The Red Couch

[Jimmy Stark]

There is a red couch.
It is lavish and ornate.
The center of the house
we now call home.
Fresh and clean
beaming through the window at our flowers.

There is a red couch.
It is simple and plain.
Pushed aside in the house
for now our home.
Stained and tarnished
staring out the window at the fireflies.

There is a red couch.
It is faded and tearing.
Forgotten in the house
I call home,
Dirty and used
squinting out the window at the falling leaves.

There is a red couch.
It is worn and ragged.
Alone in the house
Once a home.
Stale and dusty with cobwebs
gazing through the window at the snow.

[Keith]

There is a red couch.
It is lavish and ornate.
The center of the house
we now call home.
Fresh and clean
beaming through the window at our flowers.

There is a red couch.
It is simple and plain.
Pushed aside in the house
for now our home.
Stained and tarnished
staring out the window at the fireflies.

There is a red couch.
It is faded and tearing.
Forgotten in the house
I call home,
Dirty and used
squinting out the window at the falling leaves.

There is a red couch.
It is worn and ragged.
Alone in the house
Once a home.
Stale and dusty with cobwebs
gazing through the window at the snow.

Hi Jimmy
It could be easier to give the poem a title 'There is a red Couch' then drop the repetition as it feels redundant to me. I enjoyed the progression you signal in each stanza and although the lines are basic in description it does allow the reader some freedom to see their own version of the deterioration. However you have mapped this against the changing seasons rather than years so it feels odd as though the time frame is set to a year. I do like a good snap shot poem but this one doesn't give enough. You have relied on repetition to give you the rhymes and they are just too obvious.

I like the theme and the idea behind it, I would develop the anthropomorphic idea you use in the end lines of each stanza and tie this clearly to our own life cycle rather than seasons. Hope this helps Keith

[expiring_touch]

if i were honest, this fell rather flat. Or even forced -- the repetition, the beaming-stared-squinting--- structure. Besides, if smth were once lavish and ornate, is it possible that it would ever become 'simple'? i mean, all those caste or church ruins,once so lavish and ornate, still remain that way, even though in a different way.

[SKDink55]

There is a red couch.
It is lavish and ornate.
The center of the house
we now call home.
Fresh and clean
beaming through the window at our flowers.

There is a red couch.
It is simple and plain.
Pushed aside in the house
for now our home.
Stained and tarnished
staring out the window at the fireflies.

There is a red couch.
It is faded and tearing.
Forgotten in the house
I call home,
Dirty and used
squinting out the window at the falling leaves.

There is a red couch.
It is worn and ragged.
Alone in the house
Once a home.
Stale and dusty with cobwebs
gazing through the window at the snow.

Hi Jimmy,

Thank you for sharing!

I will have to agree with the other posters. The repetition and structure of this did not elicit any feeling from me. I completely understand what you were going for but there are so many other ways to achieve it.

Maybe taking the perspective of the couch? Reversing the timeline of the snapshot? I find switching my perspective, even if I don't keep it, is an excellent way to really get at what I am trying to say and what I want the reader to feel.

[LorettaYoung]

There is a red couch.
It is lavish and ornate.
The center of the house
we now call home.
Fresh and clean
beaming through the window at our flowers.

There is a red couch.
It is simple and plain.
Pushed aside in the house
for now our home.
Stained and tarnished
staring out the window at the fireflies.

There is a red couch.
It is faded and tearing.
Forgotten in the house
I call home,
Dirty and used
squinting out the window at the falling leaves.

There is a red couch.
It is worn and ragged.
Alone in the house
Once a home.
Stale and dusty with cobwebs
gazing through the window at the snow.

Hi Jimmy,

Thank you for sharing!

I will have to agree with the other posters. The repetition and structure of this did not elicit any feeling from me. I completely understand what you were going for but there are so many other ways to achieve it.

Maybe taking the perspective of the couch? Reversing the timeline of the snapshot? I find switching my perspective, even if I don't keep it, is an excellent way to really get at what I am trying to say and what I want the reader to feel.

---

There is a red couch.
It is lavish and ornate.
The center of the house
we now call home.
Fresh and clean
beaming through the window at our flowers.

There is a red couch.
It is simple and plain.
Pushed aside in the house
for now our home.
Stained and tarnished
staring out the window at the fireflies.

There is a red couch.
It is faded and tearing.
Forgotten in the house
I call home,
Dirty and used
squinting out the window at the falling leaves.

There is a red couch.
It is worn and ragged.
Alone in the house
Once a home.
Stale and dusty with cobwebs
gazing through the window at the snow.

Hi Jimmy,

Thank you for sharing!

I will have to agree with the other posters. The repetition and structure of this did not elicit any feeling from me. I completely understand what you were going for but there are so many other ways to achieve it.

Maybe taking the perspective of the couch? Reversing the timeline of the snapshot? I find switching my perspective, even if I don't keep it, is an excellent way to really get at what I am trying to say and what I want the reader to feel.

---

I really like how your red couch tells the times of generations. I had the thought that it would be an enhancement if the long lines rhymed? The words "There is" and in general give a feeling of your distance from it ll. Best, Loretta

[QDeathstar]

The progression of the poem feels forced and unnatural. It's like a painting, also forgotten on the house that is and was a house, is speaking.


I think the poem lacks resonance. It sort of reminds me of that one poem about boots, except that at the end of that poem I respected the boots. I'm having a hard time connecting with a soiled sofa.

---

Edit: that might have been a painting, not a poem I'm thinking about regarding the boots.

[just mercedes]

Hi Jimmy. I like what you tried to do with your poem - to show the passage of time through one constant in the lives in the house. I like the contrasts of each generation, focusing on a particular season so we are reminded that all of life is circular and yet somehow a progression.

The images you used are good - what let you down, in my opinion, is the passive use of verbs. "There is a red couch" does not have the same impact as 'A red couch stands' - make the objects do something, be active. Then, repeating the verb to be in the second line of each stanza helps to flatten out your poem even more.

You use capitals at the start of each segment and this calls attention to the fact that these are segments, not sentences. In short bursts and isolated by the periods, these feel rather disjointed to your reader. Maybe you could combine some of these segments into sentences, using commas and/or semi colons, to aid the flow of the poem.

The bones of a good poem here - keep working on it! Thanks for the read.

[Isis]

Like a lot of other readers, I think the concepts here are interesting (showing the passage of many years through the seasons, looking at the life of a house and family through the lens of an important object), but there are a few things about the poem that keep me from becoming fully invested.

One of those is the repetition of "There is a red couch./It is _______". While that repetition makes it clear that the couch is the anchor in the poem, the thing that helps us see the whole story, I don't think it needs to be so prominent for us to understand the poem. And I think my interest would be captured more and the space of the poem used to greater effect if there was more variation within the theme here, more active phrasing. I like just mercedes suggestion of how to make this more actively phrased. "There is" and "It is" are both relatively passive, flat ways of describing something. Even though the couch is an object, it becomes animate through interesting verb choices at the end of each stanza: beaming, staring, squinting, gazing. Those choices convey tone and mood and do a lot for the poem. Something similar could happen at the beginning of each stanza. I think that the structure could become more loose and the poem would still work, but should you stick with the structure already holding up the poem, I'd focus on making the beginning of each stanza as descriptive and lively as the end. I really like the way the couch comes alive through the seasonal images at the end of each stanza, and I think it would work to make that happen throughout the poem.

I wonder a little bit about the shifting point of view in this poem. In the first two stanzas, the home belongs to "we/our". In the third stanza, there's a single speaker - perhaps the partner has moved on or died? And in the last stanza, all human traces are gone from the poem. Who is speaking at the end?