
Dippold the Optician
What do you see now?
Globes of red, yellow, purple.
Just a moment! And now?
My father and mother and sisters.
Yes! And now?
Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces.
Try this.
A field of grain—a city.
Very good! And now?
A young woman with angels bending over her.
A heavier lens! And now?
Many women with bright eyes and open lips.
Try this.
Just a goblet on a table.
Oh I see! Try this lens!
Just an open space—I see nothing in particular.
Well, now!
Pine trees, a lake, a summer sky.
That’s better. And now?
A book.
Read a page for me.
I can’t. My eyes are carried beyond the page.
Try this lens.
Depths of air.
Excellent! And now?
Light, just light, making everything below it a toy world.
Very well, we’ll make the glasses accordingly.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters

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Related quotes
You are the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does. If you seek yourself, you rob the lens of its transparency. You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency, your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end, and remain purely as a means.
quote by Dag Hammarskjold

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You are... the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give, and possess the light as the lens does.
quote by Dag Hammarskjold

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Helen Wiped Her Glasses
Helen wiped
her thick lens glasses
with the hem
of her school dress
and you watched
her finger and thumb
move around the glass
in circular motion
Can you see much
without your glasses?
you asked
she looked up at you
and said
Not much
you for instance
are like a small tree
without leaves
with thin branches
hanging down
you smiled and saw
as she lifted the hem
a glimpse of thigh
white as one kept
out of sun and light
But what do I look like
with your glasses on?
you asked
looking at her face
and eyes that squinted
quite naked
without the specs
A boy who's cheeky
but often shy
especially around girls
and their blue eyes
and dark curls
and she giggled
and dropped
the hem of
her dress
and put her glasses on
and her eyes enlarged
and gazed at you
taking in
your unkempt hair
and school boy grin
and at that moment
as she stood stifling
her giggle with one
small hand
you sensed a love
you neither had before
nor could
in the light of day
and innocence of youth
quite understand.
poem by Terry Collett

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Perverse
I can't even look at you
Remembering what you meant to me
Remembering now how it felt to walk alone
When all around was laughter and chaos
Looking at your eyes
Still and unblinking for the lens all seeing
The lens is killer
The observer perverse
Yes
I am
Perverse
poem by David Lacey

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Open Your Eyes
What on earth are you doing here, in the western world?
Another situation yeah youre a different girl
You have lived your life dreaming you were someone else
Succeedings believing in yourself
Open your eyes
And see the world that stands before you now
Open your eyes
And see the world that stands in front of you
You have spent your days trying something new
You have looked at magazine girls wishing that they were you
Do you see in photographs an angel that once was you?
Does she tell you stories that are true?
If I could stand with you right now and speak my mind
I would tell you no lies
I would shoot straight between the eyes
You have stared a thousand times right into the lens
Have you ever thought just once, does it all make sense?
Your beautys eternal so dont just pretend
Got to wake up girl, or its the end
song performed by by Asia

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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These Lost, These Come At A Cost Women
I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women
Given a glance then a dance
Given the means to live by the fiends of these beautiful women
Lost in a daze of green
A daze I've seen
Spotlights on these beautiful women
Eyes on these and cheers for these beautiful women
Lies in these and fears in these lost women
These come at a cost women
Show, bought and ready to go
At a price higher then they know
These women worth more then gold
Priceless
But still sold
Oh these lost women
Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That your beautiful
Not meant to be bought women
Beauty needs to be taught in these women
Instead of this that is not
Left in them to rot
Oh these beautiful women
These I've seen
Women whos pupils are all green
Men whos eyes are gazed in between wide thighs
Silent cries eventually taking its toll
Night after night eventually breaking the soul
I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women
Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That you’re beautiful
Not meant to be bought women.
poem by Bikramjyoti Kashyop

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The End Of The Chapter
Ah, yes, the chapter ends to-day;
We even lay the book away;
But oh, how sweet the moments sped
Before the final page was read!
We tried to read between the lines
The Author's deep-concealed designs;
But scant reward such search secures;
You saw my heart and I saw yours.
The Master,--He who penned the page
And bade us read it,--He is sage:
And what he orders, you and I
Can but obey, nor question why.
We read together and forgot
The world about us. Time was not.
Unheeded and unfelt, it fled.
We read and hardly knew we read.
Until beneath a sadder sun,
We came to know the book was done.
Then, as our minds were but new lit,
It dawned upon us what was writ;
And we were startled. In our eyes,
Looked forth the light of great surprise.
Then as a deep-toned tocsin tolls,
A voice spoke forth: 'Behold your souls!'
I do, I do. I cannot look
Into your eyes: so close the book.
But brought it grief or brought it bliss,
No other page shall read like this!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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These Lost, These Come At A Cost Women
I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women
Given a glance then a dance
Given the means to live by the fiends of these beautiful women
Lost in a daze of green
A daze I've seen
Spotlights on these beautiful women
Eyes on these and cheers for these beautiful women
Lies in these and fears in these lost women
These come at a cost women
Show, bought and ready to go
At a price higher then they know
These women worth more then gold
Priceless
But still sold
Oh these lost women
Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That your beautiful
Not meant to be bought women
Beauty needs to be taught in these women
Instead of this that is not
Left in them to rot
Oh these beautiful women
These I've seen
Women whos pupils are all green
Men whos eyes are gazed in between wide thighs
Silent cries eventually taking its toll
Night after night eventually breaking the soul
I see these city lights and flashy cars
These beautiful women lost under stars
These daughters and sisters and mothers
These lost women
These come at a cost women
Don't you know your beautiful
Not hot women
That you’re beautiful
Not meant to be bought women.
©Copyright 2008
poem by Regan Mackenzie

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Cleverness is like a lens with a very sharp focus. Wisdom is more like a wide-angle lens.
Edward De Bono in Textbook of Wisdom

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Light And Lightness Of Our Beings
let the soft light land on my face
let it stay there for a while
as i close my eyes
and lay myself in the lightness
of my being
my hands are soft as
the hair of a rabbit
my lips open
to let my tongue wet
its red sides
i am as light as a feather
lifted up by air
i become light myself
rising from the walls
and the ceiling
i am freedom from
sanity i am the conqueror
of the logical order
there are no numbers
just an open space
there are no days now
and neither do nights exist
i am eternal
and i am inside this
space beyond
any space
i am a ray of light
i am a shooting star
i am a black hole
i am lost and no one
shall ever find me
except you, the one i love.
you make me feel so light.
i am carried away.
hold me and kiss me.
i am all yours.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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For Your Attention....
have a little time
to this page
it used to be a blank page
an emptiness, a void, a stare
it is calling for attention
its silence like roots call for more depths
it is not the normal page
that you open and leave
with your wet fingers
and dry tongue
listen with your eyes
let your ears see
this is this poem that perhaps
may not make you sleep....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Suicide Note
'You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is
a matter of my life' - Artaud
'At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers
to my daughters and their daughters' - Anonymous
Better,
despite the worms talking to
the mare’s hoof in the field;
better,
despite the season of young girls
dropping their blood;
better somehow
to drop myself quickly
into an old room.
Better (someone said)
not to be born
and far better
not to be born twice
at thirteen
where the boardinghouse,
each year a bedroom,
caught fire.
Dear friend,
I will have to sink with hundreds of others
on a dumbwaiter into hell.
I will be a light thing.
I will enter death
like someone’s lost optical lens.
Life is half enlarged.
The fish and owls are fierce today.
Life tilts backward and forward.
Even the wasps cannot find my eyes.
Yes,
eyes that were immediate once.
Eyes that have been truly awake,
eyes that told the whole story—
poor dumb animals.
Eyes that were pierced,
little nail heads,
light blue gunshots.
And once with
a mouth like a cup,
clay colored or blood colored,
open like the breakwater
for the lost ocean
and open like the noose
for the first head.
Once upon a time
my hunger was for Jesus.
O my hunger! My hunger!
Before he grew old
he rode calmly into Jerusalem
in search of death.
This time
I certainly
do not ask for understanding
and yet I hope everyone else
will turn their heads when an unrehearsed fish jumps
on the surface of Echo Lake;
when moonlight,
its bass note turned up loud,
hurts some building in Boston,
when the truly beautiful lie together.
I think of this, surely,
and would think of it far longer
if I were not… if I were not
at that old fire.
I could admit
that I am only a coward
crying me me me
and not mention the little gnats, the moths,
forced by circumstance
to suck on the electric bulb.
But surely you know that everyone has a death,
his own death,
waiting for him.
So I will go now
without old age or disease,
wildly but accurately,
knowing my best route,
carried by that toy donkey I rode all these years,
never asking, “Where are we going?”
We were riding (if I’d only known)
to this.
Dear friend,
please do not think
that I visualize guitars playing
or my father arching his bone.
I do not even expect my mother’s mouth.
I know that I have died before—
once in November, once in June.
How strange to choose June again,
so concrete with its green breasts and bellies.
Of course guitars will not play!
The snakes will certainly not notice.
New York City will not mind.
At night the bats will beat on the trees,
knowing it all,
seeing what they sensed all day.
poem by Anne Sexton

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To Thee
Draw close the lattice and the door!
Shut out the very stars above!
No other eyes than mine shall pore
Upon this thrilling tale of love.
As, since the book was open last,
Along its dear and sacred text
No other eyes than thine have passed --
Be mine the eyes that trace it next!
Oh! very nobly is it wrought, --
This web of love's divinest light, --
But not to feed my soul with thought,
Hang I upon the book to-night;
I read it only for thy sake,
To every page my lips I press --
The very leaves appear to make
A silken rustle like thy dress.
And so, as each blest page I turn,
I seem, with many a secret thrill,
To touch a soft white hand, and burn
To clasp and kiss it at my will.
Oh! if a fancy be so sweet,
These shadowy fingers touching mine --
How wildly would my pulses beat,
If they COULD feel the beat of thine!
poem by Henry Timrod

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Colors Passing Through Us
Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.
Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.
Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.
Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.
Yellow as a goat's wise and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.
Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.
Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.
Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors' buttons. Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.
Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other's arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like strings of fire.
poem by Marge Piercy

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Lens Of Life
We look at life through different angles
trying always to get the best shot.
Some times the camera lens is dirty
and a fuzzy picture is all you get.
We clean the lens and take another shot,
hoping for a better picture,
one without regret.
7 February 2008
poem by David Harris

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Smile For The Camera
I see you standing out there in the hall
You seem so nervous waiting for his call
I focus on you
I reach for the lens
The shutter snaps again
(smile)
Smile for the camera
You know
(smile)
The camera never ever lies
Ive been watching you with
Eager hungry eyes
For sometime
(smile)
I hold my lens in the middle of the night
Visions of you dancing in the strobe light
Up on my wall is a picture or two
Of someone who looks like you
(smile)
Smile for the camera
You know
(smile)
The camera is my wide lens
(smile)
You know the camera is my private eye
I got color transparencies
I got black and white
(smile)
Smile for the camera
You know that
(smile)
Cameras never ever lies
(smile)
Ive been watching you with telephoto eyes
For some time
(smile)
Smile for me
(come on)
Smile for me
(come on)
Smile for me
(come on)
Smile for me
(come on)
Smile for me
(come on)
Smile for me
(come on)
(smile)
Wont you smile for the camera
Wont you smile for the
Click, click, click
(smile)
Smile for the camera
(smile)
Smile for the camera
(smile)
Smile for the camera
(smile)
Smile for the camera
(smile)
Smile for the camera
(smile)
You know
(smile)
The camera is my private eye
(smile)
Ive got color transparencies
(smile)
Ive got black and white
(smile)
Smile for the camera
You know that
(smile)
Cameras never ever lies
(smile)
Ive been watching you with telephoto eyes
(smile)
Smile for the camera
You know that
(smile)
Camera is my private eye
(smile)
Ive been watching you
With eager hungry eyes for some time
song performed by by Rick Springfield

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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They say a lot of women would like to see me naked, but there's not a lens long enough for that.
quote by Andy Garcia

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Big and bold and defined
you are like a lens
You are like a lens
A big round thing of
Convex glass
Magnifying every minute
Thing or small matters
Every word every letter
Well on a positive side
All words become so clear
And they appear so loud
On the other hand, don’t
Magnify sunshine lest it
Becomes so hot
and turn To fire and
we get burned we get charred.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Do Not Expect
Do not expect that if your book falls open
to a certain page, that any phrase
you read will make a difference today,
or that the voices you might overhear
when the wind moves through the yellow-green
and golden tent of autumn, speak to you.
Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the
dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon
your shadow walks beside you on the wall,
and the days stay long and heavy underneath
the distant rumor of the harvest. One
more summer gone,
and one way or another you survive,
dull or regretful, never learning that
nothing is hidden in the obvious
changes of the world, that even the dim
reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass
is more than you will ever understand.
And only briefly then
you touch, you see, you press against
the surface of impenetrable things.
poem by Dana Gioia

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For my sisters
The women I call sisters
Are always there
The women I call sisters
Will always care
The women I call sisters
Can make me smile when times are blue
The women I call sisters
Are always very true.
The women I call sisters
By choice, are my best of friends
The women I call sisters
Will be there with me till the world ends
The women I call sisters
Are blessings from God above
The women I call sisters
Are sisters that I'll always love.
poem by Trinette Naidoo

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