Nature is a haunted house–but Art–is a house that tries to be haunted. – Emily Dickinson
Sometimes wonder where the homeless once lived.
Raised on a fertile farm, a large bedroom I did not have to share
and a great lake, full of bass and perch and snapping turtles.
Me and my big dog, my little brother and his little dog,
we’d chase varmints and critters, we’d fish and hike o’er acres of fantastic forest,
miles away from the next child, a French kid,
who we didn’t like much anyway. Maybe chop down a tree
when we thought nobody would catch us.
Watch it fall.
Lived in a Victorian apartment house once.
Next door rock and roll musicians slept late, smoked dope
and played their music too loud to hear
my own. I really miss those guys.
The life remains the same, more things change.
A crowded cabin next to the federal penitentiary.
A single-wide white mobile home in Flagstaff, Arizona,
with a toy white poodle named Ralph.
Train whistles in the middle of the night.
A downtown condominium
Skylights and stained glass, too.
With off-street parking
and an icy blue BMW sedan.
I used to have a house on the hill
with a young blonde wife and a green backyard
I’d mow. There was a wide deck of natural wood, stained
outside sliding glass doors. And an automatic garage door opener.
A fireplace of fieldstone climbed the living room wall
to a loft where we’d watch valley lights. Friends would come over
and remark how nice the house looked.
With the lawn shorn short.
Later we’d sit and eat cheese.