The clapboards of the church pews
are as loud Praise print on a hymnal
collection plate showerless blessing
bell rope dangle art on a dusty floor
prayers of silence hallow the rafters
sunset gifts bits of stained glass life
The realtor ushered us up the cracked sidewalk,
Paint peeling from the clapboards
Revealed a rainbow of colors in the cracks.
Like a geologist who looks at canyon walls
And sees the ebb and flow of oceans writ large,
We could chart the house’s history
In the dusty rose and drab olive paint layers.
We entered through the loose-handled
Squeaky-hinged door.
Age had faded the carpet and worn
The tread of the stair,
Desolation rattled the glass in the window
Then worked its cold autumn bite into the rooms.
We were invited into the kitchen, where
Surrounded by hot pads
Put together by young fingers,
Were freshly baked chocolate chip cookies
Carefully arranged on a simple white plate.
The well-polished white oven clicked
As it cooled.
A framed needlepoint announced,
“This is Mom’s kitchen, where hugs are free.”
This is the place we adopted,
This is home.
that string
the one the nestlings thought a worm
blows listless on the wind
as clapboards rattle
on withered dreams
of forever
a silence calls
passing clouds
to mourn
a string
©11/7/2019
Last Years Nests Poetry Contest
Amid the glacial hills of central Maine
There stood forsaken, gray, an ancient farm,
Which always filled us with a vague alarm.
Atop the humpback ridge of a moraine,
Abandoned now, for centuries it stood,
Defying time, and ice, and hurricanes.
Its windows now were yellowed, cloudy panes,
Its weathered clapboards, bleached unpainted wood.
We’d see its silhouette against the dusk:
Its gambrel roof was reared against the skies
With dormers like two staring, evil eyes—
Unyielding in their aspect, heartless, brusque,
Perhaps a touch of malice in their glare.
And though untenanted for many years,
It never failed to stimulate our fears,
Because the house seemed gleefully aware.
But was it haunted? So we all assumed.
Yet still each May we’d watch as swifts would nest
And use the eaves and dormers for their rest;
And in its dooryard fragrant lilacs bloomed.
February 16, 2019
Enclosed Rhyme Poetry Contest
Emile Pinet, Sponsor
Nothing Lasts Forever
Weathered clapboards count death’s cadence
bleached bones of faded lives
rusted bells hang limply – silenced
mourning beneath long tearless skies
sad emptiness when longing dies.
Once, bells pealed, come hither
bright sunshine kissed love’s tower
none felt the doubtful shiver
one heart condemned to cower
blood stained - within the bower.
©1/15/2018
submitted to – 10 Lines, 5 Words: Rhyme II – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Laura Loo
Slender, whispering and flaming fireweed surrounds
the gray-weathered clapboards of the deserted
homestead whose torn gingham curtains blow among
the paneless windows with the gentle breeze of
summer morning.
Silence is challenged by harmonizing birds
who serenade the observer of the rustic
vista with the ardor of a courting lover;
cobwebs woven by a tireless spider hang
among the eaves and entryway,
catching unsuspecting victims who dare
cross the threshold only to become the
larder of the eight-legged trapper.
Summer grass uncut falls beneath the soft soles
of the stealthy intruder as it muffles
the sound of pounding heart anticipating
the unknown beyond the latched, warped and
wooden door of the abandoned abode;
cobwebs are cleared by a willow stick,
the frightened spider scrambles to safety,
furious at the bold intrusion.
Slowly, the rusty latch lifts----what awaits the
curious visitor from within these walls?
Footsteps echo throughout the house,
rooms are empty, pictures are gone,
family and mirth are ghosts of the past,
nobody's home to offer a cup of coffee,
nobody's home to say goodbye.
Nestled deep in the tawny, drab woodland
Sedate cottage neither haughty nor grand
Sparse hovel of unassuming, itinerant brigand
Martial decor of detached highwayman starkly bland
The etched path sculpted by intemperate hand
No manicured garden on the scrubby strand
Briers and brambles errant straggler must withstand
Thatched clapboards stable his stallion firebrand
Unruly swine garnish acorns from scraggly wasteland
Buried deep in his cellar pilfered contraband
Per chance drifter did the terrain assay
And chose that toilsome, forsaken way
A spartan welcome hauteur did convey
No lodgings, accoutrements could sway
If for grace, mercy they did pray
Only a cold shoulder he did relay
If they tested his temperance and sued for trite parley
He reconnoitered their belongings through wordplay
If no net value they were beguiled to betray
Their worthless lives he did indignantly slay
Urban legend now bared to the bone
Yet its trademark can no larger store clone
No glossy signs, spacious lots fealty to hone
But in colloquial parlance a tradition has grown
Larger Discount stores with dignity stand alone
Corner grocery, its squalid tenement doth bemoan
Manicured plots, concentric lots posh boutiques tone
Corner mart encased in fragile clapboards; skyscrapers of stone
Dilapidated phone booth anchors the curbstone
Squeaky door, bristling bell on entry doth groan
Large retailers, in furnished bakeries bake cakes, fancy scones
Mom and Pop, in one-stove kitchens; yeast rolls, cornbread pone
Serious browsers in large retailers with oversize carts spendthrift prone
At corner store, single-minded shoppers poach sustenance, then are gone
Large franchise with hefty profits and in fertile market sown
Corner grocer in depressed neighborhood; indebted to Savings & Loan
The clothesline hung, low, and limp.
Raucous, red, long johns
and worn, white, blue jeans
pinned like butterflies in a box;
dangled bodiless.
The neighbors all envied Mom’s skill.
Nobodies tidy whities were brighter.
The pulley wheel whined and clanked
against back porch clapboards
when a stiff wind blew through.
And, the state of your laundry
was like the state of the union jack;
you hung ‘um both high
and took ‘um down when the rain came.
The wind wolfed through the back porch
setting chime clappers to gong,
seething with ferocity, dropping power lines
swacking the gutters against the clapboards.
Window panes rattle, chattering with the storms,
conversing with the tic tap and ping of the plumbing.
harmonizing with the trill of whistling wind.
The wind wolfed down brittle branches,
worrying twigs, spitting sidewalk sand salt.;
gnawing at birch bark, unraveling bits.
The pack whimpers behind the gale
tucking tail as they herd writhing shadows
toward the morn.
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