Dance, house.
White as a corpse in moonlight,
in sunlight white as a small hill of salt.
Dance in your wig of rain streaming from the eaves.
We who pass through you, who sleep
under your asphalt-shingled hat
are little more than ghosts.
The earth might move or it might not,
but thunder comes knocking almost every day in the summer.
How long can you sit while the moon circles like a madman
& flowers fade?
You don’t have forever, that sterile seed.
Somewhere on the other side of the world,
with nothing but water beneath it,
a white sail rocks.
Support the site
What’s up
The Manual series, when complete, will tell you everything you need to know that you didn't learn in kindergarten. Belgian video-artist and soundcreator Swoon is making videos for some of its sections. Guest-author Luisa A. Igloria has been writing a poem a day since November 2010 in response to Dave's posts at The Morning Porch. Yet another on-going collaboration is the dialogue in poems and photos prompted by late-night conversations between Dave and British blogger Rachel Rawlins, a project we call Conversari. Finally, the Words on the Street cartoon, featuring Dave's urban doppelganger Diogenes, returned at the beginning of 2012 as a weekly feature after a several-year hiatus.Categories
Series
- Bestiary
- Blogging the Appalachians
- Breakdown: The Banjo Poems
- Cibola
- Conversari
- Highgate Cemetery Poems
- Honduran poetry
- Manual
- Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2010-11
- Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2011
- Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2011
- Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2011
- Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12
- Odes to Tools
- Poetics and technology
- Postcards from a Conquistador
- Public Poems
- Ridge and Valley
- Self Portraits
- The Temptations of Solitude
- Wildflower poems
-
Recent Posts
-
Recent Comments
- Dave Bonta said Thanks. I’ve always loved that word (as well...
- Deb said Loving this series; want to steal many lines. Chee...
- Dave Bonta said Thanks! I kind of think my spring wildflower poems...
- Dave Bonta said Hi Albert – I’m glad you’re liki...
- Dick said Good to have both Words on the Street and the Manu...
- Albert B. Casuga said Correction: http://ambitsgambit.blogspot.com/2012/...
- Albert B. Casuga said My response to Luisa’s poem, “A Counte...
Authors
Dave Bonta (3183), Luisa A. Igloria (424), Todd Davis (9), Teju Cole (5), Steven Bonta (3), Chris Bolgiano (3), Marcia Bonta (2), Bruce Bonta (1), Abdul-Walid of Acerbia (1), Sarah Bennett (1), Nathan Moore (1), Kristin Berkey-Abbott (1), Joan Ryan (1), Alexis Aguilar (1), Peter Stephens (1), Alison Kent (1), Dick Jones (1)
Beautiful! I love this.
this could be my new dave bonta favorite!
This is wonderfully unsettling.
Hi all, thanks for liking this! For once I kind of like it myself, too. I’m just not sure it’s really a lullaby. I’m thinking it might be some kind of spell or incantation instead.
It’s as much a lullaby – and as unnerving – as hushaby baby. Anyway, very nice.
As in “When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall”? I hadn’t thought of that. Good point.
This reminds me of Mary Oliver’s poem about her house – can’t think of the title – but there’s something so personal, comforting, and familiar about even that word (house) that’s universal. I like how the people haunt the house in this one – although the house is ghost-like as well.
Hmm, if it’s by Mary Oliver, I’ve probably read it. An unconscious influence, perhaps! Let me know if you think of the title. At any rate, glad you liked my take.