an invitation for poems about an abandoned house on englesville road.

perhaps fitting well into the seasonal and atmospheric shift of autumn, here is a dose of more community poetry one picture at a time. it features not one but several photographs of an abandoned house on englesville road in berks county.

this is an invitation to write your own poem of ideas which come to mind when looking at this abandoned house. or you are welcome to think of past abandoned houses from your memory and experience, working from those, through this picture, to craft some sampling of creative writing which didn't exist in you before these moments.

please email your submissions to poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo dot com with:

• your name
• the title of your poem
• the state where you live

i'll share the submitted poetry as i receive it and will also update it to the facebook page in each case. feel free to share this opportunity with others.

here is my own first proverbial stab at this.

*


greyed light along englesville road
by jennifer hetrick

hard to know
when the air
conditioner

to the left of the white-painted
front door last rattled, busting

out filtered cold thanks to the final
payment for the electric bill before

they shut it
down, turned

it off at the meter. hard to know
the stories, conversations, laughter,

violent shouting which filled these
unseen rooms. they are now plenty

silent, save
for some bugs,

cricket songs in a quiet, forgotten
house. no fresh scraps of food left

for scampering grey-furred mice, their
anxious little grips searching anywhere

else for nibbles.
a broken window

lets twisted versions of this home's
old history out. it wafts back in while

ripped lace patches of curtain sway
by wind through empty spaces, away

from glass which
met gravity long

before the attention i'm giving these
bricks by writing this poem as it stirs.

[ newly submitted poetry, hurrah. ]

Personless Home
By Sam Traten of Pennsylvania

I'm hoping you can help an old vet out.
I once had a bright future full of hope and
fresh paint. Grandmothers and their old men sat
on my front porch, watching the world go by.

Kids tore through my rooms, jumping on horsehair
sofas, screaming taunts and hiding and seeking.
Cats and dogs roamed through me, sometimes
in tense standoff, mostly in friendly cohabitation.

Strapped-for-cash young parents cooked and
made do-it-yourself repairs and modifications,
adding dormers and sheds for storage and
crafting tools and utensils for husbandry.

Grandparents died, kids grew up and moved
to the city. Daddy moved out, their mommy grew old
alone, unable to pay the taxes. Dogs and cats
moved out to the fields and beyond, hungry.

I'm abandoned now.
Is there a Personless Home support group?
Or could you spare some change? I'd use it
on plumbers and electricians, carpenters and
house-painters. Honest!

You could probably get me for the cost of
back taxes and transfer fees. We'd have a good
time together, maybe we'd get the kids and
dogs and cats back.

Can you help me out? Thank you. God bless.


*

Never Forget the Wonder of Houses (a prose poem)

By Joe Swider of Pennsylvania

What wonders, at a glance, do these once noble structures bestow on my imagination. Children laughing, dogs playing, all manner of things growing. Life being created, and life passing on. History being witnessed, and history being lived. Laughter, tears, joy, and sorrow shared with friends, family, and loved ones. A whole world of accomplishment I can instantly understand. Memories long forgotten, instantly resurrected in my soul. Now these abandoned castles have been given another chance to experience their former glory in the words and thoughts of creatures such as us. My question is this, Are we so different than these houses? I believe, because I have to, that houses have souls. In essence, we give them souls. Just like us, they sometimes get neglected and abandoned, and just like us, they should never be forgotten.


*


who says?
By Barbara Tucker of Pennsylvania

who says?
Who says the house is abandoned? Really?
You could say it is temporarily unoccupied
we've gone to Canada or better yet
Florida or the Yukon
Why not Iceland, we've always wanted
to go.
Seriously our home is dear to us
we would never abandon it
not even when kids come by to
throw rocks in the windows out
back.
Or run their motorized thingies
across the grass/weeds wherever they
can and then some.
We love our home since we have lived
there all of our lives, births... through deaths magically
happened all the time, some lived some didn't
you can't expect more, can you?
Our old Ford stationwagon sat outside for months –
sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't and we love it
too, what's not to love? Loving our home or our
Ford – the things we keep in our hands and hearts – it's
all the same to us, you know.
Can you see just us that time on the roof when we were
kids,
climbed up on a dare and to see all around but the
view was unspectacular after all, not to mention the roof
felt slippery and I even broke my ankle getting
down.     Was ma ever sore about it!
Think more before you speak next time about
our home, our lives inside, our names written all
over, our heights measured, our guts spilled to
each other over time.
It's ours, not yours to talk about so  please don't bad mouth
us again.


*


Dashed Dreams
By Evelyn Aurand of Pennsylvania

It once housed laughter as well as tears.
But the laughter moved on and the tears dried up.
The dreams dashed off into a future somewhere else.
The windows shuttered the memories
And abandoned the story.
Placid acceptance of fate's deadline into oblivion.