Mirrorball by John Muckle Paul Deaton exalting journeys to the end

exalting journeys to the end of lyric

everything is out to eat you and nothing is really what it seems

thanks to the author’s uncanny ability to reach the universal within the local

William Blake

and not simply because her poems are so often filled with the play of light

Mirrorball by John Muckle Paul Deaton exalting journeys to the endWhat are those distorted smears of colour in the mirror ball? Are they people? Look closer. Yes. They are people. They are us. And there am I, a small pink smudge, an arched eyebrow or perhaps not: retinal overload, a trick of the light. How do people make sense of themselves, and what do those splintered shafts of vari coloured liquidity have to tell us about the skins they are bouncing off? Who knows. The speaker of these lines is himself caught up