This house of rusty balustrades
Sits as an echo of something better
A tomb to former grandeur
And where once local men were paid
To polish everything from doorknobs to gutters
‘Til they shined like minted pennies
Now there isn’t anyone for miles around
To pay it any mind. Where once
The chandeliers did gleam like shining stars
The candles are but left to gutter and spit
With ne’er e’en one old stuffy footman
Left to keep them lit.
This house was fat and golden once
Sat oozing all its riches deep into the land
A festooned lump of butter, oily in the sun.
But now that richness has turned rancid
And the geriatric gardener can’t keep
The blossoming mould of crawling ivy
From reaching up the steepened sides.
Once meant as some eternal
Monument to inimitable glory
It sits now, a multi-story husk
So much sadder, thin and crumbling
A thorny memory of better days
Now in their dusk.
John Clifford Poetry 