For sale by Public Auction

[Hawkman]

In a shaggy garden,
forgotten and forlorn,
a broken, sun-bleached, plastic, toy,
on what was once a lawn.

The house has long been empty
and a window, here and there,
victim to a well aimed stone
from kids who play for dares.

The roof is looking ropey,
the paint is peeled and cracked
and areas of brickwork
are stained a smoky black.

The gate is off its hinges
the path is split by weeds
and late at night, the crack-heads
pay ‘Keep Out’ signs little heed.

Inside it’s dank and musty,
with needles on the floor,
broken bits of furniture,
all stained, behind the door.

Once it held a family,
now only ghosts reside
impervious to break-ins,
they take them in their stride.

Eventually they’ll knock it down,
perhaps they’ll build again,
obliterating every trace
of Tanya, Bill and Gen.

[dafydd manton]

I like that one, Hawk. It seems to be an urban blight, and whilst to everyone else it's just a pile of bricks and rubble, it was a happy home once. Touching.

Sorry to be cheeky, but S4 L4, doesn't seem to scan, or is it me? Would "small" be perhaps a better word than "little"? (If I'm wrong, you may throw things!)

Keep going!!

D

[Hawkman]

Read it aloud daf, as one continuous sentence and it should sound right to you.

Glad you liked it.

Best. H

[dafydd manton]

Read it aloud daf, as one continuous sentence and it should sound right to you.

Glad you liked it.

Best. H

Sorry, yes, I was reading it in short staccato phrases. :out: I shall now stand still to facilitate better aim. *Ouch!*

Thanks for the correction!!!!!

[PrinceMyshkin]

How poignantly "Tanya, Bill and Gen" came at the end of this otherwise chipper, objective account!

[hack]

Good one Hawk, an understated look
at urban/suburban decay. When you
put a name to it, in this case names,
it becomes that much sadder. With
so many homes, and even farms, in
foreclosure, maybe we will soon be
fighting for space in the caves from
which we came, if the crackheads and
meth labs can be dislodged...peace...

[hillwalker]

Nice one Hawk..... no matter how grotty the house might have become through neglect, it was once a home.

[Hawkman]

Hi Prince, Yes, the names do make all the difference.

Thanks hack, Some of the decay is generated dleiberately by poor planning though. I remember that an entire street of perfectly good houses were compulsorily purchased by the local council and stood empty, getting more and more dilapidated over a period of perhaps 30 years. They thought they might build a flyover.

Eventually the whole lot was knocked down and they built blocks of flats on the vacant lots. What a waste. They replaced good houses with cardboard shoe boxes. Better for the resident rats I suppose.

Thanks hill.

Best, H

[Jerrybaldy]

Hi hawkman
very enjoyable. Tanya is an unusual name ( maybe Bill and Gen too) Not three names you would drag up even in poetic mood , so I have a bet with myself that they have roots in reality. Which side of me wins?
Bw
JB

[lallison]

I do really like this; I'm sure others will have more detailed comments but it conjures up for me a vivid picture of the story you're telling and the emotions it evoked.

[Hawkman]

Hi Jb, sorry to disappoint but it is fictional with regard to the names. I'm glad it resonated with you though and thanks for taking the time to read it and post a comment.

Thanks lall, It is possible that there is more to discover in this poem though than just a comment on uban decay and the consequences of the credit crunch. there are clues in the poem which hint at a darker reason for the house's abandonment.

Thank you both for reading.

Best. H

[Delta40]

Hawk, you write with so much imagination and my heart goes out to the fallen house which once nurtured family life.

[.Kafka]

You've littered this mighty house with an army of adjectives, verbs, and nouns. Once this house was full, was it? But now it is empty and of a substance of memory. It is rich. People phased through and through, and the shadows grew. And in time the shadows, the silence, compensated for the lack of physical presence.

But I have a question, and here it dangles, until it is asked:

Until the final stanza, the poem mentions nothing directly of the three characters. The memory of them is gone. The windows of their house their house] and their past-lives are open to the night air and to the malicious. The gate is broken. The house is foul. What will be obliterated, three mysterious names, shallow nouns for a poet's hunger, Tanya, Bill, Gen, or the house, which like a human life has magnetized poetry?

[Jerrybaldy]

Thats ok Hawk. Betting against yourself is a win/win situation. I read all you write son/holy ghost :)

[kittypaws]

Hawkman ~ your rhyming is way better then I could ever do...but the insight of your poem is deep.

Do You must pass a house of such destruction in your walks and see the decay there? Or else your imagination thru research and reading is just so rare. Whatever the back is behind this poem.....I really enjoyed it and what you shared….let’s just say, I could relate.

Kittypaws

[Bar22do]

I witness this situation daily over here, hawk; once beautiful stone houses, fit for the climate, spacious and telling individual as well as local history are carelessly knocked down and soon replaced with unhealthy, ugly concrete monsters... Tanya is a beautiful name and has its root in "tana" or "shana", which in ancient Aramaic means "repetition" or, in other words, learning, acquiring wisdom...
Your detailed description prepares well the expectation of the final blowing lines...
A good one, best to you - Bar

[Hawkman]

Hawk, you write with so much imagination and my heart goes out to the fallen house which once nurtured family life.

Hi, D40. Thanks, but I find it curious that your sympathy is for the house, rather than the missing family. :D When I see these places I am just outraged at the waste.


You've littered this mighty house with an army of adjectives, verbs, and nouns. Once this house was full, was it? But now it is empty and of a substance of memory. It is rich. People phased through and through, and the shadows grew. And in time the shadows, the silence, compensated for the lack of physical presence.

But I have a question, and here it dangles, until it is asked:

Until the final stanza, the poem mentions nothing directly of the three characters. The memory of them is gone. The windows of their house their house] and their past-lives are open to the night air and to the malicious. The gate is broken. The house is foul. What will be obliterated, three mysterious names, shallow nouns for a poet's hunger, Tanya, Bill, Gen, or the house, which like a human life has magnetized poetry?

Greetings Kafka:

They are no more.
Even the footsteps they left
in the sands of time are fading.
They are wraiths,
nothing more.


Thats ok Hawk. Betting against yourself is a win/win situation. I read all you write son/holy ghost :)

You callow youth, JB. Whats with this son stuff :D I'll have you know I am several years your senior, though not yet old enough to be a ghost, holy or otherwise. Nevertheless, we are deeply gratified that you read us with such dilligence :D (I am the reicarnation of Queen Vic, even though my father is the last vestige of the Raj.


Hawkman ~ your rhyming is way better then I could ever do...but the insight of your poem is deep.

Do You must pass a house of such destruction in your walks and see the decay there? Or else your imagination thru research and reading is just so rare. Whatever the back is behind this poem.....I really enjoyed it and what you shared….let’s just say, I could relate.

Kittypaws

Hi Kitty, Well, maybe not everyday, but I have seen enough examples of similar circumstances to paint a composite. The rest is imagination. Glad it touched you.


I witness this situation daily over here, hawk; once beautiful stone houses, fit for the climate, spacious and telling individual as well as local history are carelessly knocked down and soon replaced with unhealthy, ugly concrete monsters... Tanya is a beautiful name and has its root in "tana" or "shana", which in ancient Aramaic means "repetition" or, in other words, learning, acquiring wisdom...
Your detailed description prepares well the expectation of the final blowing lines...
A good one, best to you - Bar

Sweet Bar, thanks for stopping by to grace this thread with your observations. I did not know the roots of Tanya's name so it seems serendipitous to me to learn of them from you. Strangely, the day after I wrote this, I bumped into someone in a shop who overheard me spelling my surname to a sales assistant as he was making out an invoice. He asked if I was related to a friend of his, called Tanya. To the best of my knowledge I wasn't, but it was one of those interesting little coincidences, the million to one shots, that crop up nine times in ten. :D

Thank you all again for reading and taking the time to coment on this poem.

Live long and Prosper, H