The Spell Cast Over

The Spell Cast Over


In the old days we could see nakedness
only in the burlesque houses.
In the lavish theatres left over
from vaudeville,
ruined in the Great Depression.
What had been grand gestures
of huge chandeliers and mythic heroes
courting the goddess on the ceiling.
Now the chandeliers were grimy
and the ceilings hanging in tatters.
It was like the Russian aristocrats
fleeing the Revolution.
Ending up as taxi-drivers in Paris
dressed in their worn-out elegance.
It was like that in the Pittsburgh
of my days.
Old men of shabby clothes in the empty
seats at the Roxy Theatre dreaming
of the sumptuous headliners
slowly discarding layers of their
lavish gowns. Baring the secret
beauty to the men of their season.
The old men came from their one room
(with its single, forbidden gas range)
to watch the strippers.
To remember what used to be.
Like the gray-haired men of Ilium
who waited each morning for Helen
to cross over to the temple
in her light raiment.
The waning men longed to escape
from the spell cast over them by time.
To escape the imprisoned longing.
To insist on dispensation.
To see their young hearts
just one more time.
Those famous women like honeycombs.
Women moving to the old music again.
That former grace of flesh.
The sheen of them in the sunlight,
to watch them walking by the sea.


Jack Gilbert

Posted over on The New Yorker