 |
| "Warning: Dangerous building." Calcutta. 2021. |
Tread lightly on these paths lest
your footsteps
damage the paving stones beyond
repair –
even stone and concrete crumble
from the edge.
So tread lightly as you go up those stairs.
The building’s fragile, in great disrepair
do take care when you lean in on the
sides,
the courtyard’s lovely, but then nothing’s there
to protect you from the winds and
the tides.
It’s easy to ignore, overlook the
sides
bricks and mortar don’t usually
creak
steel rusts quiet by itself along
fault lines
and damp seeps slowly for years
before walls leak.
Everything crumbles. Though none
of it creaks.
Architectures of love often do not
speak.
There's a fixed form - the exact nomenclature escapes me at the mo...and I'm feeling too lazy to google it right now, but the structure has second and fourth lines of one stanza repeated as the first and third lines of the next. So this repetition idea is kind of truncated and borrowed for the abovewritten (if abovementioned can be a word then so can abovewritten, get thee behind me, you disapproving squiggly red lines!)
Hope your January has gone well and that there are no squiggly red lines anywhere in your horizons, past or future. Stay fit and happy.
Slow and quiet decay... Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I sometimes wonder if faster and less quiet decay is easier to accept?
DeleteJust at the moment I am all too familiar with quiet decay - though it is faster than I like.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this - which has me thinking, as your work so often does...
Thanks EC. We all have to get familiar with decay sooner or later, sadly.
DeleteThe foundation of the house we lived in for 20 years looked like that. Once I went to the basement and a whole chunk was gone. That got fixed, but finally it was too far gone and we moved on. It was a great house though. Don't know what kind of bad mortar they used to hold it together.
ReplyDeleteMaybe quiet decay is the worst kind. Was just wondering if I will end up bald and blind at the end of my personal decay.
Bald I can cope with but blind would be terrible! Hopefully, we'll go out with lights blazing.
DeleteThis made me think of my father and the home he lives in (my childhood place) still. Both he and the home have fault lines. Don't dig too deep into corners. Everything leans a bit and is wobbly. You painted quite the picture with your words.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it stirred pleasant memories - nothing more rewarding than that for a writer!
DeleteHi Nila - ancient brickwork always opens doors to think of the past. As the others have said we all have creaking memories of various sorts ... those cracks just stay together (most of the time) ... though engineers have tried on occasions to use their skills - as we have learnt in the 21st century not always successfully. I wrote about Canterbury Cathedral in 09/2015 where some stone tracery fell off a window near a public entrance - the results of Victorian ideas!
ReplyDeleteYou always write such evocative poems ... beautiful phrasing and use of vocabulary which I love - cheers Hilary
I'm glad you enjoyed the poetry. Wish we had the resources to conserve old buildings better. Just want an attempt, never mind successful or not. If after that things fall off or crumble away at least there's the consolation of having tried.
DeleteIt amazes me how some structures survive for thousands of years, and others barely manage a century.
ReplyDeleteGood post.
I was under the weather earlier this week (not the C👾vid, don't worry), but I'm much improved now.
I've been scheduling debut author interviews at Operation Awesome. If you know one, please tell them to reach out to me.
Over at the a-to-z challenge, plans are hatching for April 2022, including a big event this month (starts Feb 4).
Plus, WEP has the "All You Need is Love" flash fiction challenge on February 16 - 18.
Quote for February: “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” -John Bunyan
So glad to hear you're okay!
DeleteStone structures behave differently than brick or mud, naturally. Stone built structures survive, other materials rarely endure as long.
Your Feb sounds superbusy in a great way - best of luck with all of it. Hoping to see you at the WEP later. Stay safe and well.
I was just on a meeting with a horror poet (Angela Yuriko Smith), and I swear she was talking about this form, but I don't remember what she called it. Either way, I enjoyed your piece.
ReplyDeletePleased you enjoyed the post. The name has since come back to me - pantoum. Both the pantoum and villanelle use repetition as a mnemonic device. Well, all rhyme and rhythm and repetition and indeed poetry itself is a mnemonic.
DeleteEverything crumbles. Though none of it creaks.
ReplyDeleteArchitectures of love often do not speak.
Very beautifully said, Nilanjana. These lines will resonate within for a while.
Thank you, Damyanti. Glad you enjoyed the lines.
Delete