house, not a home.
(a poem to be read out loud)
Newly painted purple, stinking raw colors
white, shiny marbled floor edged with jet granite
stale mahogany doors,
and windows of similar odor.
Bunch upon bunch of strong incense
nor the sulfurous smokes
can do away this repelling plastic smell
too artificial, practical too harsh
that pokes through the heart.
The sour creamed plaster of Paris twines into florals.
Marigolds, and hyacinths stained
blossomed not by nature’s act,
a sculptor’s carving pen.
These metallic barbs bounding around
preventing trespassers in
disable my imagination to roam free.
A prisoner in a palace of glass.
The matching purple satin curtains
on doors and dows alike
make even the sight to slip off,
like dew drops on blades of grass,
lacking life.
All the ornamental ivory, passive beauty
tasteless,
lifeless as the remnants of the chariots
used in a decade long war by the plains of Scamander,
dignified with useless embroiders.
A house’s not always a home, Lorraine told me when I was 13 —
this a blankness, a void
region of doleful shades,
occupies a hundred hues of doom.
Read our introduction to find out more about Chalkboard’s “Readings” project, respond to this poem, or submit your own work:
