Looking away

The machine by the lake pumps our dirty goods into the lake. Our looking away meant looking at the orange sun above the tree so the filth of our town was mere machine-sound and not smell.

A girl of half breasts looks down from a balcony ,at walking men .Looking away meant not thinking of Aldington’s girl of no breasts ,with blooming possibility that she was not Helen of Sparta but actually a whore that waited in the Oxford street in the night.

Looking away meant looking at scraps of half conversations to catch a mere whiff of talk that comes riding on the night air with the fragrance of jasmines from a passing woman’s hair .

Looking away meant not hearing the whole of the conversation.

(* Daisy -A poem by Richard Aldington)