It was a small white house
It was a small white house
near to a hillock
with a red painted plate roof
and it felt somehow
as if I had been there before.
The red steps onto the polished porch
shone as if it had just been polished
but there was something
in that glowing sheen
reminding me of a day in childhood gone
when I was cornered on that veranda
and cold water from a hosepipe
splashed all over me
from where my smaller brother
was spraying me
and I didn’t want to go into the house,
much too scared that he would follow me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
Dad, sometimes when I dream
Dad, sometimes when I dream
it is as if I remember your voice,
as if the hairs on my arms again rise
like when you read the poem
about the cannibal to me
finding me on the polished red porch
where my brother cornered me
with a open hosepipe
and I did not want to go into the house
as he would follow me in to it
and he and you and I,
everyone laughed
like naughty children
as if we would on a weekend
get into the shining black car,
drive to the Vaal River
to find a angling place near to Villiers
there next to the stream dig out earthworms
for bait, stringing corn
to a hook
and you would cast my line out very far
but much too early you turned into earth
and your spirit is resting, where you lie unaware
and I am still reaching out to you
as if I again want you to embrace me.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Coming Home
The railings were old and rusty,
The door paint was faded and chipped,
The poor old house had seen better days,
The roof, made of slate, had now dipped.
The windows showed broken hinges,
The path to the door, overgrown,
This was the place where I was born,
The only real home I had known.
The 'rambler' that clung to the front porch,
Was a rose in the deepest red,
Now looking forlorn and so straggly,
I thought that maybe it was dead.
But tiny buds were shooting,
From the root beside the door,
And I was sure that, with a little care,
The house would come alive once more.
I watched as the 'SOLD' sign was erected,
And I felt I had reached home at last,
I knew that I would be happy here,
After what had been in my past.
I washed, swept, scrubbed and polished,
Until everything looked 'brand new',
Then my heart sped back to my childhood days,
My return home, was well overdue.
poem by Ernestine Northover
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Porch
Because it was what we thought was meant by family:
Laughter.
A new house.
A party in the garden where the tables were filled with young faces. Who did not want this true and tender accomplishment?
This just reward handed over to the world’s honest men,
its citizens.
Every house rested on its joys.
So when one of the guests nudged a glass when she was telling a joke which fell on the floor and broke,
we laughed.
We were accountable merely for our own mistakes and committed solely.
And everything was part of the good story,
really.
How could we not love what it cost?
Crack on the marble floor just set,
dent on a polished kitchen door.
A small window overlooks the children,
one nimble,
one frail,
balancing
on the far edge of the porch.
*by L.L.Ypil
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Poetics 9...
beyond this house
where we live
more or less
ten meters away
lies my neighbor's house
painted white
with a blue roof
and magenta windows
some walls are made
of glass
honesty there is peace
among us
who are still on unspeakable
terms
on good fences
higher than ever
we have become
perfect neighbors
there is independence
when fire breaks
we are ready with our own
pails already
filled with stinking water
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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From The Terrace
White house
brown roof
windows with outsretched arms
speak to my eyes
urging acceptance
Walls lift roof to gray sky
breeze flowing through the columns
floor, not for walking
but for ascending
request my steps
to be uplifted
Arches curve upwards
and downwards
dancing like the waves
invite me to join
all is in place
all agog with excitement
My soul flutters
knees buckle
and answer no
to House built with greed
not sweat of labour
Here I stay
on the terrace
watching house
not Home
blocks and roof
not sweat and contentment
poem by Mark Nwagwu
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The House On Centerville Road
We stopped beside the highway
And gazed at the old house
I told my wife, “That’s where I lived”
When I was just a little sprout
It looked smaller than it once did
Back so many years ago
Even then it was old and creaky
But, as a kid, I didn’t know
Weathered boards were loose and falling
Saplings grew up through the porch
The old tin roof was rusted orange
And the yard looked like a forest
Here dwells my oldest memories
From so many years ago
When our young family lived here
In the house on Centerville road
Those walls once rang with laughter
And the energy of two young lads
Riding stick horses all around the place
Trying to “herd” our collie, Pat
But, Pat knew more than we did
When she’d hear Mama shout
She’d turn us back from the road
And herd two boys toward the house
Dad got a job and we moved to town
Well before I started school
So, my memories are short and sketchy
But, I’ve found there are quite a few
My wife retrieved her camera
And as I turned the key to go
Snapped a picture from her window
Of the house on Centerville road
10/07/07
poem by C.R. Clark
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Freezing Steel
Freezing steel
Ive flown the house of freezing, the house of freezing steel
And though my bodys back I know it cant be real
cause Ive been on that house without a guiding wheel
The house of freezing steel
Oh wheres it going, picked me up at seven
When my eyes were weak from the light of the morning
Oh sister wont you tell me what a man might want to know
This madness is fine, yes if youre mad at the time
Back on the house of freezing, the house of freezing steel
The tied my body up, Im forced to eat my meal
A cold plate of lamb and cold potatoes too
Now whats a soul to do
Oh lord above, brother wont you tell me
Is this a eucharistic dove
cause Ive been waiting for the right one to appear
But Ive seen it in your face, and baby this aint the place
Up on the house of freezing, the house of freezing steel.
I made my mind up then to get me to the wheel
I made the cabin door, the pilot turned around
He said were venus bound
Oh please take me home
After all Im only human and the earth is where I belong
I must have looked pitiful to this freak without a face
cause as he touched my head I saw myself back in bed
Ive flown the house of freezing, the house of freezing steel
And though my bodys back I know it cant be real
cause Ive been on that house without a guiding wheel
The house of freezing steel
song performed by by Cat Stevens
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A letter which never sended
Last night I was a dream
About your house
Were the roof leaks everywhere
A green-painted house dull
I walk to the room
To the kitchen
To the front
The water to flood (inundate) on the floor
The water rose higher and higher
Flow to the visiting room
I walk to bend (bow, stop) and to walk on tiptoe,
I walk on tiptoe to avoid The water flood
Everywhere, from the front to backyard
I walk on zig-zag
Head made a low bow
To avoid the bird excrement
Much of bird cage hanged
On the roof
when the water to flood (inundate) increasing highest
to their food’ knee, -you still cook in the kichen
in the bend of the dull wall and moss-covered/mildewed
The water flood increasing and increasing on the foots
to the broken chairs
to wet, dampen the books which to scatter, spread everywhere
I could stop to find your mother anymore
she likes to codle me (to observe by holding in the hand)
when I was child: “She said, I just could walk
run around the kitchen, along the corridor
and riding the pedicab cycle
near the thing being dired/the wash
while playing the little car.”
To day i find your mother
In the overcast house
A green-painted house dull
Dull painted
Dark and overcast
The water to flood (inundate) on the floor
Everywhere
Just I found your mother walking stick
And her articial foot
poem by Prasetya Utama
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Thunderbolt
As a child I saw lightning
making blue sparks
on the back porch
and running over the iron rocks
into the old house against the hillock.
I could smell the thunderbolts
and it smacked down, much louder
than a gun
and as a small child
lightning did not scare me
and I walked in the rain
in a thunderstorm.
Until a day
where cattle fell dead around me
and then I got the real significance
of thunder
and now they press a thunderbolt
right into your head
and you are belted down
by people with white coats
who look very clinical,
who look at you from a distance
when they press a lever
who look at your fear and disconcertment
without feeling
and I see that you are still alive
and breathing,
when they push the lever again
and suddenly yesterday is gone
and your brain burnt out by half
and you can remember almost nothing
of your childhood days
and they believe
that you are halfway cured
and there’s a hell of a pain
that I see in your eyes.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Grey
Dull grey the winter drags on,
so slowly
as if never there will be an end to it.
In the mornings it’s biting cold
with black frost that destroys where it falls
and sometimes there are clouds of fog
that tries to blot out places, things and times.
Early in the mornings the dogs howl in melancholy
where they lie on their beds
on the porch under a roof
since they are prohibited from the house,
both cats sneak slowly into the room
not welcome any more in the whole house
and the rascal bird with its red head
and green body
knocks on the big window
as if it’s playing the tick-tock game,
the grass stays dead yellow
and stick onto shoes
and everywhere are treaded in
and most of the flowers in the garden
has already died
and now has only the colour of death,
although I am still faithfully
spraying water onto them
and it is as if I am now also loosing faith,
not knowing anymore if there’s a God
who cares about me, as if other things
constantly keeps Him busy
so that He never shows up for me
while my love relationship sink into nothing,
while I out of heart keep on looking for a job
and another man’s wife
tries to make eyes at me
and I see evil flowering everywhere around me
where I stand in the middle,
between good and evil
and about me the grey land stretches out wide.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Fractured Violence
The small girl was sold like a slave
The middle man cuddling her with a candy
The fat house wife suffered blues
From the riches in her neighbors
And those obese relations and friends
She felt terribly jealous of the free spirit
Of the small girl
She needed some one to look down upon
Whenever she would see her ugly face
And her bear belly
Her husband was a notable
Who would take his son
And to make him grow like himself
The small girl would share food
And chewed bones of the woman
With cats and dogs
Her smaller ego would get a boost
Her husband proud of her command
And one day in fog
In terrible cold
The fat woman ordered the small girl
To wash the floor
All bare
The small girl fell ill
Her nails were broken
Tortured
She screamed mother hundreds of times
In minus cold
She screamed blanket hundreds of times
Water
She just got an echo of her voice
From the cold walls
God like every one else was sleeping
At the time
And the nature watched
The moon and stars
She was murdered in the dark of the night
The husband and the fat woman
Had so many curses for her
The people
Did nothing
And the God was still sleeping
Written in the memory of Shazia Maseeh,12, a child worker in a house who was brutally murdered
26/1/2010
Islamabad
poem by Sadiqullah Khan
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A House Without Stairs
do not say
that without the stairs
the house is not a house anymore
without the ceiling
the more the house becomes to me
take the roof
if you want
or the beams
or even the floor and window frames
my house will still be a house
the sky its roof
the stretching grassy plain its floor
all the stars become
my magnificent ceiling
whatever is taken
we must imagine that all things are still there
lest we only have a house
that crashes on the floor
with all of us
dead
crushed to the death of
our imaginations
a door without an exit
because you have not seen hope coming
the lock and key
are all in the mind and heart
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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To Preserve Something, Just Cover It Up in Dust and Cobwebs
The house had a secret life concealed within
Though externally the surface was drab and plain,
Nothing to draw attention at all-
Dusty and dank, with every sort of stain.
But at a certain season and hour of darkness
Punctuated with rays of random moon:
The inner soul of the place came apparent
The greyness fell away and took with it the gloom.
Then the walls would blaze with a turquoise hue,
The kitchen had a lively checkerboard tile.
On the bathroom walls in the muted blue sea
The red fish and mermaids began to smile.
The scalloped mantle was glossy and white,
The wood floors shone to refect the rays,
All the crystal glass knobs and findings
Collected, throughout the long, polished days.
The house remembered the clinking of goblets
Wielded by languorous guests on the lawn;
Nights were passed long and comely,
And scattered coffee cups greeted the dawn.
Now weeds have grown up through the cracks in the walk-
The house is forgotten and falling apart
But the life that once flourished between the timbers
Is safely preserved in the house of the heart.
poem by Patti Masterman
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Shut Out The Light
The runway rushed up at him, as he felt the wheels touch down
He stood out on the blacktop, and took a taxi into town.
He got off down on main street, and went into a local bar
Bought a drink and found a seat in the corner in the dark
She called up her mama to make sure the kids were outa the house
She checked herself out in the dining room mirror,
And undid an extra button on her blouse
He felt her lyin next to him and the clock said 4 am
He was starin at the ceilin he couldnt move his hands
{chorus}: oh mama, mama, mama come quick, Ive got the shakes and
Im gonna be sick, throw your arms around me in the cold dark night,
Hey now mama dont shut out the light, dont you shut out the light,....
Well on his porch they stretched a banner, that said johnny welcome home
Bobby pulled his ford outa the garage and they polished up the chrome
His mama said johnny oh johnny, Im so glad to have you back with me
His pa said he was sure theyd give him his job back at the renderin factory
{repeat chorus}
Well deep in a dark forest, a forest filled with rain
Beyond a stretch of maryland pines theres a river without a name
In the cold black water, johnson linnier stands
He stares across the lights of the city and dreams of where hes been.
{repeat chorus}
song performed by by Bruce Springsteen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Dome Of Sunday
With focus sharp as Flemish-painted face
In film of varnish brightly fixed
And through a polished hand-lens deeply seen,
Sunday at noon through hyaline thin air
Sees down the street,
And in the camera of my eye depicts
Row-houses and row-lives:
Glass after glass, door after door the same,
Face after face the same, the same,
The brutal visibility the same;
As if one life emerging from one house
Would pause, a single image caught between
Two facing mirrors where vision multiplies
Beyond perspective,
A silent clatter in the high-speed eye
Spinning out photo-circulars of sight.
I see slip to the curb the long machines
Out of whose warm and windowed rooms pirouette
Shellacked with silk and light
The hard legs of our women.
Our women are one woman, dressed in black.
The carmine printed mouth
And cheeks as soft as muslin-glass belong
Outright to one dark dressy man,
Merely a swagger at her curvy side.
This is their visit to themselves:
All day from porch to porch they weave
A nonsense pattern through the even glare,
Stealing in surfaces
Cold vulgar glances at themselves.
And high up in the heated room all day
I wait behind the plate glass pane for one,
Hot as a voyeur for a glimpse of one,
The vision to blot out this woman’s sheen;
All day my sight records expensively
Row-houses and row-lives.
But nothing happens; no diagonal
With melting shadow falls across the curb:
Neither the blinded negress lurching through fatigue,
Nor exiles bleeding from their pores,
Nor that bright bomb slipped lightly from its rack
To splinter every silvered glass and crystal prism,
Witch-bowl and perfume bottle
And billion candle-power dressing-bulb,
No direct hit to smash the shatter-proof
And lodge at last the quivering needle
Clean in the eye of one who stands transfixed
In fascination of her brightness.
poem by Karl Shapiro
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The Eerie Little House
Wandering lonely through the forest track,
An eerie little house, I saw.
Its tiled roof and tall chimney,
Peered through the foliage of leaves.
Pacing down a dark ravine,
I found myself before a latched gate,
With a creaking sound, the latch gave way,
Letting me into a dilapidated house.
Its walls were painted grey and white.
The plaster on them bore cracks and marks.
It stood aloof on a small hillock.
The air around bore a strange scent.
Owls were heard hooting aloud,
Desolate it was with none to care,
Thorny shrubs grew all around,
And tall trees shut it out from view.
Dark and dreary it stood remote,
And I sensed it to be a haunted house.
Peeping down through its splintered door,
I got a glimpse of the dingy rooms,
Old frames decked the walls,
Shield and armour, near winding stairs,
Sultry the air, trapped inside,
The floors covered with grimy dust,
Shadows moved like snakes curling,
And giant bats flew about my head,
Cobwebs hung from the chequered roof,
And strange sounds began renting the air.
I felt a tremor within my brain,
Sparks of fear darted through my vein,
Behind me, I heard a rattling sound.
Turning around, I found the phantom of a man!
Blood curdled within my veins,
My heart ticked off in drumming beats,
My limbs, I could hardly move.
I grimly sensed ‘the Thing' upon me,
It tightened its grip around my neck,
Its sharp claws went deep into my throat.
Ohhh! I screamed a terrible scream,
And found myself lying below my cot! !
poem by Valsa George
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A House called Lonely (A Trilogy in three parts)
There is a street in every town that owns a house
called lonely. Then when your just passing by you might
just say, 'if only.
If only could mean a life time of thoughts but it does'nt cure
a lonely house and all its faults.
Boarded up windows and tiles gone from the roof, graffiti
painted by a rebelious youth.
Such a lonely house and an oh such a tired one,
one that has lost all it's fun.
Stairs and rafters all gone to pot all that is left
is wood worm and dry rot.
No children playing in the garden, it's just a house condemend
by the council without no pardon. Poor lonely house someones
forgotton dream, now describing lifes social scene.
This lonely house stands in the way because their building
a By Pass or a new motorway.
The house called lonely could be any where, in the town, the
country or city square.
Even in your street there's a house called lonely just waiting
for you to say 'if only'
poem by Sylvia Spencer
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The Wrong House
I went into a house, and it wasn't a house,
It has big steps and a great big hall;
But it hasn't got a garden,
A garden,
A garden,
It isn't like a house at all.
I went into a house, and it wasn't a house,
It has a big garden and great high wall;
But it hasn't got a may-tree,
A may-tree,
A may-tree,
It isn't like a house at all.
I went into a house, and it wasn't a house -
Slow white petals from the may-tree fall;
But it hasn't got a blackbird,
A blackbird,
A blackbird,
It isn't like a house at all.
I went into a house, and I thought it was a house,
I could hear from the may-tree the blackbird call…
But nobody listened to it,
Nobody
Liked it,
Nobody wanted it at all.
poem by Alan Alexander Milne
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Something That Flows Away
FINALLY you tell me
you like an empty house
something minimal
all white with no curves
just straight lines
your want is small now
something that makes us close
something that shrinks
to make an intimacy
you want a house just
for the two of us
i am thinking if these thoughts
are a little bit late
my dreams are different
i am thinking of a bird-house
i am thinking of grains
i am thinking of water
something that i can leave
something that i can give
something that flows away
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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A House for Four
A house for four
What is it? a house for four
A dingy looking thing
Are there windows? none
What is it? a house for four
Such a palace
Are there greetings? none
What is it? a house for four
Why the space is so small
Is there privacy? none
What is it? a house for four
A dozen creeps could be creeping there
Is there any trust? none
Don't judge me for mine
Poor fool i wont
Even give you the time
Are you judging me?
Your quite the choir
With a cracking voice
And
A tall house that falls
To scrutiny
A house for four and
A house for four
A people of choir and
A people of poor
Do you not recognize
The stains are yours?
A house is not a house
Unless there is more
More and more
Sometimes less is more
poem by Deci Hernandez
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