"Refinement" (short prose poetry)

Behold! A man - corpulent yet sanguine, visage wrinkled but eyes inundated with potent twinkle, with the biting loquacity of Socrates and cultivation of Picasso, fondling his new lush composition framed by a sumptuous golden halo embellished with the abstract platonic forms of the heavens depicting the old gent himself caressing the same portrait. Like a snake charmer teaching his craft to wormlike hatchlings, he has hypnotized all save for two, while chattering away about conceptions and inventions yet more advanced than his years. He colorfully proclaims, "After all my years, we've discovered a novel form of beauty." The man continues ogling the alluring recursion, as if every etched pair of lips, blurrier each iteration, were inexplicably synchronized to his own.

Then a second man, slim with a fair complexion, unimpressed by the first's grand maze of mirrors, quietly cups his hands and sinks them in the nearby discreet stream. Soothed by the calming, undulating reflection of the ripples he created, he carefully takes a modest sample. When this piques the interest of a curious small boy, the man swiftly erases the crease formed by his lips, just as swiftly as the resolution of the ripples back into a neutral surface, while also stilting his head back up and looking straight ahead, ceasing all animation.

Lastly a third behind the two, an observer who merely utters with a sigh: "I am standing in front of two fools."