Kenneth Slessor

Here you will find the Poem Polarities of poet Kenneth Slessor

Polarities

SOMETIMES she is like sherry, like the sun through a vessel of glass, 
Like light through an oriel window in a room of yellow wood; 
Sometimes she is the colour of lions, of sand in the fire of noon, 
Sometimes as bruised with shadows as the afternoon. 
Sometimes she moves like rivers, sometimes like trees; 
Or tranced and fixed like South Pole silences; 
Sometimes she is beauty, sometimes fury, sometimes neither, 
Sometimes nothing, drained of meaning, null as water. 
Sometimes, when she makes pea-soup or plays me Schumann, 
I love her one way; sometimes I love her another 
More disturbing way when she opens her mouth in the dark; 
Sometimes I like her with camellias, sometimes with a parsley-stalk, 
Sometimes I like her swimming in a mirror on the wall; 
Sometimes I don't like her at all.