Dark Corners - Aug 29 2021

 

Dark Corners

Aug 29 2021

Living in curved spaces

there are no dark corners,

just shades of grey

and disinfecting light.

A place where flat objects

fit awkwardly,

like a picture on the wall

or standard boxy furniture.

And there are no cheek-by-jowl houses

or ticky-tacky neighbourhoods,

because between round houses

on oddly shaped lots

there can be no straight fences,

just dead space

to either share, or neglect;

the art of negotiation

and talking over hedges.

Neither are there strictly ruled grids

or regimented buildings.

And where streets go on forever,

circling back on themselves

in a steadily pitched turn

you can simply set and hold.

But we are quadratical, instead,

confining ourselves to cells

in boxy houses, row on row

on planned suburban roads.

Hammering 2 x 4s

erecting square corners

drafting rectangular floors,

shapes antithetical to nature

and alien to ourselves.

And in private

in the fractured light

we nurse our dark corners,

out of sight

and out of mind

behind precisely ruled walls.

The inspiration for this poem will seem utterly ludicrous in its indirectness. I was reading an interview in the New Yorker with Martin Short, and the question was asked about his loss early in life of a brother and both parents: the natural implication being that comedy is born from tragedy, that behind every clown's painted-on smile are secret tears. Short strenuously denied this. His comedy does not arise from neurosis, over-compensation, or denial: he is as authentically full of life and positivity as he seems.

Anyway, all that to say that the expression “dark corners” came up, and what immediately struck me about this metaphor was how something both concrete and psychological co-exist in the same expression at the same time. Which I guess is true of all metaphor. I hope the misdirection of the poem works, eliciting the same response as the expression did for me: pulled back and forth between the literal and metaphorical, the merely descriptive and the psychologically dark.

A grateful acknowledgement should, of course go out to the classic folk song from the early 60s, Little Boxes, written by Malvina Reynolds and popularized by Pete Seeger.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same,
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.