The Drawer Marked Meats Poem by Lisa Allen Ortiz

The Drawer Marked Meats

Rating: 4.7


A bedtime story about Bluebeard
all the wives on meat hooks
then wake up
and the house is dark.

Fear
is a gift from mother —
the way she grabbed
our collar bones, said:

get inside. We had the house
to ourselves, kept our eyes
glued to the television set.
Our hearts

we put in the ice box
not like psychopaths but like poets
to preserve the crimson imagery
the slender metaphor

of love and its chambers.
In the middle of the night
we open the door, and the light goes on
when we're so hungry

and the cold red beating
is all there is to eat.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Edward Kofi Louis 03 October 2016

The ice box. Nice work.

2 1 Reply
Subhas Chandra Chakra 03 October 2016

we put in the ice box not like psychopaths but like poets to preserve the crimson imagery the slender metaphor of love and its chambers Very beautiful imagery, A poem so nicely written. 10 for it. Subhas

1 1 Reply
Seamus O Brian 03 October 2016

A brilliant piece of compelling imagery. Exquisitely intriguing. Reminds me of none of my work. :)

1 1 Reply
Paul Amrod 03 October 2016

What affected and touched me the most about this poem is the reaction to the fear induced by the mother where the children put their hearts in the ice-box like poets to preserve their imagery. Secretly of course. Nice work. Paul Amrod

0 1 Reply
Susan Williams 03 October 2016

Powerful. Unflinching [though I flinched a lot from its horrid reality]. Heart-rending [ not just heartbreaking- but heartrending- -tearing the heart into shreds, slowly slaughter-housing it into pieces, ]. Love Neal Beightol's comment.

0 1 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 07 July 2023

she is a very remarkable poetess, her timing is excellent and the metaphors in her poems are captivating, her cynicism is well-captured and brilliant.

0 0 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 07 July 2023

and yet, they manage to celebrate while they mourn. The speaker of "The Self Museum, " perhaps, puts it simply and best: "What a gorgeous mess we are."

0 0 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 07 July 2023

Yet the world is all we have, and what we are is part of it." Ortiz's speakers are collectors, namers, and mourners for a world that is rapidly disappearing—

0 0 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 07 July 2023

I wil write in short about the poetess.Ortiz works in the overlap between self and world, showing us that time does not honor human consciousness, nor even recognize it.

0 0 Reply
Sylvia Frances Chan 07 July 2023

The poetess has much humor but is also very cinical, her metaphors are sublimest. Most deserving as The Modern Poem Of The Day.

0 0 Reply
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Lisa Allen Ortiz

Lisa Allen Ortiz

Westport, California
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