The House in the Picture

  

In a corner of the room

There is a chair

Chair holds picture

Picture is portrait

Portrait sifts time.  
 
House in a picture,

Painted anew,

Swallows eyes.

It lights up again

Snippets of yore.

House of the portrait

Munches this room

As it rolls out secrets

Unbolted by windows.

 

Picture of the house

Makes music of silence:

Some seal off their ears;

Someone brings it here.

House of the portrait:

Chair at the corner

Strums solitude.

It covers couple

In odd shadows

And thrums slashed strings

Through locked shutters.

 

House of the portrait

And chair in the room

Rock lust in refrain

 

In a corner of the room

There is a chair.

Chair holds picture,

A portrait of a house.

It slams into view

A couple, chair, and shadows.

 

It reveals windows

That only reverie can keep ajar

Inside those vacant eyes

—dormant dancers of desire. 

 
House in the picture

Shelters known ghosts

Of passion and hate.

Their sins, however, snatch at us,

Unfurling doors we try to latch.

 

Poem published in The Poetic Bond IV. Trevor Maynard (Ed.), Willowdown Books, UK, 2014.

Illustration by Mausilinda