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