RE: Patina (Day 41 of 100 -- poetry challenge)
For those who don't know Niish well enough, she is a fan of the experiences we pick up in life, in how they layer us, in the scratches and dents they leave in us, which we then bring out in our art. Her name for all these things is "patina," and that knowledge sets the tone for the piece that follows - it is a piece about things that linger, not always pleasant, but are now an aroma that wafts about, and you make use of it.
And that fits this piece that is very much about death and memory.
Come in... my parlor.
The first couplet immediately evokes in my mind the image of "Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly." This is about taking the mayfly, the energetic and silly one, and introducing it to silence, and stillness, and to death.
And to taking its energy, the life it lived, and finding new life in it, now that one is more thoughtful, slower, more deliberate.
And look at this bit:
Feel the softness of feather stuffed cushions embrace you.
Even if it were not followed by calling on lions, gargoyles, and claws, then the image I have here is of one that is trapped by the chair. This can be tied into how in "Without" and other pieces besides you speak of those who seek comfort, and comfort as death. Here it is death that comes in the guise of comfort.
It is so easy to fall into inertia.
But also the comfort of death, rather than the death inherent in comfort.
This whole piece speaks of sound and movement, but in the past. If I had to describe in what word what imagery this piece evokes within my mind, it'd be a "wake," as in, a wake for one who just departed.
This house, this parlor, these books. All speak to what was. All sit and wait quietly, with bated breath almost. This is peace, but it is not peaceful, it feels full of nervous energy.
And then comes the final line:
The parlor is warm as an oven.
This is not "warm like sitting next to an oven." This calls to mind the Holocaust, and Sylvia Plath's death (as you are a fan of hers), and the witch from Hensel and Gretel.
Everything that was is burning up. Going in flame.
Aren't you happy you are sitting in that comfy chair, now?