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This poem is taken from PN Review 82, Volume 18 Number 2, November - December 1991.

The Coat of Many Colours Clive Wilmer

Do not interpretations belong to God?

JOSEPH:

Rich colour signifies deep inwardness.
The bending sheaves, the sun's, the moon's decline
Are colours in this coat, my father's gift.
Some bleed and blend. Others, like potentates,
Stand out - see! - urgent and peremptory.


ONE OF THE BROTHERS:

All his tall stories, dreams he calls them, stress
His own pre-eminence, its outward sign
That coat he swaggers in … What but that gift
Has he to show? … How his pretension grates,
The smugness posing as authority!


POTIPHAR'S WIFE:
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