Dave Bonta's poem begins by laughing at its own title. A still life is supposed to hold things motionless, yet the first sentence calls the idea that life could be "anything but kinetic, / frenetic, in full / swing" a "quaint notion." The rhyme of "kinetic" and "frenetic" jitters like a nervous foot, and "swing" nudges us toward jazz before any instrument appears. Then the speaker proposes an experiment: "let's have a galvanized steel / bucket of ice sent up & see / what happens." The poem sets out to build stillness on purpose and watch whether it stays still.
The voice is that of a director or painter arranging a scene. "And a wooden bowl... And for / the proper contrast, for corners / appropriately dark." These are a studio's working terms: contrast, shadow, "something / to shine, to gleam." The word "sketch" in the title fits the casual manner, with its ampersands, its "say," and its sentences that start and then get revised. We watch the picture being assembled rather than admire it finished.
Artifice runs through the whole composition. The fruit is "felt- / &-plastic," the windows are "imitation paper," and the alcove is only "Zen-inspired." The poem seems to know that this serenity is a staged one. Behind it, judging by the imagery, is a place in decline: a resort "just / beginning to fall / on hard times," a register with "alarming gaps," and heat "turned off in the hall." Yet there is "still not a speck of dust." The phrase "genteel poverty" holds the tension, since order is being kept up against loss. Even the "timeless equipoise" sounds a little ironic beside those empty rooms. Stillness here is an effort, something maintained.
Sound keeps leaking into the silence. The "thrumming of some distant / power source" becomes "a drone / as melancholy as any chorus / of autumn crickets," and a machine's hum suddenly gets a natural, seasonal sadness. Even the wine is busy: "Let the uncorked chardonnay / take what it needs of oxygen & light." It is a small, domestic picture of something alive inside a motionless scene.
The poem has no rhyme scheme and no regular meter, but its line breaks do careful work. They split compounds like "felt- / &-plastic" and "once-full / register," so the reader waits for the noun the way a painter waits to place the next object. The long middle sentence, with its chain of "from the imitation paper windows / to the Zen-inspired alcove... / to the thrumming," glides along as smoothly as the equipoise it describes. Then the commands tighten: "Let the... Let nothing discompose." The formal, slightly fussy "discompose" is a nice choice, since it means to disturb a calm that is partly a pose.
The saxophone arrives last and is the one truly surprising image. It is "this most exotic / of guests," and the poem flips the usual view, because in this Japanese room the Western instrument is the foreigner. It rests "like a golden carp," its curved, gleaming body turned into a fish that suits the setting. It also answers the early request for "something / to shine, to gleam," so the poem's opening wish comes true.
The ending is where the stillness turns. "See how at home it looks?" is followed by a lowercase "ready," as if the sentence refuses to close. What it is ready for is "the oddly missing shoe / to begin tapping." The missing shoe suggests an absent listener or player, and a tapping foot is the first sign of rhythm. Everything has been arranged except the person who would make it move.
That is what makes the poem worth reading. It starts by dismissing stillness and ends by showing it can be loaded with motion. The silent saxophone is more alive in its waiting than it would be in a crowded, frenetic room. The poem is funny, a little wistful, and quietly sure that an object at rest, and a room slowly losing its guests, can both hold the possibility of music.