Poetry Community

New Glasses To See Better and Better Be Seen

Didactic Verse (#didactic) 30 July 2016
by John Anderson © 2016 See Collection => Email comments and feedback to John

You've noticed the blur, been squinting and straining,
just to see what you saw clearly before.
Now you can only read books
which you hold at arms length, like fouled babies.

You can no longer get by, reading with glasses off.
Vanity's avoidance won't work anymore.
Lenses scratched, view distorted,
Your vision is too short,
too long, unfocused, all fuzzy.

Your vision is stymied and blighted.
It's time for new glasses,
to see better and be seen better,
bespectacled and enframed a new.

Rush for the appointment, Optometrist to see,
Greets with a smile, "Come in, You can See Me Now"
You get invited to sit in chair
in darkened lair festooned
with glinting heavy metal goggle devices.

There is an array of lenses that look like chicks in nest,
hungry to be fed, crying: "See Me, Feel Me, Touch me, Pick me, Try me."

The scene is like that of a dentist who in a flash,
saw the light and changed jobs
Swapping eye for tooth, lens for drill,
glare for probe, frames for dentures and
make love first for sight, second for tooth.

One eye covered, the eye test begins
with stark chart glaring at you.
"Now tell me, which is the lowest line you can read?"

Flash of guilt as you squint and strain
to make guesses from lines well below your limit.
Surely my legible line can't be that low.
Surely "I'm not as blind as a bat."

Slowly you blurt out your letters
you recognise and guess,
blinking letter by letter, one go at a time.

"No, Sorry. Try again, No not quite right"
"OK, Let's restart from the top."

You wonder, what betides you
if your guesses from vain bottom lines too deep, are right!
Will it mean squinting and straining forever, because you lied with your letters?

You move on. After the next eye covered,
your chart reading is done,
your lying eye die is cast.

Now, it is time to don the giant metallic goggles with lenses slotted in, and tested one by one.
"Is this better....?", Or ....worse...?.
"Try this one - Better.. (click) or Worse (flip), Better or .......Worse?"
Flipping and flopping, it's so hard to tell. Before and after, endless movie reruns.
What if my guessed flop is wrong? What if the flip was better and you made an error?

Finally, it's over, you're released from the test chamber. It's done!
Lenses back in a week. Better sight or not, all will be revealed.

Ready to go home, but wait there, only 'Act One' is done.
The curtain rises on 'Act Two'
'Be Seen Better', with plot "How a new self-image got framed".

Laid out before you are rows and rows
of persona spectacle frames,
lined up in a rogues gallery
of what you might become.

For the spectacles you wear on your nose
are right in your face,
they define and en-frame you.
These spectacles frame your eyes
and so define you smuch more than hair,
make-up or clothes.
The frames you choose set how you
want to look and be seen,
by all who look into your eyes.

You feel naked and alone faced with an awful choice
of how you next want to be seen.
You try lane after lane, frame after frame.
Those frames make you look fat,
those your eyes too piggy,
those offset your long face.

A moon face arises, a professor leers up,
a clown chuckles, a lover leers,
a banker, a baker appears.

It is like crime identity line-up,
a rehearsal or interview.
How do you want to be seen?
Too academic, too silly, too gaudy,
too bright, too flashy, too reserved,
too nice, wrong color and square
How can you possibly choose?

Time's up. You've run out of time
That last set you looked at, will have to do.
A week from now you'll finally know
just how much better you'll see and be seen.