Each month I gather and invite poems on a particular theme. End of February I was musing on the idea of furniture. On Tuesday night (March 24th) I woke at 12.30 am and was awake until dawn. At one point I was thinking about how most of us are now living in domestic bubbles and how some of us might be developing new relationships with the furniture. We might sit at the table longer and talk after dinner. We might choose a chair on the deck to read a novel until we get to the last page. We might heap all the furniture in the lounge like a miraculous Quentin Blake hut for our children to play in. But then I began thinking about the beauty,  the craft and the comfort a chair might offer. The way our minds might sometimes be full of chairs and tables.

Thank you for all those who contributed.

 

for Felix

a black shawl over a chair

& the corner

composed itself.

the light came from outside

& delayed/on the

delphinium

& behind the oak trees

1 2 3

a grey stripe

is a tennis court

& men have

white shirts only

& sometimes

arms

while the ball

flying/occasionally

thru trees

keeps the moon

in motion.

 

Joanna Margaret Paul  Like Love Poems (Victoria University Press, 2006)

 

 

 

Summer

 

New white sheets

on the line.

Even the pegs

are warm.

 

Our youngest son

leaks sand.

 

Iris the dog snores

on the green sofa.

 

Cat!

 

Out!                we cry.

My husband glows

in the dark.

 

Jenny Bornholdt  Selected Poems (Victoria University Press, 2016)

 

 

The Camphorwood Chest  

 

my husband dreams of a Japanese garden

 

a room with nothing but a chair

a vase of white lilies

a view of water

 

but my home is like a camphorwood chest

that Chinese mothers give to their daughters

it is carved with the detail of living

a phoenix with wings raised for flight

a pine tree leaning forever in the wind

lotus flowers and chrysanthemums

clouds that could be leaves that could be clouds

 

from here I look out over water

 

Alison Wong from Cup (Steele Roberts, 2005)

 

 

tastes like wine (dawn sonnet)

after Catullus 48

 

tastes like wine, this boy sitting across from me, his

honey eyes looking like yours as he implores

me to join him on the floor

the table a low ceiling swirling

like a chandelier

in the earthquake of these kisses

table legs circling

like the blades of a combine harvester

every kiss is a near miss

my heart escaping like a mouse

into the corn

the summer’s sun all rolled into one

ripeness I can

never get enough of

 

Anna Jackson

 

 

Late bloomers

 

It is still warm enough to sit outside. Einstein sits at the end of the table

to light the citronella candle. He is not sure how effective it will be, but

mosquitoes tend to gravitate towards him. He is full of enthusiasm about

taking the opposite direction.

 

Paula Green  The Baker’s Thumbprint (Seraph Press, 2013)

 

 

Reading room

 

Up in the great reading-room in the sky,

the writers twitch, deep in leather armchairs,

dreaming about all those they are read by

or what rival’s work is ignored for theirs.

Ping. Someone’s begun Catcher in the Rye.

Salinger grins: still ringing down the years.

Austen rolls her eyes; Fowles lets out a sigh.

Ping. Ping. Ping. No ping-a-ling like Shakespeare’s.

 

Li Bo leans over, taps Plath on the arm.

Woolf and Dante quiz Byron on sin.

Eliot smiles his Giaconda smile.

Pung. Nichols starts up. Just a false alarm.

Montaigne gives Wilde some tips on style.

The Brontës share a joint with Larkin.

 

Harry Ricketts

 

 

 

the first time i told, i was drunk

 

the  second  time  i  told,  i  was

euphoric and

 

the third time too

 

it  was  like  i  was  speaking  myself

into being

by  saying  the  words  i

was

weaving     my     Abstract     Internal

Furniture      into      a      gown      of

shimmering fabric

 

or at least that’s how i

IMAGINE it, and

thewordsbecamefleshanddwelt amongusandisaidlettherebe …

 

Helen Rickerby    Abstract Internal Furniture (HeadworX, 2001)

 

 

Kia kaha

Keep well

Keep imagining