spoke of their classes, Yahuda Amichai,
the lit mag, movies, earnest matters,

and then came in silence: pure poetry;
then, in full darkness,
all that matters.

Barry Spacks

If you've any comments on his poems, Barry Spacks would be pleased to hear from you.
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