Until I moved to Texas, I loved basements, those repositories of the true souls of a family. There's such beauty in detritus, the things we can't bring ourselves to discard, but don't know quite what to do with.
Then, in Texas, no one had a basement. There, it was the attic that served this function.
So, pick your poison-- attic or basement. I think you know where I am going here. I will go first:
His best painting sits
Beneath some others, skates, wine,
Much lov'd silt of life.
Ok, now it is your turn-- it doesn't have to be about your basement, necessarily. Have fun! Make it more or less 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables, and let it rip!
Lovingly preserved,
ReplyDeletemy dresses now must await
her great-granddaughters.
Mason jars, fruit-full
ReplyDeleteSit in a row by a window
Filtering soft light.
Ghost in the basement,
ReplyDeleteBig stones, cobwebs, dark corners,
What is your story?
Sunshine Friday chores:
ReplyDeleteDust, vacuum, wash, water/or not?
Sun beckoning was obeyed.
A dusty suitcase
ReplyDeleteholds glimpses of a past journey
Each item a memory
Never understood
ReplyDeleteNo basements in Texas with
All those tornadoes
Downsizing brings woe. Storage area too small for all
ReplyDeleteAttic or basement held.
Downsizing brings woe. Storage area too small for all
ReplyDeleteattic or basement held.
Campbell, it's the soil:
ReplyDeleteclay, limestone ... rock-hard to dig!
Always wanted one.
Attics are stifling
hot, and I don't like ladders.
Lose-lose, in my mind.
Boogieman lives down there,
ReplyDeleteMoldy laundry,empty boxes,
Broken Christmas toys.
Friendly foes long to
Observe my frailty which lies
Beneath this rubble.
I stand in stairwell,
Menacing Chinese Warrior
Of Clay...guarding tomb.
But do they know,it
Is so very easy,to
Lose your way here?...Snared.
Pa,drunk already,
ReplyDeleteRoared,"Get elderberry wine!"
So,we took oil lamp
Lit,down stairs,holding
Hands. Only three and four.Sis
Tripped.Lamp shattered,and
We flew up the stairs.
Scared and crying,we faced Pa.
Put out fire still drunk.
My dead daughter lives
ReplyDeleteIn the attic.She shawls herself
Silkpearl wedding dress.
It was mine in 1982.
She eats meringues of cobwebs,
Drinks melted icicles.
At least I know where
She is and sometimes I come
To see ephemeral,
Her small body like a
Moth,light on photographs
Where she isn't.
Advent wreath, crib, self-
ReplyDeleteportrait--all found in the new
attic of our house
Sal and I sat on
ReplyDeleteThe green fringed couch in cellar
L'il bro crouched nearby.
Key coital moment
He ran screaming upstairs.Wow!
Naked Sal ran too.
It was the best of
Times;it was the worst
Of times.'Sixty-nine!
Listen Osler--Geoff sucks!
ReplyDeleteCheck out line eight,Dink!
Two syllables too short,which
Describes your parts well.
almost choked reading the "Mustang's".
ReplyDeleteSo many wonderful Haiku's this week.
Me, too--
ReplyDeleteGeoff and Sally are brilliant!
Found in my basement:
Mouse poop, feral cats, crickets
No wonder I'm scared!
Cement gripped our brains
ReplyDeletePutty-fingered,bloatkittens,
Runny-eyed,staggered
Into gunny sacks
Held by determined mother
Who walked to weir-box. Plop.
The boys lived down there.
Depression held court,wore a
Clammy cold crown.
We lived there until
Our house was built.In a body
With out a head.We
Malingered. Once the
House was built,we moved up. Grew
Tails.Salamanders.
'Sitting the boys a
ReplyDeleteVoice came maniacal from
Night's Recesses below
Laughing.The girls,,teens
Looked at one another from
Throat to tum, gizzards
Leaping.Raced to boys'
Room,huffing bureau block door,
Out window to ditch
On bellies to car
Littlest drove to neighbor's.
Turns out they had a
Gunsight trained on our
House.We saw dictionary
On kitchen table!
Much later bachelor
Neighbor confessed. I can still
Taste my flameanger.
Downstairs, sweet refuge.
ReplyDeleteBig screen, pool table, bar, friends
Best thing -- no parents.
Basements aren't very useful in a tornado unless specially reinforced. We all had cellars/storm shelters. Used to store food, hide from storms. Had to check for rattlers, even tho we kept bull snakes in there to eat mice and rattlers, just like in the barn.
ReplyDeleteWe had a hired hand (briefly!) who proudly told my grandfather he'd killed all those g-d snakes in the barn. My grandfather and father had caught bull snakes and put them in there to keep the rattlers and mice down. I'm surprised that they just fired him! The barn cats did a good job with the mice, too.
Lee
Merely an old chair,
ReplyDeleteor a pair of golden bears,
that no one cares for.
A rug or a bug or
or an old collection of tugs,
that everyone cares for.
Intentionally
or unintentionally
saved, they gather dust.
Till she passes on.
Then. They are taken away.
To sell or to trash.
Good Gravy, David! That is wonderful! I really liked the unexpected rhymes and repetition of phrases...the word "merely" at the beginning,which is a clue. I want those golden bears...I want to hold them...but mostly I want the "Her".The "She..." which no one can own or ought to trash.
ReplyDelete