The objects are hanging from white string
illuminated by a flash bulb
like x-rayed anatomy:
flat white bones of oven plates,
the pale ghosts
of rolling pins.
The objects are hanging from white string
dangling above a city of
cups and saucers and
miniture things like houses:
the reflective face of an iron,
a sharp bowl of new tin.
The objects are hanging from white string
strung like a Cocteau assemblage.
They are the last objects left
at the end of the world.
They will be there forever.
We will all forget.
Ref: Walker Evans. Window Display. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
I love how you carried over the first line into each stanza, it moves the piece. But I especially enjoyed the last 4 lines, great ending. Very fitting description of the fate of these window displays.
On a side note, I’m not sure how often you check your email but I sent you one yesterday. Did you get it? I would greatly appreciate your input/feedback.
You catch me at least once with everything you write, always taking me by surprise. I respond before I have time to think what you might mean and I thank you for that. This time it was “flat white bones of oven plates” that made me catch my breath.
Dear Lydia – I love the exquisite imagery in this poem … “flat white bones of oven plates” … lines like this make me shiver! Brilliant job, JP
Beautiful. Really like what you are doing here.
what jo said