Sunday, March 15, 2020

Incognita

Read "Incognita" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/259/incognita

This poem from Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) is a beautiful portrait of a complex woman, and a lyrical recognition that no person can ever truly know another.  

That remote wonder is really captured in the lines "A tarnished empress on a broad doubloon, / Flame-edged and glowing."  Here CAS captures a profile of regal beauty, but by invoking a similar image embossed on a coin, he acknowledges a certain remoteness, where the observer is forever on the outside.

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