They tore down the house
(for Stephen King)
They tore down the house.
It only took a couple of hours of destruction.
Children stood and watched;
buses didn’t even slow down.
An old man came to a trembling halt,
took out his wallet and looked inside;
studied it like some holy writ,
like a favourite meal cooked by a long dead wife;
put it back, shook his head, walked on -
unaware of the house or its desecration.
I wasn’t there anymore.
I was back at school,
staring out of high windows,
waiting for a siren,
waiting for forever,
dreaming of long summer evenings,
spread out in gold all over a garden,
guarded by spells and killer fences.
Everyone knew of the witch
that lived in the attic.
Behind those broken windows
giant spiders rushed up and down the endless stairs.
Sulfurous cats chased wicked mice in the cellar.
Gold lay buried somewhere in the garden
and ghosts of long lost children cried out
from the moldy liquid of dust-covered windows.
Nobody went near the place -
and everybody did in thought and endless stories,
in clammy, choking sheets,
the pounding beat of summer dreams.
Heaven and hell,
Heaven and hell:
a thorn-ridden garden,
a run-down fence and a haunted house of dreams.
They tore it down in a couple of hours.
The city didn’t slow down;
hearts didn’t stop.
There was no thunder & lightning;
no sense of worlds colliding or being destroyed.
Just some ghosts of undead children begging and screaming;
a vague smell of roses,
as I walked on.