Every so often, I will write a poem inspired by a work of art. This next piece came to me after I saw this amazing painting. Time has erased the memory of the name of the artist and sadly I do not have an image of the painting to show you (this was before the era of cell phone cameras being the norm). I will do my best to describe the painting and hopefully, my description and the following poem will express the same feeling I had observed when I viewed it.
There is a woman standing in a kitchen, she is in a blue and white polka-dotted dress and apron. She has a 50s style hairdo. She is holding a pot roast. On the table are 8 other identical pot roasts. Her face is content. Some happiness lies behind her eyes but it has dulled.
Domesticated
Living in a constant continuum where the cacophony
of strange situations suddenly seem routine
I have seen her
She is standing there with styled hair that has been that way
Since the day after “I do”
But who is she? But who was she?
This vibrant, fun loving, free spirit
In search of herself
Looking for that one thing in the world to give life meaning
But now, what life is she seeing?
The repetitions have become repetitive
The repetitive repetitions keep repeating repetitiously
And their repetitiousness have a repetitional repeatability
Yet her ability to see beyond that has faded into
A monochromatic existence of monotonous monotony
That her monocular vision of her monogamous relationship
With her monotheistic deity
That controls her monothematic life
Has relieved her of her monophobia and as this monotony
Monopolizes her time she finds solace in monotonic music
As it plays over a monophonic phonograph
Her husband is her monocracy
But he personally is a polygamist
Who’d fail a polygraph if asked if he loved her
She is blinded by the acts of domestication
Bound to the ties of a societal definition
Of matrimony and a woman’s place
As she exits the kitchen and replaces her footwear
She sees nothing but her own happiness as it is lost
Lost without a trace, lost in her face
As she gazes through the haze of dinner parties
The haze of psuedo-social gatherings of socialites
Blathering about sociability
She socializes with social security recipients
Societal individuals who praise her for her house-making talents
But deny her socially
Those bastarads
Those fucking bastards
Will never hear her thoughts
As they eat her loaves of half-cooked meat
With smiles on their flower bearing faces
Her thoughts are gone
She is done
She is nowhere to be found
This vibrant, fun loving, free spirit
In search of herself
The woman who is looking
For that one thing in the world to give life meaning
Unfortunately, she found it
And cannot be saved, rescued or recovered
She is trapped
She has been domesticated
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