Above the Chimney
 

Still Life and a Song

Amid embroidered napkins, iron frogs
my mother placed inside a crystal vase
still keep the Ikebana flowers straight,
displayed as usual on the mantelpiece.
I’m in my daughter’s house. My grandson plays
my father’s baby grand and sings, like him!
Full voice and passion! Quite a treat to see
the future making space for well-worn things:
the leather couch, a tarnished silver jug,
Peruvian paintings on the walls, an egg!
My ostrich egg! An abstract marble nude,
a copper fish, a fist of fossil mud,
and on the étagère, old photographs
of ageless angel faces with no names.

Line 8: making space for . . (Thanks, Carl)
and change of title
~
Lines 6 and 7
Em dash gone, guitar back in its shrine
Still not sure about title, except for Still Life.


Still Life and Strings

Amid embroidered napkins, iron frogs
my mother placed inside a crystal vase
still keep the Ikebana flowers straight,
displayed as usual on the mantelpiece.
I’m in my daughter’s house. My grandson plays
my father’s baby grand and old guitar—
he sings like him—with soul!—a treat to see
the future make new space for well-worn things:
the leather couch, a tarnished silver jug,
Peruvian paintings on the walls, an egg!
My ostrich egg! An abstract marble nude,
a copper fish, a fist of fossil mud,
and on the étagère, old photographs
of ageless angel faces with no names.

(Lines 6 and 7)


Revision 2
Beyond the Chimney (?)

Amid embroidered napkins, iron frogs
my mother placed inside a crystal vase
still keep the Ikebana flowers straight,
displayed as usual on the mantelpiece.
I’m in my daughter’s house. My grandson plays
my father’s baby grand and old guitar,
he sings, he carries on! A treat to see
the future make new space for well-worn things:
the leather couch, a tarnished silver jug,
Peruvian paintings on the walls, an egg!
My ostrich egg! An abstract marble nude,
a copper fish, a fist of fossil mud,
and on the étagère, old photographs
of ageless angel faces with no names.

*(Lines 6 and 7 to drop ‘grandpa’ and clarify)


Revision 1 - change of title

Yesterday Takes a Seat

Amid embroidered napkins, iron frogs
my mother placed inside a crystal vase
still keep the Ikebana flowers straight,
displayed as usual on the mantelpiece.
I’m in my daughter’s house. My grandson plays
my father’s baby grand and sings like him:
guitar and passion—quite a treat to see
the future make new space for well-worn things:
the leather couch, a tarnished silver jug,
Peruvian paintings on the walls, an egg!
My ostrich egg! An abstract marble nude,
a copper fish, a fist of fossil mud,
and on the étagère, old photographs
of ageless angel faces with no names.


Above the Chimney

Amid embroidered napkins, iron frogs
my mother placed inside a crystal vase
still keep the Ikebana flowers straight,
displayed as usual on the mantelpiece.
I’m in my daughter’s house. My grandson plays
my father’s baby grand and sings as grandpa did:
guitar and passion—quite a treat to see
the future make new space for well-worn things:
the leather couch, a tarnished silver jug,
Peruvian paintings on the walls, an egg!
My ostrich egg! An abstract marble nude,
a copper fish, a fist of mud that’s petrified,
and on the étagère, old photographs
of ageless angel faces with no names.


~mignon

Do you mean "chimney"? I think of chimneys as being on top of the house, but you're describing the mantelpiece, aren't you?

L6 and L12 both have an extra beat.

I like this overall. Reminds me a bit of a Borges sonnet, "Las Cosas," which you can look up if curious.

At least on first reading, I was a bit slowed down by trying to figure out all the relations, since you specify quite a few (my mother, my daughter, my grandson, my father, grandpa) and I tried to follow along since I thought they would figure in the poem a bit more than they ended up doing. On second reading, though, I took them simply as grounding for the fact that the speaker is in a house that is full of family/familiar objects, and the exact relationships were not important.

A delicate still-life: nothing moves except your grandson at the baby grand. A list, with only two departures from literality: the future making space and “ageless angel faces.” That might be enough for me already, but you also give us a peak into your family history and meditate on the continuity of generations and their passage into anonymity. The guitar seemed out of place at first, since I thought it was your father and your grandson’s grandpa (same guy) who played the piano and sang. On second thought, I decided it was your grandfather who played the guitar and sang. In any event, I enjoyed this very much, Mignon.

Hello mignon,

For me poetry is a simple games of lines, of finding enough emotionally resonant lines, and you certainly do find the lines. The metrical inaccuracies have already been pointed out. It hits the familiar emotional points of 20th century metrical writing: [1] The epigrammatic wisdom saying: "the future make new space for well-worn things"; the exotic specificity: "still keep the Ikebana flowers straight"; the emotional interjection: "My ostrich egg!"; the final lyrical lift: "of ageless angel faces with no names".

Just all round solid metrical poetry technique, well modulated emotionally!

.Quick suggestion/edit for metrical regularity (you might just have to go rework the movement of the poem):

Amid embroidered napkins, iron frogs
my mother placed inside a crystal vase
still keep the Ikebana flowers straight,
displayed as usual on the mantelpiece.
I’m in my daughter’s house. My grandson plays
my father’s baby grand and sings like me:
guitar and passion—quite a treat to see
the future make new space for well-worn things:
the leather couch, a tarnished silver jug,
Peruvian paintings on the walls, an egg!
My ostrich egg! An abstract marble nude,
a copper fish, a fist of dried out mud,
and on the étagère, old photographs
of ageless angel faces with no names.

Yeah!

Hi, mignon—

Lovely sonnet in the tradition of what the Germans call the Dinggedicht or “thing poem.” You present a collection of objects in a way that reveals an important clue to the soul of each object’s owner and to the speaker. For example, you show the speaker’s mother to be refined and artistic by the objects showing her interest in table settings and flower arranging. You show the speaker’s son and grandson to share musical talent and passionate characters. Could you think about presenting fewer objects and showing how each object is a key to understanding its owner and the relationships among the family members?

I like the slant rhymes: vase/plays, jug/egg, nude/mud, and I especially like the last line. I imagine the photos of the family members arranged in ascending generations like ranks of angels—thrones, powers, cherubim, seraphim. Many of the women might be wearing white wedding dresses or first communion dresses with veils like wings. They add a heart-warming feeling of protectiveness and order.

You might consider a different title. As Roger pointed out, a chimney is a structure on a roof. It seems that you are advertising a poem about objects on a mantel, but you include a piano, couch, and étagère. Maybe use the name of the room as the title? Or choose something that ties in with your great angel image?

In line 8, do you mean that the speaker sees the future “make new space” for the objects, or “make new owners” for them (or “make new uses” for them)? If it makes new space, that implies that some of them are disappearing.

Very fine work!
Glenn

I like it Mignon. I enjoy the extended family references, which suits the idea of things (and talents/traits) getting handed down, and the list of things that makes up the sestet, and in particular the exclamation, "My ostrich egg!".

Other have flagged the metrical issues. I don't have much to add really. I wonder a little about "amid", which seems to be one of those words that gets used in metrical poems because it's an iamb. But it doesn't really bother me that much.

Also I wasn't entirely sure whose grandpa is referenced in L6. The N's grandfather or the grandson's grandfather (who is the N). I guess whichever it is played the guitar, unlike the N's father who played the piano. Anyway, grandpa seems like it's being used a proper noun here, in which case, it should take a capital letter.

I second Bob's point on above the chimney also being above the house. I guess the title could be something like "above the fireplace"? A fireplace seems appropriate as a focal point for family life.

best,

Matt

I thought I was one of a beleaguered few on the Sphere who give a hoot about metrical regularity, so I’m surprised by the concern about the two long lines. Commenters are right, of course, to flag them, and Mignon may want to trim them, but they didn’t bother me in the least, and I’d never have noticed if I weren’t intent on finding things to critique. Do they really stick out like sore thumbs for some of you?

Carl,

Of course, the hexameter lines stick out! It is an effect of the lines becoming suddenly ponderous, a slowing down and slackening of the rhythm! Even reading "silently", I can still process the rhythmic effect.

Are you desensitising yourself?

Alas, I’ve never been that sensitive, but one of the main lessons I’ve learned on the Sphere is to tolerate and even appreciate all sorts of metrical variation. Surely someone will tell us how expressive the hexameter is of the length of the song and the time it takes mud to petrify!

I resist indoctrination to group social norms! I have written a sonnet where I was consciously bending the pentameter, but the rhythmic effects were woven into the poem, so it is not like I have a limited palate, but the two hexameters in a sonnet that is so consistently straightforwardly iambic pentameter sticks out for me in the context of this poem.