Poem-A-Day #200: House

This is a new experiment. I don't know how long it will go. These poems will be about Hill House and what occurred there.


House

Our eyes speak to the air - whisper about the world - they collude
to fuzz the surroundings - to tell a sort of truth where there is none

At rest they speak in tongues - both the air and our eyes
the air resting becomes a mist or fog that rolls and obscures
makes the going rough over the fields

Houses conspire in other ways - places become steadfast - safe
until they are places all the lines cross - they are fact and sanity

But the ways the outer walls lean in to each other - they give away
they crutch of reality - that is bends itself over the lenses of air and eye
that these permanences are only one kick to the knee away from collapse

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely
under conditions both absolute and real - eyes and air and houses

Our eyes convince us we can be safe as houses - sane as them
but these safe houses have never rested - they are not sane

Ettington Park, Warwickshire, England
The "Hill House" of 1963's The Haunting