Aquarium

Chapter 19: My House

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About This Book

A sequence of vivid lyric poems juxtaposes urban modernity and sensual escapism, shifting between images of aquaria, industrial streets, cathedrals, cabarets and cultivated gardens. Rich sensory detail and decadent diction evoke crowded factories, neon-lit cafés, and intimate interiors while poems alternate social satire, melancholic reverie and pastoral relief. Several pieces use theatrical vignettes and musical rhythms to render characters and scenes indirectly, while others address sacred space, memory and longing through ornate imagery. The book’s structure groups shorter, imagistic poems into two parts that balance urban manners with curving, often erotic or elegiac, meditations.

My House

THERE is a place of dim, familiar things,

Of contacts vaguely subtle to the touch—

I call it home; in my imaginings

Each detail is of value overmuch.

There is a place where every little nook,

And every cupboard with its special smell,

Are clear upon my mind as in a book,

I love it with a love that’s hard to tell.

There is a garden too where essences

Of flowers queerly mingle in the air,

And butterflies, strange iridescences,

Flutter about when evening enters there.