Explore "To a Corpulent Singer" by Maxwell Bodenheim on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. Bulging maturity / Constructs an unfair version / Of curves not visible / To eyes upon the outside face.
/ II. If a soul is more / Slender than the motives of wind, / Flesh provides the necessary / Privacy, and in a rising voice / The soul proclaims its gratefulness.
/ III. Who has watched a bear / Pawing his idea of a breeze? / The audience in this falsely walled / Room is pouncing awkwardly / Upon the small part of a singer's voice. / The actual sounds swing easily / To eyes and ears beyond the edge of earth.
/ IV. And if to this meandering / Of metaphysical remarks / I should add a face / Where tragedy experiments with lanterns / To aid a long, sharp nose and wondering lips, / And laughter is conscious of being / The excited, misunderstood child of a soul, / The singer would receive / Final details of her disguise.