Poems about Houses [Archive]

John B.

12-09-2010, 08:50 AM

This poem was read on Writer's Almanac (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/) today, and I thought, Hey--good poem. And then I thought, Hey: we could use a thread for (good) poems about Houses!

729 ("The Props assist the House")

by Emily Dickinson

The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Augur and the Carpenter –
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life –
A Past of Plank and Nail
And slowness – then the scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul –

John B.

12-11-2010, 04:37 AM

Despite the title, this reminds me of Johnny's examining the detritus of Zampanò's apartment:

"Abandoned FarmHouse," by Ted Kooser (source (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2005/05/27))

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the House;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty House
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm-a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.