House Poems

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
...

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door
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One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
...

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
...

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, 'Speak to us of Children.'

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
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964

"Unto Me?" I do not know you—
Where may be your House?
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The animal I really dig,
Above all others is the pig.
Pigs are noble. Pigs are clever,
...

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
...

There's a light on in the attic.
Thought the house is dark and shuttered,
I can see a flickerin' flutter,
...

And one of the elders of the city said, "Speak to us of Good and Evil."

And he answered:
...

Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,
Are gone from the house.
My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite
...

I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor’s office,
...

The low yellow
moon above the
...

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
...

A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds
...

In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.
...

What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
...

The red skies engulf the bay under
Whilst silence sweeps the current away
Islands, harbor, creeks, rocks and sholes
Soundings and anchoring
...

O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
...

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
...

As I began my walk this morning…before the streets of the city I roamed…
I turned around and thanked our house…our house we call our home.

Over 30 years ago, when we were married, (that time is much shorter than it seems!)
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Foreword

This is a poetic eulogy to the outlaw Bonnie Parker.
Including here all the known poems associated with Bonnie,
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While looking through an old picture album the other day (Yes! Picture albums still exist) nestled in the seams of one page…we found this old and weathered list.

As we opened it and began to read…the two of us were thrilled…that old list contained the items for the dream house we would build.
...

When we were younger and we'd dream…Debrah and I would agree on what size and shape and color…our perfect house would be.

It would be a bungalow with room for our family…and more…the kitchen would be big and modern…there'd be bedrooms on the second floor.
...

If somebody is therein
To keep the things
So the house is
...

Phat chance! Phish phophy! Bull Stool!
And Folks… Leave politics da phuuck…
out of this discussion! Not one human
life… is worth you, or any other mfer'
...

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
...

The turtle carries his house on his back. He is both the house and the person of that house.
But actually, under the shell is a little room where the true turtle, wearing long underwear, sits at a little table. At one end of the room a series of levers sticks out of slots in the floor, like the controls of a steam shovel. It is with these that the turtle controls the legs of his house.
Most of the time the turtle sits under the sloping ceiling of his turtle room reading catalogues at the little table where a candle burns. He leans on one elbow, and then the other. He crosses one leg, and then the other. Finally he yawns and buries his head in his arms and sleeps.
If he feels a child picking up his house he quickly douses the candle and runs to the control levers and activates the legs of his house and tries to escape.
If he cannot escape he retracts the legs and withdraws the so-called head and waits. He knows that children are careless, and that there will come a time when he will be free to move his house to some secluded place, where he will relight his candle, take out his catalogues and read until at last he yawns. Then he'll bury his head in his arms and sleep....That is, until another child picks up his house....
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I remember this house
cos this house was home
I remember this house
cos this house was home
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For every house that one see is the house of the angel for who will touch a heart with respect but when one look in the eyes of the angel for one will feel the touch of respect thus it's the sky that the angel call the house of the angel with respect for every house that one see is the house of the family that fill the air to touch a heart with happiness the more one feel the touch sun thus one feel the hand that will touch a heart and yet the house of the angel of respect is the house.
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