Everyday Canvas

"The house that spins and tilts"

Prompt: While at Omi International Arts Center in Ghent, New York, artists Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley built a house that spins and tilts in agreement with the wind, and the shifting weight of its inhabitants. Then they resided in the structure for five days, and will spend another several days living there this fall. Write a poem or story inspired by the image or idea of living in a structure that is constantly spinning, and which tilts up or down as you walk through it. What kind of vocabulary or pacing might mimic or reflect the sensation of spinning? How can you play with emotional weight or levity to create shifting feelings throughout your work?


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Tiles in the House of Wind

Tempestuous tiles heaving, weaving
slippery with vertigo
shift inward, outward
gyrating with gusts and surges,
their darkening swells strike
accusingly at my human eyes
and while those demented squares pulsate,
I'd better not jump off the earth
to defeat
my many imaginary dooms.

“Instead, focus on the immediate,”
I tell myself, “Then, look at yourself
from a distance, at your various ills,
at your thin skin thickened on the outside,
unused teeth and nails,
and things that torture you…
for your history will count
all skeletons one by one
and they will draw near and sway away
alternately--strange, uncertain,
just like the ground
teetering under your feet.”