The Couple Who Lived In 4-E
Behind caution tape, I stand in the shade
watching a wrecking ball, tethered to sway
And soon with a gasp from the crowd standing by
A piece of the past is ready to die
I am seeing a lifetime, as it falls to the ground
the old tenement house, on Avery Street
For years it was home, to folks across town
Rarely do people now straddle it's shores
Where the root-buckled sidewalks lead up to the doors
And feet skipped over the cracks, with swift daily chores
All the chalked hopscotch lines have since washed away
along with laughter and the gold of the day
Summertime colors have withered and fled
Into bruised, battered bricks, of memories bled
Now, forsaken, this dethroned queen
With broken limbs and shattered eyes
of shards of glass, and broken lives
Still haunt the northwest wing
Thick layers of dust, cover the limpid leaves
of an old silk rose, within a vase
and reminds the gloom of dime store trips
when the passing lives, that used to be
were alive with simple certainty
A curtain, torn, hangs by a thread
and shivers, laced within the wind
A haven, built, of brick and clay
Defaced, disgraced, red-brick decay
Each story told, each life it held
Now crumbles with each stone, once laid
There were some who still remember, well
The ones who lived above the rim
By whom you could set the clock
By footsteps walked on wooden stairs
Who made this place a home
Now far away, the gossips say
"Their health had failed, such hell to pay
For now it seems to live each day
Someone has to tell them...
When to eat, when to dress and when to bathe"
People had watched them come and go
It was always with hand in hand...
Their music was heard between the cracks
Mozart, Bach, Glenn Miller bands
They had lived here forty years or more
Or so the legend goes....
No one really knows for sure, but know it was for years...
But now a flower in a vase
Is covered dust to dust
The lights turned off, no sigh, no trace...
with windows black, and lyrics lost
The wave that came, went back to sea
Like the hopes that fade away
Tomorrow's dreams have come and gone
to leave a winter's song
And is the only thing that holds the years
From waning into none....
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