Art Inspires Art: “Domesticated”

Here’s an example of how art inspires art. This poem was written in an art gallery in Los Angeles. I was looking at a painting of a woman standing in a kitchen wearing your classic 1950’s and 1960’s blue housewife dress and apron. She was carrying a meatloaf and on the counter, there were dozens of other meatloaves she had apparently made. I called the piece Domesticated.

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 pseudo-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 bastards
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 gone
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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