Poem-A-Day #206 : Blue Room Green Room

I haven't talked at all about how I'm working on these poems. I'm reading one chapter of The Haunting of Hill House each morning. At some point I sit down and write about the chapter using quotes from the book.

In theory these poems will track the narrative. Though I think they will probably just track the creepiness of the world Shirley Jackson created.


Blue Room Green Room

Stillness is a vial
of thick cloudy liquid

There is no evidence that this
belongs to the rest of the world

               It can hear us

               Don't be so afraid all the time
               it's altogether Victorian

The sound of glass breaking
the clouds no longer suspended
they ooze along the floor

               Do you have an Aunt
               a comic Uncle?

               Was there always a bull in a field?

The blue figured paper
twitches in the dimming light

Stillness seeps into the floorboards
stains itself

               What fun it would be
               to stand out there and watch it burn down

Poem-A-Day #187 : 3AM

3AM

When the street goes quiet
the late darkness seems to fill the world
in an unmoving

I imagine trying to cross it

Once you open the door into it the quiet will grab you
will probably strip you of faculties
your body will become a tree in winter

Like quicksand perhaps

Sliding your entire body into clay
or mud or the leftover oatmeal from this morning
and then it will harden over you