There is a house with windows the sad
bruised eyes of a whore,
A shabbily rotted wooden door wailing like a
taciturn baby’s mouth.
A Cyclops house with half a face, rolling
out a gravel tongue;
Some rusted caravan attached to its rear
like a malignant tumor.
A house with a mirror door, a manicured
lawn and trimmed trees;
Envied by all on this street among many we
call by our histories.
A walled-in house with spikes of glass
fragments atop to deter birds or sordid men;
Standing on a corner, flanked by derelict shacks
and wobbly dog pens.
On my street, garbage tombs scatter on
dusty pathways, strangled by time and
Disused doors are bolted shut, distilling
resemblances of stubborn gags.
There’s a house with a rooftop veiled in
canvas anchored by broken wheelbarrows,
With four doors precariously smashed in
places where windows once panelessly stared.
There’s a roofless house, abandoned and
torched now housing the forsaken;
A house of gang brands and defecation,
weeds cracking concrete walls frailly.
A house in company of eleven car wrecks,
oil strewn grounds with carcasses of engines;
Glass doors riddled with bullet-holes and careless
burglar bars; unshackled pets yawning.
A house of tombstones, grinders and sand
papers carving last minute memorials,
Ever drenched in white water and soot, as
stones cry before their bereaved.
A house sporting colors of games and
allegiances to what’s not at stake,
A house of stolen gnomes and drooping
sculptures behind serrated wire meshes.
A house of assorted bricks patched together
unevenly, a house of two elderly sisters who pray
Guarded by giant dogs and a riddle of a
garden in an arid clime and radioactive soil.
