the empty house

on my way to the train station every morning, I pass the triangle slice of ground where the porter's cottage used to stand. I remember, peering through the chicken wire fence, when the builders first swarmed all over the cottage roof     and how I looked, and saw through the hollowed window frame, a photo still hanging on the wall-papered wall: a photo that held memories and comfort and being, that eyes had brushed over every night before going to bed, and hands had pinned carefully up... and it kind of made me tear a little, to think those eyes and hands were gone now, and soon     the last remnants of that little home would be too... ...and then the fragments of plaster trickled down, and I had to run for my train.

Tiles splinter onto the grass-spiked ground

A crash that echoes into a puff of swirling dust:

the sound of echoing laughter

smiles that were

And now, no longer.

You know not what you do

Dust to dust, echo to ground

With callous hands they raze and plunder

Thinking of moving in? they shout

Sometimes I think and pause to wonder

what Life

is all about.

The Jack-built house stands cold, alone

Forgotten when she passed away

You stand and watch it

Hard eye glazing, purposing the figures

and facts

As if they were

And that was all that mattered.