House of Solitude

A crooked chimney for its straight smoke
in the willful style of a mellow mortal,
singing a siren's song with promises;
some solar panels to capture the light,
casting faint shadows on a desolate lawn:
a tinted cottage, frail, in earthly sight.

I sit in its shade and make fun of the sun
until clouds cover it out of mercy.

Its bay windows keep people at bay,
threatening with the confines of a cage
and the clatter of shutters.

For the price paid for self-induced exile,
this house stays stranded by design,
imagination's graffiti on clapboard sides,
creaky floorboards echoing the hours
given foolishly away.

Cowering in cobwebbed corners, a piece of me
through a madness of sorts,
in blank papers astray
scrubbing my insides for dreams, poetry,
or for slippery consolation.

At the end of a spiral staircase, a closed vault:
my literary atelier, my space,
gifts of poetry and time
to be crumbled and thrown into trash
after I'm gone,
and ruffling hard stone façade
of my inner rooms,
thoughts of futility.

Artless arms embracing lofty prayers,
an open book cuddled in my lap,
I nestle in my no-man's land.

Wherever I dwell, I'm alone.