Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OPTICAL ILLUSION, by KATHLEEN JESSIE RAINE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OPTICAL ILLUSION, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The twinkling of an eye, and the boxes on the floor
Last Line: Ambiguous nothingness seems all things and all places.
Subject(s): Hallucinations And Illusions; Magic


The twinkling of an eye, and the boxes on the floor
Hang from the ceiling. Really they are not boxes,
But only certain black lines on white paper,
(The programme of an hour of magic an illusion)
And, but for the eye, not even black on white,
But a vast molecular configuration,
A tremor in the void, discord in silence.
Boehme agrees with Jasper Maskelyne
That all is magic in the mind of man.

The boxes, then, depending on my mind
Hang in the air or stand on solid ground;
Real or ideal, still spaces to explore:
Eden itself was only a gestalt.

My house, my rooms, the landscape of my world
Hang, like this honeycomb, upon a thought,
And breeding-cells still hatch within my brain
Winged impulses,
(And still the bees will have it that earth has flowers)
But the same dust is the garden and the desert.
Ambiguous nothingness seems all things and all places.





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