Your Poetry Dot Com - The House Facing the Shaded Park

There was once a house

facing a shaded park

cool bright terrazzo flooring downstairs

warm parquet flooring with peeling orange-hued varnish upstairs

There was once a house

facing a large old tree

benevolent

with strong sinewy arms

offering a bright yellow carpet of flowers

fluttering, faintly perfumed on the street

that lightly grazed

the driveway of the house

It was a long and slippery driveway

ending at a black wrought iron gate

In the evening’s soft pale violet caress,

the child clutches at an iron rail

dreamy, enraptured

as a brilliant yellow bird

species unknown

like a tuft of that yellow carpet

broken loose

coasts upwards, calling out

“woo-woot” “woo-woot”

Some in the neighbourhood say
its unabashed glee

others say
its the wistful whistle of a lost orphan

The enigmatic cadence

is parroted by the child

with the cartoon shorts

leaning languidly

on the gates at the end of the driveway

“A fine specimen of sound and sight!”

” Very pretty bird!”

chatters the elderly lady

pottering about by the garden

that neatly borders the sloping driveway

This orderly alignment

set the scene for a horror-inducing

mouth gaping, eyes bulging

gory spectacle

the other evening

the child, slipping, sliding, careening

down the driveway

her mouth set in that tight line - a limbo between sheer shock and fear,

slammed against the wrought iron gates

rain unlike the still inconspicuous pain

pounding down in an urgent torrent

The child’s bashed mouth

fills with hot and sour tasting blood

that spills out

staining the cartoon shorts

streaming down the driveway

unto the shiny black street outside

Thick murky mud swells in the garden

as a sharp, glinting sword of lightning

is brandished in the sky

illuminating the bloody, dramatic theatre

as a guttural, primal roar of thunder

reverberates

like an orchestra of the damned

escalating to an electrocuted crescendo

Oh the trauma of clumsiness!

A startled and appalled neighbour

peered over the fence the other day,

agape

as from the house facing the shaded park,

Sonorous and angry like thunder,

but bereft of its awe-inspiring timbre

a furious cacophony of bellows and shrieks

like the undulations of a storm-stricken ocean

Doors slamming

like hard, fast and unrelenting punches

to the stomach

Voices low, then surging to a raucous shout

like the thunder of a higher frequency

clapped across a cracked sky

like a million plates being flung off a cliff

and shattering at your feet

There was a house

facing a shaded park

no longer besieged

by that hot polemic wind

A bedraggled semi-child semi-adult

sits dolefully

on the cemented floor of the balcony

that overlooks the shaded park

in the hours where no children gambol in it

The air is static with malaise

but every now and then

you can feel

the most lugubrious breeze

that ever danced its sad dance

over the house

There was a house

facing a shaded park

remodelled

without the balconies

new bay windows

with two adults

disparately peering pensively out of them

every now and then

smooth parquet flooring with no varnish

but seemingly untrodden

upstairs

cold and glossy marble flooring downstairs

The large tree outside still stoic

but no longer generous

with aromatic yellow carpets

A different neighbour peers over the fence

for a non-commital chat

No more cringe-inducing shouts

curtains drawn on histrionics

almost inaudible laughter

The semi-adult slips into the driveway

of her once upon a time almost calamitous accident

through a wrought iron gate

her steps earnest and quick.

This poem is Copyright ยฉ CARAAAAA