Thursday, July 18, 2013

TUESDAY POEM (on a Thursday?) | THINGS by Lisel Mueller

                                       



detail from Today, a painted response to Kay MacKenzie-Cooke's poem Life's Work  |  CB 2013


                                       THINGS 


                                       What happened is, we grew lonely
                                       living among the things,
                                       so we gave the clock a face,
                                       the chair a back,
                                       the table four stout legs
                                       which will never suffer fatigue.


                                       We fitted our shoes with tongues
                                       as smooth as our own
                                       and hung tongues inside bells
                                       so we could listen
                                       to their emotional language,


                                       and because we loved graceful profiles
                                       the pitcher received a lip,
                                       the bottle a long, slender neck.


                                       Even what was beyond us
                                       was recast in our image;
                                       we gave the country a heart,
                                       the storm an eye,
                                       the cave a mouth
                                       so we could pass into safety.

                                       Lisel Mueller


(Thank you, Louisey)




This week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub is Jennifer Compton.
Jen has written a marvellous commentary to accompany A Garage
by Australian poet, Robert Gray


                                        ". . . The sun had cut a blaze
                                        off the day. The petrol pump
                                        was from the sixties— 

                                        of human scale
                                        and humanoid appearance
                                        it had a presence,

                                        seemed the attendant
                                        of our adventures on the road,
                                        the doorman of our chances. . . " 








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