La Giaconda

Across the vermin ages
        La Gioconda smiles;
With pity or with pleasure?
        Who knows a woman´s wiles?

What secrets softly whisper
        Lovely lip and eye?
That life to purpose gyrates -
        Or that it´s all a lie?

Her lips and eyes are mirrors
        Of stone and star and breath,
And tell how each man, lonely,
        Wastes to empty death.

The subject matter of these poems is the essentials of human existence; the themes are expressed with great skill. Although the sonnet, villanelle, and triolet are used, most often the forms are not traditional.

Other Borealis Press titles by Glenn Clever:

Age of the Astronauts (1971)
O Can (1972)
Count Down (1974)
Alberta Days (1974)