House of Poems
The rafters burn last
but they also burn hottest
their brittle and aged
supports
old couplets stored for
keepsake in antiquated stanzas
tinder for the flames
like morning glory tendrils
reaching up and out
feasting metered in dissonance
breaching dormer windows
Ash falls thick grey flakes
drifting lazily in the night
against the inferno updrafts
sable clipper sailcloth
billowing under full rig
Each window glows its last
fiery breath a light a beacon
for traveling wordsmiths
in the distance warning away
do not venture to this house
as walls like pages in a book
curl on edge in burnt discord ply
upward and inward smoldering
the glued words and separating
their meaning extinguished in allusion
There is nothing here but
conceit
burning rhymes lit and
brilliant all
but forgotten in the scattered
rhythm
ash white and glowing in the
night
falling gently towards the
ground
Oblivious of the soot streaked
faces
faces belonging to these
embers
the poet points to the flakes
the final residue of semantics
and says
“look momma, snow”
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