Reported Missing

Can you give me a precise description?

Said the policeman. Her lips, I told him,

Were soft. Could you give me, he said, pencil

Raised a metaphor? Soft as an open mouth,

I said. Were there any noticeable

Peculiarities? he asked. Her hair hung

Heavily, I said. I told him I could recall

Little but its distinctive scent. What do

You mean, he asked, by distinctive? It had

The smell of woman’s hair, I said. Where

Were you? he asked. Closer than I am to

Anyone at present, I said, level

With her mouth, level with her eyes. Her eyes?

He said, what about her eyes? There were two,

I said, both black. It has been established,

He said, that eyes cannot, outside common

Usage, be black; are you implying that

Violence was used? Only the gentle

Hammer blow of her kisses, the scent

Of her breath, the … Quite, said the policeman,

Standing , but I regret that we know of

No one answering to that description.

By Barry Cole

NOTES

Barry Cole (born 1936), English poet. He has a very closely arranged, disciplined style with hints of the grotesque.

Ex. 52. Study the following and answer the questions.

Free verse is poetry without a regular metrical pattern and without rhyme.

A run-on line is a line of verse which has no pause at its end but runs on into the next line. A line of poetry that does have a pause at its end (usually indicated by a comma or full stop) is called an end-stopped line.

1. Describe the situation presented here.

   • Who is speaking to whom?

   • What is the speaker’s problem?

2. What do you think the speaker’s motives for looking for this woman are?

3. Characterize the speech of the two people talking here.

What kind of information does the speaker give the policeman about the missing girl?

• What kind of information does the policeman want to get?

Do they understand each other? Give reasons.

What might be the central idea expressed in this poem?

How does the conversation end? Why does it end like this?