Saturday, March 10, 2012

Our House


















Our House

In the cupoards
in our kitchen --
so domestic --
the dishes snooze
with gaily colored cups.
The checkered chair
converses with the stool;
they talk of home and country,
of bushes ripe with berries,
of elephants and leopards in the grass.
Meanwhile, monkeys climb the tables
atop each other's shoulders,
and the pears up on the mantle
leap for plates --
which are sleeping
in the cupboards,
preening in the mirrors on the walls,
and dancing with the bluebirds
down the hall.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Karen,
    Do you remember me? It's been so long since I last visited your blog. It was such a pleasure to go through all your old poems today! Will visit regularly now.

    Karen, I just started a new blog, on book reviews. Would you please visit it and comment?
    http://riversihaveknown.wordpress.com/
    If you like the blog, please follow. Thank you!

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  2. Oh I love this! It makes me think of the Merry Melodies cartoons for some reason :)

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  3. I had cows in pointe shoes dancing in my mind the other day...this is wonderfully whimsical, yet there is an underlying poignancy. I love the image of plates sleeping, preening, dancing.

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  4. I feel that way when I look at objects in a house, my house or other homes. Furniture, and prints and colors and objects on the tables have life in them, and form relationships, if only in our minds. Somehow, we give each thing we see a personality, and perhaps the objects do retain a sense of the original maker who designed them. Objects and furniture are a form of art. I love the whole poem, and especially these lines: "the dishes snooze with gaily colored cups" and "the checkered chair converses with the stool." It's a world akin to the work of the golden age illustrator/artist, Arthur Rackham.

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