Peaked like a gambrel roof.
Gambling for dun gold.
Axion, axiom, aloof.
Red ochre, old sold.
Cairn by the roadside?
Stacked rocks, a cache prepared.
Treasure someone tried to hide?
Looks like he got scared.
Snow, cover the landscape.
O ice, freeze others out.
Mellifluous, monster? Gape.
Crowd, you saw the rout.
Wasp and hornet, stingers sharp?
Yes, and barbed as well.
Angel, do you play the harp?
Demon, dwell in hell?
Chaos, birth in me a star!
Dancing free and fine!
Gaze, through haze! From near to far!
Belladonna, wine!
Resonance, a game of chance?
Let us play to win.
Downpour, between drops we dance!
Flippers, flick thy fin!
Ichor, wicker, nicker.
Thicker than water, blood?
Well, it's in the liquor.
Get sicker, O my brood.
Xiphoid, grip and push upward.
Solar plexus, wait.
Guts of mine, thy life is hard.
Fortunate, O fate?
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
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