Okay, we’ll leave the self examination for the moment and look into our origins. Everybody comes from somewhere, it’s true. But we’re focusing our microscope a bit more finitely. For this week’s prompt, we’re going home!
“HOW DO YOU VIEW your life? – POETIC BLOOMINGS MEMOIR PROJECT
Part3: Welcome Home – Marie and I ask you to write your poem using your childhood home as inspiration. Be descriptive and paint your imagery as colorfully as you can. What color was your house? How was the neighborhood? Did you have a favorite room; hiding places? Wall paper or paint? – What memory of your home is the strongest for you? We will deal with the people in your home in later prompts. Right now, just give us a glimpse of where you lived. Include all you need to make us feel at home.
MARIE ELENA’S ROOTS:
BELMONT AVENUE
She was a two-story, humble abode;
Up in years, but still
She wore white well.
I don’t recall the kitchen much
Before Dad’s home-made solid oak cabinets, and Mom’s
Fruit-dappled wallpaper with appealing colors
That showcased the oak.
I also can’t quite recall the walled staircase
Before Dad opened it up, and added an elegant
Curve.
Then there’s my bedroom, of which I have
No recollection, pre-
Flamboyantly pink flowered wallpaper
Of my five-year-old big-girl choosing, that
My parents tolerated, and my Grandpa
Patiently hung.
I’m quite certain her front porch
Had limited personality until
Our porch swing was hung
And summer nights meant staying up late,
Pajama-clad, swinging and singing
And chatting and waving
To neighbors that happened by.
While some things were lovingly changed,
Others were equally as lovingly allowed to just be.
There was the dining room wallpaper mural –
An elegant home
With winding creek and weeping willows,
Where I used to sit for hours,
Placing myself in such a charming and picturesque scene.
What I truly treasured about our home, though,
Was her setting –
Comfortably settled among the homes of
Loving aunts, uncles, and eleven cousins.
© – Marie Elena Good – 2012
WALT’S HOME BASE:
WHERE OUR HEARTS BELONGED
Home.
It is where the heart is.
We had left her years ago
but our hearts remained; an empty shell
where the essence of us resides.
They can cover her in vinyl,
but in the final determination
the combination of sunny yellow
and a mellow burnt umber trimming.
had her brimming with love.
A two-family dwelling with
full cellar. A fellow could find sanctuary
with nary a care; there was always family there.
A room paneled and trimmed
(all on the carpenter’s whim)
Bunks and captain’s beds,
where we were born and bred.
It remains in my heart and head,
where my memories come.
I’ll always her call home.
© – Walter J. Wojtanik – 2012
It amuses me that we both chose to personify our homes – females, both. 😉 ~Marie Elena
Why not, home was a loving and nurturing place. 😉 Walt
POETIC BLOOMINGS 
Responses
LESSONS LEARNED
Seven people in a tiny house.
One bathroom and five women.
Compromises needed to be made;
We learned consideration.
I slept in a triple bunk bed.
I was at the top,
so near the ceiling
That rolling over was risky.
Seven people in a tiny house
brought us closer,
made us aware that
what we do affects others.
We are older today,
but we still live the lessons
we learned from each other
being seven in a tiny house.
Linda, I think many of us grew up in small houses compared to today but of course, nothing as small as our grandparents and great-grandparents etc. Well, most of us.
I had never heard of a triple bunk!
My grandfather built my Mom’s house; started out teeny-tiny, and didn’t finish until the kids had grown up and moved out (but he never bought on Credit :)!)
Hee, hee, we had 8. That triple bunk sounds like our bunks, with a trundle; lucky me, I had the corner spot all by myself (being the oldest girl), so all of my posters/pics/writings and stuffed animals could frame my comfy bed. 🙂 !
Lovely start, Linda!
Marie Elena
Love the rhythm in this one, Linda. And the truth of how limitations have much to teach us all.
Linda, loved it!
A triple bunk?!?! Wow, that would be something to see! As Andrew mentioned, the rhythm of this poem is superb. Well done!
I like that bit about rolling over being risky — it brought the picture of the triple bunkbed and the small room into focus.
Lovely poem. I bet you learned to be patient!
LInda, this was lovely. We were four women and Dad. He said he spent less time peeing in the bushes when he was in WWII in the South Pacific!
Seven and one bathroom? Yes, PIP has it… patience. Peace, Amy
Marie and Walt – Your homes sound like wonderful places to have grown up in. Am sure that there are a number of us that will need to select ‘one of several’ to concentrate our thoughts on. Unless we choose to write of ‘home’ and not the dwelling place…but, you want a look at a house too. 🙂 Hummmm
Good morning, Marjory! Yes, we are looking for the attributes of the dwelling place itself. If there was more than one, feel free to choose one, speak of them all in one poem, or write a poem for each. As Walt says, we will be writing about the people in our lives later … for this exercise, we are to write about our childhood dwelling.
Go for it! 😀
Marie Elena
ooopsies… I hope attributes of the dwelling could be inferred. May have to redo mine
Hummmm – I just noted that it appears that the East coast has a different Aug calandar than we have on the West coast – where Aug 1 is a Wednesday. :0 🙂 🙂
I appoligize – I am conditioned to see Sunday as the first day of the week – yours is set up with Monday – That is as little as it takes to throw me off. Your right. 🙂
I am having problems getting links to my WordPress to work so shall double up and post the link and the poem.
Through small remembered rooms
I searched, for what the child
called home, in distant days
and darkened nights;
lost houses where we lived.
As strange became familiar,
as cool walls warmed and stretched,
to hold the grimy handprints,
of children as they slept.
Beyond the grasp of solid wall,
the garden groped and fell,
into a jungled bursting;
where dreams could live instead.
Was home the narrow, sagging bed,
the couches worn and tired,
the table, green and laminex;
the wardrobe where I hid?
Or was it furrowed brows,
slow drifting smiles and shouts,
of adults with no time to spare;
of worries deep and loud?
Perhaps there was no house to hold,
nowhere which held its place,
and yet the home stood deep within;
as solid, gifted grace.
Through small remembered rooms
I searched, for what the child
called home, in distant days
and darkened nights;
lost houses where we lived.
Poetic Blooming prompt – memories of childhood and home.
http://poeticbloomings.com/2012/08/12/welcome-home-prompt-68/#respond
“… and yet the home stood deep within; as solid, gifted grace…” Lovely!
I agree with Hen. Wonderful poem.
Welcome to Poetic Bloomings, ros! You’ve done a fantastic job of displaying the feel of your childhood, while adhering strictly to the prompt (describing the actual house). Bravo!
Marie Elena
Thanks Marie.
“lost houses where we lived”, we all have some of that feeling and you brought the nostalgic part of me out with this lovely poem, Ros.
Magnificent write. Wow! So comprehensive and atmospheric.
Ohhhhh, this is crazy good!! I loved “As strange became familiar, /
as cool walls warmed and stretched.”
thanks – kids feel more than think I believe.
No doubt.
meg
Sounds like you felt more at home within the garden and that’s a sweet image.
This was deep… the memories of thoughts trumping the surroundings. I catch a lot of tension in that household, and no small yearning on the part of the child speaking, what with the shouting and “no time” and all. It’s so true, kids feel every little thing, and looking back, it’s all so much bigger. Peace, Amy
Ros – this is wonderful.. So glad to find you here!
http://rosross.wordpress.com/
Marie and Walt, what evocative images and how lucky to have them.
Lovely homes, Walt and Marie!
(Mine probably won’t come to me all at once in poetic form, so I shall begin with my favorite place)
Our Kitchen
We
all still
go to find
our nourishment
there. 🙂 !
Part of me wishes our home on Belmont was still in our family, and we could gather in the kitchen for “nourishment” as well. Love it, Hen!
Marie Elena
I second that Marie, the house that was the basis of my chapbook WOOD was a special place indeed. I would give anything to still have a claim on it. So now, it is fodder for our muse. Keeping memories alive!
Yes, thank you, Walt, I am so very thankful that my folks still live in the same humble home (over 50 years now)… 🙂 !
Thank you, Meg… we have all found that it is deeply rooted into our souls, no matter where we live. 🙂 !
Hero of the Neighborhood
When I was a child of four who spent
Her days imaging games with the
Neighborhood kids and a special friend
Anna Marie, the girl next door
Our yards separated by a prickly hedge
You had to walk around to the side-
Walk out in front. An old neighborhood
Even then, in the days of the great
Depression when every one was poor.
The morning I remember, Anna Marie and
I were playing in our yard. My mother was
On the porch washing clothes – she used the
Old community washing machine that had
A tub and wringer and not much else…Suddenly
We heard the screams, perhaps we screamed
Ourselves, running to the porch where my
Mother’s arm had been seized by the wringer
And would not let go
All the neighbors ran outside
Including Officer Feeney who had stopped
To have a cup of tea with his sister, the
Mother of Anna Marie. When he heard the
Commotion outside he didn’t take the time
To run around the side walk – no, what he
Did was leap the hedge – sailed over in a
Single bound, unplugged the machine and
Set my mother free! What a hero! I
Remember how the neighbors cheered
While I clung to my mother, crying,
Later, I stood next to the hedge. It was
As tall as me. I don’t remember the
Cameras, the newspaper interview.
But when I read of Superman who
Could leap
Tall buildings in a single bound I
Remember Officer Feeney
who did it first.
Aww, tears and smiles… thank you Officer Feeney… and for your lovely neighborhood… :)!
What a sweet story! I love the way you ended it.
I agree! Very clever ending.
meg
What a wonderful story. I love the way you wove the hedge in from the start. It works really well.
Great story. Nice to have a flesh and blood superman.
“Back when everyone was poor,” that’s exactly how Mom described the Depression, the great equalizer. And I’ve written about the wringer washers, but oh, your poor Mom. God bless Officer Feeney and all who wear the uniform. They are superheroes, with very few exceptions.
You painted this portrait with such love and realism, I was scared for Mom and happy it came out better than it seemed it would. Excellent write! Amy
hinges
doors are not sentimental
they simply open and close
(but this door sang)
sang on its hinges the day I
came home in cloth, and again
for a thousand pairs of feet,
a war, a baptism, a death
in counterpoint to my father’s
typewriter, with the piano
my mother coaxed to life
sang softly for my gran
at her last and loud for
our innocent wedding day
last of all a farewell dirge,
over tea chests in the empty hall
doors are not sentimental
they simply open and close
(but this door sang)
Andrew, I really enjoyed this. Such imagery with one phrase “but this door sang”.
Yes! Loved: “…but this door sang…” !
an amazingly moving piece
Wow!!! The flow of this piece is absolutely musical.
Oh, Andrew! This is simply brilliant!
Marie Elena
I love the way this piece flows! It sings — just like the door.
This one touched me, Andrew. I love the image.
You know how to evoke emotion with just a few words.
ANDREW! “This door sang.” You just called to mind our back screen door, it was a slow decrescendo from Eb to G. Your images, the events, and finally, the close. I vote BLOOM THIS! Amy
It’s in the running, for sure. 😉
Marie Elena
No Family Home
I wished I had a place to call home
a nook or cranny to call all my own.
Instead our location changed like the wind
my family home…there’s nowhere to begin.
Ohh… 😦 !
Bless your heart, hon. Did you have a favorite space at some point, even though it didn’t last?
Cyber hugs and squeezes…
Marie Elena
Sounds like it could have been written by my daughter. We moved about a lot via my career and then being a single mom. One good thing is that she packs light, moves from apt to apt with ease, and adapts well. I can only hope that bright light shines within you. It’s not always as bad as it seems… or is it? Love, Amy
“Numbers”
“What are the neighbors of five?”
A teacher asked a six-year old me.
“There’s one girl across the hall…”
She laughed – it was about numbers,
She was expecting “four” and “six”,
But to me five meant family – us,
Two parents, one grandma, one sister,
One little me.
There were other numbers, too:
Fifty square meters (not quite),
Three rooms, one tiny kitchen,
Fifth floor, four windows
All facing one busy city street
Lined up with hundreds of trees;
Countless buses, “buses with horns,”*
And all sorts of cars swishing by
(I used to watch them for hours
Counting red cars.
Always red.)
Numbers changed with years,
But always growing, never decreasing,
“Four generations under one roof,
Six people…and one dog!”
My mother would proudly say
At one point.
The count is different as of today.
Not because of my babushka’s passing,
Or me living across the ocean for years,
But because of my two kids’ decision
To take their first steps in the narrow hallway
Of their mother’s childhood home.
Numbers do change – they grow,
For whoever has been touched by that place
Never leaves.
———
“buses with horns” – trolleybuses 🙂
Gorgeous! And, that first stanza, I think, is one of the Sweetest things that I have ever read!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 !
Thank you, Hen! It was actually a principal admitting me to first grade, I almost blew it 🙂 I still think it was a rather confusing question, and I still like my answer!
yes… I LOVE your answer!!! 😀 !
Aww, Happy! This is one of your best, IMHO. Love it!
Marie Elena
Thank you, Marie! This is my favorite subject 🙂
I love the way you tie the last stanza into the present. There is a lot of truth and love in this piece. Bravo!
Thank you very much, Annette!
What a wonderful start to a poignant and happy poem.
Thank you, “Purple” 🙂
Children, ah, their math is so much more important and telling then that of their teachers. Perfectly penned, and the ending was magical. God bless your babushka, as I bless Riley’s Oma. Peace, Amy
Thank you, Amy, so much.
Home
Mum said ‘we’re moving,’
leaving the home of my first nine years.
Two little girls dissolve in tears,
and then: “We’re going
to live beside the Thames.”
The tears changed to cheers –
Dadsmum’s river, our favourite place.
Selling the house a traumatic affair;
potential buyers everywhere,
turning up a scornful nose
at each feature we expose,
throwing out such rude remarks
about the lack of this or that,
giving black marks for the tat,
for art deco decor –
once fashionable, alas no more.
Saturday morning, parents shopping,
a sweet old couple came a-knocking.
Two little girls in adult mode
smiling sweetly opened the door.
Super-saleswomen took the floor
and ultra graciously they showed
every feature of our dear abode.
Here new curtains, there the kitchen,
freshly painted green and cream,
– such a modern colour scheme.
Pantry, cupboards made by Dad,
nothing left unshown,
We would be proud – if only we’d known…
In the garden we praised like mad
the lawn, each rose, each apple tree.
‘We’ll buy it,’ they said with alacrity
to stunned returning Mum and Dad.
‘Such charming children.’
We were glad but sad
to leave the only home
we’d ever known.
Loved the words… loved the flow… !
How adorable that you sold the house all by yourselves! My goodness! Of course, these days I would be shoving my heart back down in my throat that two little girls let strangers in the house. 😉
Well done, Viv!
Marie Elena
Aha! So, this is your first encounter with the Thames… or maybe second? Since you identified it with grandparents? I love how the story of your geography is showing through these poems.
If you go to War Memoir, then Post-war Memory – the River in the header bar, you will find some more of my river story
… and it is well worth the read.
Marie Elena
Thanks – I will definitely do that!
Viv, knowing your history as I do, it must have been hard to leave that place – yet, little did you know what adventures lie ahead of you, that move toward the Thames being fraught with danger and making such good reading for us all.
Bloomers (if that be the name of us here), all of you owe it to yourselves to peruse Viv’s War Memoir, and then read on from there. History is due our remembering it. Amy
[…] part of the unfolding series in the discovery of self, Poetic Bloomings encourages us to write a poem using our childhood home as inspiration. I share with you some of my […]
Escrowed Memories
By: Meena Rose
I.
Home
I’d welcome you to it
If only I knew which it was.
II.
Home
Breaking bread by candlelight as
Laughter fills the space with light.
III.
Home
Generous smiles despite
Leaner times and fearful violence.
IV.
Home
Love, a celebration of life;
A reservoir of unlimited support.
V.
Home
Gathering around Grandma’s chair as
She wove tales of magic and delight.
VI.
Home
Grandma’s crochet blanket;
Each girl helped it grow as she learned the craft.
VII.
Home
My Grandma’s house;
A structure of stone rooted upon the Earth.
VIII.
Home
My small room tucked beneath a stairwell;
A place of refuge born out of love.
IX.
Home
My rooftop cot and white cotton bed sheet;
A gateway to the Heavens.
X.
Home
My Grandma’s ghazals that have lulled me to sleep;
Weeping compassion over the blood of the rose.
http://2voices1song.com/2012/08/12/part-3-welcome-home/
I feel the coziness of your Grandma’s home, MeenaRose… thank you…
Thank you, Hen.
Your style shines through brilliantly, Meena. You take us to tears and warms smiles all at once, as you so often manage to do.
For this project, we’d like the focus to be more on the house itself, if you would. 😉
Marie Elena
Back to the drawing board then 🙂
Your emotions shine through this poem.
HOME SWEET HOME
Morning all over me,
facing a clover field and
alerted by its clover smell
I wanted
to run in there,
somewhere,
for ever.
And I did.
The bees
and the lark
are here
with me forever.
The clover, the air, the mornings
and Mom and Dad,
yes.
Beautiful, Andrea…. I can so relate to the Feel of “…Morning all over me…”!
Thank you Hen and yes, to be able to embrace the morning.
… 🙂 … !
Oh, THERE you are! Welcome back, Andrea!
Not much is described in your poem, but yet it tells so very much about the atmosphere. This is so lovely, and so well written! Bravo!
Marie Elena
I have been on vacation and when I returned I wanted to clean my computer – so I washed the keys. I should never have done that! It crashed. I haven’t yet recovered my documents, anything, but now I got a new computer and I do my best to get back on the road.
Thank you for your comments.
Sometimes an open field feels more like home than a house. Lovely.
Thank you Annette. Yes, in my case it does. The feeling of space and freedom was a very good foundation for me. Thank you.
What a great first line!
Walled
When a childhood home is an ant bed
red with fire, hot-headed desire turns
joy to angst. You hide in your
yellow room, write stories
about someone else
hoping to be-
come yellow
like the
walls.
… painful truths…
Ohhh . . . sad. Beautiful.
Oh, Laurie … this cuts to the heart.
Beautifully penned.
Marie Elena
Ouch! You crammed (in the best sense of the word) a lot of feeling and detail into a few words. I love tight writing that doesn’t get lost in obscurity. You succeeded in aces. The picture of the yellow room — with the child who definitely doesn’t feel sunny. Perfect.
How sad there was no sun in a yellow room. I hope your life is filled with sunshine now.
Thanks for your supportive words. I appreciate it.
A Country Home
A little red house on the hill,
but sometimes pink, white or yellow
in a neighborhood huddled in a wooded valley
shared mostly with relatives,
except for friends to the north.
In late evenings, when we weren’t allowed
out of our yards, we’d play on the line.
We had three acres; half in garden,
a small wooded area, large yard with
lots of nut trees, pines and an oak named Charlie.
One sister said if she died and went to hell,
they’d hand her a lawn mower.
The funny thing is, in Dad’s heaven,
they’d hand him a lawn mower, too.
With all seven round the kitchen table,
no one could move except for Dad and me.
So I was the “gofer” when someone needed
something from the frig, cupboard or cellar.
In the corner was a wringer washer.
With all the jeans out on the line, mom said
people would think she had five boys, not girls.
The living room was crammed full
of furniture plus an upright piano. Watching TV,
I’d sit on the floor, under the keyboard.
The walls were decorated with Whitey
(a head of an albino doe),
Blacky and Reddy (mounted squirrels) and
a full gun cabinet. I thought everyone had one.
The hallway (which seemed long at the time)
ran out of the living room,
three bedrooms on the left, a coat closet
and a bathroom on the front part of the right.
There was a closet at the end of the hallway
which housed towels, the Lincoln Library and
the set of red books including #5: Best Loved Poems.
Each bedroom was mine at one time.
Mostly my oldest sister and I shared the back room.
In the winter, frost decorated the windows.
We cuddled to keep warm.
When she got her first job, she bought
an electric blanket and a record player
on which she played loud rock music.
My middle sisters were in the middle room.
The first room was my parents’
and for the first few years my younger sister
slept in a crib then a single bed in the corner.
And in the plaster, Mum had shaped a teddy bear.
There was a big closet in the early years
and to get away I’d go in there and daydream.
Wonderful… I was right there! Especially loved: “…And in the plaster, Mum had shaped a teddy bear…” :)!
“an oak named Charlie.” This made me smile wide!
Great job, Connie. I feel like I’m there.
Marie Elena
… and then there’s this:
One sister said if she died and went to hell,
they’d hand her a lawn mower.
The funny thing is, in Dad’s heaven,
they’d hand him a lawn mower, too.
For some reason, this stuck with me, and made me smile this week more than once.
Marie Elena
I can relate to your tiny kitchen!
This prompt has a magic property – to pull some truly emotional poems from everybody, taken together, the essence of home in all its guises. I had tears in my eyes from reading down the contributions.
I feel the same way, Viv.
Yes… essence so well captured! Love them all!
I SO agree, Viv.
Marie Elena
Childhood Home
On kitchen walls of Apartment 2A,
copper kettles danced across
tan wallpaper. An open-ended
wall separated kitchen from
living room, allowing my sister
and me to outrace an angry
mother until we cartooned out,
like a cat endlessly chasing
more agile mice. Six years
apart, we shared a room, were
ill together, fought together,
and tried to set up an invisible
dividing line of ownership,
which changed on whim
and whine. My parents worked
different hours, but we felt
secure, sure in the knowledge
that we could knock on any
of the eight other doors on our floor.
Neighbors helped each other.
They were ever vigilant, sometimes
to a fault, oh, but that was when
I was older and bolder. Twice
during summer, families packed
picnic equipment for an all day
outing at Valley Stream Park.
Dad taught all our friends
to swim, and ride bikes, with
never a look or word of impatience.
How I miss that man.
Lovely poem, especially: “… never a look or word of impatience…”
Thanks, Hen!
“Which changed on whim / and whine.” Heehee! 😀
Loved that one too!
Me, 3. That little 6-word phrase says a heap, doesn’t it?
Marie Elena
Thanks Hen and Marie!
Glad you caught that. I did things on a whim, and my sister got her way by whining She was much more effective.
I shared a room with my sister and we had that invisible line as well. 🙂
Then you know how ineffective it was!
LOL! 😀 !
Homeplace
I sat on the kitchen steps of the old house,
a resurrected hunting cabin moved to the farm
by great-grandparents, and watched
carpenters frame out the new house.
Warned not to go near them, I sat with morning
sun on my face, my siblings in school, needing work.
Mama let me stand on a small stool in the old
kitchen where sinking floors made that a challenge
and help her make biscuits, knuckling the dough
on the pan to dimple each biscuit’s top.
None of us could imagine a new house
two stories with hardwood floors, a basement,
and closets in the eaves, connecting the bedrooms
upstairs where my brother became a monster
crawling from his closet to ours, scratching
at the walls beside our bed to frighten my sister.
New or not, we froze in winter and sweated
in summer, that farmhouse sagging with each year,
but it housed seven and sat surrounded
by acres of a farm in its last generation.
Behind it, a pond was built when I was small
with another bigger pond in the hill pasture,
a creek running between the two, dividing
pastures and fields where tobacco and corn
grew, gardens and fruits. Cows, dogs, cats,
goats, horses, a donkey, rabbits, deer, we
raised or claimed them all, loved them, ate them.
Craggy remnants of my grandfather’s fruit trees
remained, ancient apples and pears, peaches and pecans,
with woodlands girding it all providing hiding places
where a girl could get away but still see the house
without being seen. Adequate space for dreaming.
Edgewood Farm, my family’s home place for centuries,
farmed by my people until now, the last
of many divisions among siblings, the end of an era.
“we raised or claimed them all, loved them, ate them.” Oh my! Life on a farm. I wonder how little ones handle it all. 😉
Your ending is sad, and all-too-often the case.
Well done!
Marie Elena
Ohh… Lovely sad… (and didn’t almost everyone have a “monster brother” 🙂 ! )
The House was Big
The house was big
and I was little.
It had an enormous front door
and was three stories high.
On the third floor
were renters I either
never met or cannot
remember.
Each Saturday I helped
my mother dust both
the “wigwork” and railings
of the winding stairs.
Hidden in a corner
of that old house was
a tiny room that held
my dolls and other toys.
“…The house was big and I was little…” precious line, precious poem.
Oh, that tiny little room sounds enchanting for a tiny little you! I’m curious, Sheryl, what is “wigwork?”
Marie Elena
Wigwork is what I called the woodwork. This was the first of a few houses we lived in. My memories are selective and few, so I kept this one short.
[…] Poetic Bloomings asked us to write a poem using our childhood home as inspiration. Share […]
Hi Annette! Love that you are participating! Your link doesn’t seem to be working properly. Would you please consider pasting your poem in our comments section? Thanks so much!
Marie Elena
It wasn’t working because I accidentally hit publish while I was still drafting – and promptly removed it. I posted it below, and the link should work now, as well.
Excellent. Thank you Annette! Loving your work!
Marie Elena
I think this prompt was the most difficult one yet for the memoir project. There was just too much of home to do it justice in one poem! Ah well. I tried.
The Castle
“A man’s home is his castle,” they say.
Well, so is a child’s.
It didn’t look like one, of course,
With chips in the white paint,
Cracks in the linoleum, and
Picture windows so drafty
We always knew which way
The wind was blowing without
Looking out at the tattered flag
Flying over the “football field”
Where many a family soccer game
Had runs its energetic course.
I never thought much of my tiny room
With the slanting ceiling I could touch
When standing on my captain’s bed,
Though I spent many a night searching
For new creatures and retracing old ones
In the jungle of brown and yellow flowers
Papering my bedroom walls.
I paid little mind to the broad expanse
Of deep brown carpet
Where my brothers and I
Let our imaginations roam
With the aid of a distressing mess
Of toys and an overflowing shelf
Of books, from Dr. Seuss
To well-loved encyclopedias.
The spacious basement,
With its cold floors and shadows
Which I knew concealed witches,
Was not a place I would have
Ever claimed to love,
Despite the hours I spent there
Happily irritating the boys
While they built wooden boats,
And despite that one delicious game
Of hide-and-seek by flashlight
With a multitude of cousins.
I took for granted the rickety swing-set
With the sun-bleached alligator
At the centre of its delightfully
(To my mother, frightfully)
Shaky infrastructure
Put to the test by cousins
Who should have outgrown it
Years and years ago.
I always thought I wanted
To live in a castle.
I realize now
That once upon a time,
I did.
Oh!!! Cry… sooo WONDERFUL!!!
Aww, really? Thanks!
Yes… 🙂 !!
Miss R, this is IT. You have captured the essence of your childhood in one brilliantly penned poem. I wish I’d written one such as this.
Marie Elena
Thank you, Marie. You are just too kind!
Not kind. Just observant. 😉
Well then. 🙂
I love the chipped paint and linoleum — all those little details that bring your castle to life for the reader. Well done.
Thanks, Annette!
This castle comes to life so vividly. A definition of `castle’ can be many things to child.
Absolutely it can! Thank you for your kind words.
[…] prompt at Poetic Bloomings, and part three of the memoir project, is to write a poem about your childhood home. I must say that although this […]
The Blue Grass Trailer Park
Blue Grass, the Trailer Park; a crowded court
where sis and I grew up; drew lines in sand
our summers were a hopscotching cavort
while lis’ning to the sound of Dorsey’s band.
Our home a cozy place for count of five;
a closet kitchen and 3 rooms beside.
A paneled sandy floor where roaches hide.
A mile from beach where Royal Palms reside
My Daddy brought us here in forty-four
and we were those who lived ‘across the tracks’
from untold wealth and glamor I adored;
the bridge to Palm Beach minutes from my shack.
The Blue Grass Trailer Park a name not real;
so close to other worlds that were surreal.
Love this: “…Our home a cozy place for count of five…” !
“across the tracks” says a great deal, doesn’t it? Wonderfully captured, Jacqueline!
Marie Elena
Isn’t it funny how system of rails meant to connect people and places were so discriminating in dividing people. But apparently the division was in people’s minds. Our houses (homes) are held in high regard for the most part, our memories should be inpenetrable. A nice piece, Jacqueline. W.
Would have to disagree with you the railroad tracks a metaphor for something ONLY in people’s minds. Where I grew up, it was a very physical, real “separateness” where you were judged by something other than your inherent value. Palm Beach, back by money and power, made it impossible for you to join their “club”. But there were other lines of demarcation; you could be filthy rich but if you were a certain race, you were also ‘uninvited’.
What do you mean when you say our “memories should be impenetrable”? Thanks. Jackie
I guess I meant… “in the SMALLNESS of people’s minds”. The track were nothing but a delineation; a fence. If you’ve formed good memories, people can’t take those away from you if you don’t allow them to. I lived on the”other side” of the tracks in a middle class steel town. We shared that ethic and divisions were very few. The tracks didn’t foist that determination on you. Ignorance did. Some lessons come at a great price. – Walt
Even though you were across the tracks, it sounds like you had a slice of heaven.
The House on Hamilton
In the center of the small square house
was a small square room with a square
metal grate, open squares, over a blue
gas flame. The pilot. The house was never
cold, and all the house’s warmth came
from the square in the floor in the hall.
Years later, white squared lines on my right knee transcribed
the plan of our house, a hall with five doors. In the winter of 50-51,
when I was three, an ice storm covered the world with an inch of heavy glass
and froze it still. Nothing, for days, moved. Only smoke. There were no lights.
My mother, Mary–Mary Leslie, Mary Les, called
Pete by her brother and sister and friends–Mama lifted
the metal frame from the grate in the hall
and cooked for us on the bare blue flame.
Wow. What images are capture here, Barbara, as well as emotion. Bravo!
One of my earliest memories was of an ice storm when we lived outside Columbus, Ohio. I was still in diapers, yet I remember the beautiful golden glow of sunset on ice-covered EVERYTHING, and I remember appreciating the beauty of it. I also remember sleeping all together (mom and dad, and my sister and me) … probably to keep warm enough.
Love your poem!
Marie Elena
… Yes, especially loved that last line…
I like how you focused on one memory and created a home.
Here is mine:
Growing up on Encanto Drive
Our house was creamy white
with blue grey trim
(like my mother’s eyes).
A single story ranch style,
brand new when we moved in;
a quiet street corner house
in a quiet town
with neatly mowed grass
and tall shady trees.
In my bedroom
I played horses
wrote
and read
gazing out the window
to the rugged San Gabriel mountains.
In later years,
my room was a refuge
from discord with my father;
hurled, hurtful words ricocheted
in the family room.
I retreated and got lost on
John Denver’s country roads
and in the ballads of Bread.
Gone were the carefree summers
of childhood,
when we gathered plums together.
Now I was careening into adulthood,
my skateboard clacking
over the sidewalk cracks;
my oak tree roots
pushing against boundaries.
So much beauty and sadness here, Annette. “my oak tree roots pushing against boundaries” is such a poetic and apropos ending to your childhood, and beginning of adulthood. Excellent.
I think maybe you and I are close in age (John Denver and Bread). 😉
Marie Elena
Yes, I’m still not sure if it was a happy childhood.
A beautiful take on both home and the transition from childhood to adulthood. Thanks for sharing!
Loved: “…I played horses wrote and read gazing out the window… got lost on John Denver’s country roads and in the ballads of Bread…” Yes!
Thank you!
I grew up with John Denver, too – but I never heard of Bread. To my surprise my Mom liked Janis Joplin (my Mom also liked opera). I think that if you doubt whether your childhood was good or not – it must have been good. Your first stanza is great!
Nice Annette.
“If you’ve formed good memories, people can’t take those away from you if you don’t allow them to”. (Walt)
But I hope I did not imply in my poem that I let the world take away fond memories of a childhood (if any) because of my comparing the huge difference between my world and another one so close by! I see my early childhood an interesting, stark comparison between my world and the one next door. And that played a large part in motivating me to rise above the squalor; enabling me to compare circumstances. Plus, am working with the sonnet form which forces you to fix the thought with more intense selection. After all, have only 14 lines to describe my childhood home.
But what did I say in my poem that pictured “good memories” that I would allow others to take from me? A squalid little hut with roaches running across the floor? I awoke one night, screaming, because in a dark, humid, Florida night, the palmetto bugs (filthy roaches) were swarming all over me. My mother turned on the light and fought them off with a broom until they flew away! I was eight years old. It happens when things are not kept clean or the palmettos constantly sprayed. Memories of home are the result of whatever happens in your life and not some ‘manufactured’ ideal or what it was when it was not! It is what it is. It was what it was! The memory, good or bad, cannot be taken from you!
Hi Jacqueline. I hope you don’t mind that I edited your quote above to cite Walt. You are quoting him, not me. Sorry for the confusion. – Marie Elena
I agree with you, Jacqueline, that comparing the huge difference between your world and the polar opposite so close by would play a large part in motivating you to “rise above the squalor.”
It’s also interesting the different ideas a reader can take away from another’s work. For instance, I clearly see the discomfort in the trailer park where you grew up. Yet, use of the terms “cozy” and “home” imply to me that you are able to search through the distasteful to find the good … part of the memories I think Walt is referring to in his comments.
Your sonnet is emotive and full of imagery, and obviously welled from a very deep place in your soul.
Marie Elena
Jacqueline, I loved your sonnet. I just want to say that I too perceived it as a nostalgic, “good memories” poem. Bitter-sweet, yes, but not bitter. I guess it was the hopscotching, the sounds of a band playing, the words “cozy” and “Daddy.” I thought the separating railroad tracks in retrospect turned into those lines in the sand you used to draw as kids – something that can be easily erased. The surreal world you longed for blended with the unreal quality of the trailer park’s name – music in itself. Even the “paneled sandy floor where roaches hide” didn’t sound grim to me. Again, maybe it’s the word “sandy” that has such a soothing ring to it. Maybe, it’s “hide” that suggested “hide-and-seek” to me. Maybe, I felt a bit of that mixture of fear and excitement a child could experience when hunting a ‘beastly roach.’
It seems to me that your poem might have had a mind of its own.
I hope you’ll forgive my lengthy comment, but you asked what in your poem pictured good memories, and I wanted to share with you.
Sasha
“It seems to me that your poem might have had a mind of its own.”
You are so perceptive, Sasha. Thanks for an interesting
response to my poem. Jackie
🙂
Remembering the Yellow House
My house
Big and yellow
A yard in front with trees to climb
In back, a porch we built,
A swing set we built. In back,
A river that flooded and attracted geese.
My house
A living room with a high sloping ceiling
A big staircase with a white intricate railing.
Memories of body parts stuck between designs
And people sitting on the stairs at parties
A Christmas tree stood in the middle (or so it seemed).
My room
Had just one extra step up
Smothered in pink and white
Instead I spent hours in my brother’s room
With cars and legos and forts in early mornings
Plus his smaller smiling face.
My house was my house
Until I was almost ten
A tearful good-bye marked the end of a chapter
Yet half my life still lingers there.
Now it is blue and different and strange
And now I can only reminisce about when it was still mine.
…yes… that last line…that is Life…
so much nostalgia packed into those ten years … well said
Hear, hear. So much nostalgia packed, indeed. A good write.
Good to have you with us, Lauren!
Marie Elena
Marie Elena and Walt, thanks for getting us off to a good start. A great start, really, and I’ll be back to peruse others’ work, I promise. This was a hard weekend for me and your prompt gave me much to consider… so there are two versions of this poem on my blog. You got the “lighter” one, in keeping with the themes of this blog, and out of respect to all who so lovingly post here! Peace, Amy
Angel
Back then
Back when Christmas was fun
And it was Santa’s birthday again
We had a tree
Same one every year,
Balsam fir, short needles,
dressed in pure red
A huge Mrs. Claus,
a “mama tree”
Cherry lights strung to perfection
Middle sis righting every
incorrectly placed bulb ‘til it was
PERRRRRfect
Then the satinsheen red ornaments
(a hand-me-down from Aunt Pris,
the holiday window dresser at Fowler’s)
So fragile, handled like dynamite
lest one explode, one wrong move
revealing shards of thin glossy insides
We had no angel atop our tree, though
we three made many in Sunday school
and in every single grade –
back when Christmas was not a whisper
but a SHOUT ON COMMAND: HE IS BORN!
and to hell with the handful of Jews in the hallways
(some wishing they had trees and stockings too)
But angels? Our folks’d have to pick
one of our three… they’d have no trinity
And white would spoil the symmetry
Our angel, last year’s broken one
when a single slip lopped the top off
Stuck on top of the tree, inverted
Blood rushing to its head
crowned by needly thorns
“Lllight it up, plllug it in, Bud!
Girllls, outen the llllights!” slurred Mom
And there it stood
flooding the living room with
every gimmering shade of red
From the street, our tree was
a blazing hearth streaming
light onto snow that glowed
vaguely pink in its wake
“Oh, look,” said a neighbor
as folks strolled admiring
one another’s holiday handiwork,
“The Red Light District,
the Barlows’ cat house is once again
open for business!”
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Poetic Bloomings, Marie and Walt wanted childhood memories.
As Eric Idle sang at the Olympic closing ceremonies last night, “Always look on the bright side of life!” Merry ‘Christmas in August,’ Santa Walt – and Peace on Earth, Amy
Ow… but it was magical to you children!
Oh Ames … you weave a great story … not completely out of whole cloth, I’m guessing … very cool. I’ll try to make it over to your blog or the “dark side” for the other …
Amy, your honest and always interesting portrayal of family life always amuses, and endears.
And I LOVED Eric Idle Sunday night. One of the highlights of the evening. 😀
Hugs – Marie
“Isn’t it funny how system of rails meant to connect people and places were so discriminating in dividing people. But apparently the division was in people’s minds. Our houses (homes) are held in high regard for the most part, our memories should be inpenetrable. A nice piece, Jacqueline. W.”
AHHHH, that tiny “W” is a Walt? I missed you, Walt, and attributed your thoughts to MEG! Sorry, Walt but my aged eyes need to see your name in full bloom, lol ! Thank you for the compliment! Jackie
Home, 50 Plus Years, and Still Counting
It was the Model home from
the new subdivision
near the Air Force Base,
Three and one. Kitchen and
living room.
Located next door to the
fire station, we always
felt safe.
A good size backyard where
we played baseball,
Big bushes where we sat
and hid, telling secrets
and giggling at feet passing
by.
It was small by today’s
standards,
but back then we spent
so much time outdoors
that we never noticed.
Our kitchen always had
yummy aromas—
my Mom made the best
cakes from scratch…
After baseball, she would
serve a slice to the “team”–
vanilla cake, still warm, chocolate
icing dripping from the sides.
Our homelife weekly routine
never varied much, and
at night, in our rooms
so close together,
my folks and our
brothers would have to
listen to the singing
coming from the
girl’s room.
Hen, this is wonderful, a delicious bitter-sweet poem, I love it.
Aww, thank you, Happy… 🙂 !
I think it’s sweet and I love the atmosphere. Hen, we are from two very different places.
Ohh, I thank you so much, Andrea!! Yes… I do believe that we are all products of our childhood… to this day, I still sing to comfort myself…! :)!
I love this vanilla slice of your life Henrietta – succinctly said but beautifully … very nice
Oh, “vanilla slice of life”, love it…. thank you, so much, Sharon!
This atmosphere, and what you made of it, say much about your accepting, giving personality, Hen. Very nice. VERY nice.
Marie Elena
Why Thank you, Meg… your comment touches me deeply!
44 Neilson Avenue, the Bluffs, and the Lake
On a corner lot with roads newly paved
No sidewalks ever but sewers and curbs eventually
Sat our snug bungalow, the one where we grew up
My brother and I – a huge back yard, with three trees
Two hard maples and a spreading elm, before Dutch disease
And in the front another hard maple by the corner of the lot
So come fall the whole place shone golden and maple keys
Flew like helicopters everywhere, blanketing the lawn
The house itself was white stucco all round
with a black shingled roof
Hard wood floors throughout most of the rooms except
for the kitchen
Which had linoleum first and later shiny cream tiles set
off with the odd
Burgundy ones that matched the ones
in the bathroom
Three bedrooms upstairs but we used one for a dining room
until I got too old
To share a room with my brother; then the dining room was mine
for a bit
After Dad finished our basement rec-room, he also made
a great bedroom
Down there – really big and private – and some years I had it
and some years
My brother did; it depended who was acting out, who was home,
who needed the space
But the things I remember best about that house are the smells:
Sunday dinner – usually roast beef and some sort of potatoes –
the way my mother wooed my husband, I believe
And ironing day – there is nothing like the smell of freshly ironed shirts,
so crisp, clean
Laundry on the line or just fresh in from outside – again, those scents
that aren’t like anything else
Plus baking – my mother was a champion baker and her Christmas cakes, legendary
Dad’s workshop – all the sawdust and oils he used for handyman things –
he loved to putter
Fresh mown grass – somehow that scent isn’t as pungent nowadays
but it could be my sniffer just isn’t as efficient but that scent always
signaled summer to me
Even the aroma of newly waxed floors sticks in my memory as a good smell;
an odd juxtaposition as it always meant my mother would be tired and out-of-sorts,
angry at us for messing up her ‘perfect’ house
I don’t think she meant to be as harsh as she seemed, I just think she thought
if her house stayed perfect, she’d have control over some parts of her life
Unfortunately, of course, there’s little truth to that hope and equally unfortunate
was that I didn’t come to my realizations about my Mom until quite late in life.
Still – my happy memories of home far outweigh the others …
And when I dream of Neilson Avenue, it’s of hearing Santa’s sleigh bells on the roof
(even as an adult returning to visit, I’d swear I heard that faint tinkling)
Or my Dad making us lime-rickey sodas with ice-cream and ginger-ale;
I recall the fizz tickling my nose
Or remembering how my Mother invited half a dozen girls my age to our house
to make cards for Valentine’s Day or to decorate eggs at Easter …
How Dad taught my brother and I to make pull-taffy in the snow, a taste so sweet
as to be indescribable
And these are just a few things that have to do with the house itself – never mind
that it was located a short block from the magnificent Scarborough Bluffs
Even though we weren’t allowed to play there, as soon as we were old enough
to play outside all day in the summer – I think I was about eight but my brother
probably got to tag along by the time he was seven –
That’s where we snuck off to almost each and every day – we’d say we were
at a friend’s house but all of us – all the kids – would spend hours down
at the bluffs and the ravines leading down to the lake (Lake Ontario, that is)
We almost always got found out by summer’s end because we’d get poison ivy –
there didn’t seem to be a way to avoid it
And all the parents knew the only place we’d get that was… in the ravines
around the bluffs
It was a great place to grow up, that wee bungalow in Scarborough – it felt and still feels,
like my childhood home
The only other place that comes close is our summer cottage – a place we went
each summer during about five or six years during our formative years
I have to admit, when things starting going wrong for my brother at school –
the cottage became our happiest home place during those years
Big Island on Belmont Lake was the place he could be most himself, was not bullied
by kids or teachers there
Felt the most accepted, I think, on the lake and in the woods
Everything fell apart for him when we had to sell our cottage when my Dad lost his job
I think maybe things went south for me at the same time but I didn’t realize it
until long after
And my acting out took quite a different form from my brother’s, was not
even noticeable until years later, and then only by me and in therapy
So – there was home in Scarborough and home in the Kawarthas and they
both have powerful stirrings … sit in my memory bank like warm beacons,
reminders that I do come from a good place with lots of good times
It’s worth going back to those places, if only in my mind, now and again, just to remember.
S.E.Ingraham©
Lovely, Sharon… and Yes, “It’s worth going back to those places, if only in my mind, now and again, just to remember.” !!
Thanks Hen …
Sharon: Such a nice writing style here. Interesting, full of sensory images, very strong…descriptive…fun to read.
Ah, Sharon … I can feel the homelife with you here … ups and downs, scents, sense, and nonsense. As Jacqueline says, stong, descriptive, and a fun read.
Marie Elena
GRANDPA AND THE COAL HEAP (POETIC FORM: PROSE)
A year after Grandpa died, my sister and I saw him standing in the basement. Truly. The southwest corner of our Ravenna Boulevard house. Right there. In the basement – there, where gleaming lumps of coal fell on to an existing deeply black heap, there, where they hurled through a narrow metal shoot with a deafening, heart-shaking clatter. At the top of the coal shoot was a square wooden plank, a makeshift door of sorts, pushed up against the wall that shut out the worst of the winter weather, stray cats, squirrels, and most of the sunlight, not that that door has anything to do with anything. Anyway … My sister and I spent an hour each morning and another each evening down in the basement practising our weekly piano lessons. The summers were okay, temperature-wise, but during the winter it was permafrost down there, and we wore our winter coats and knitted gloves with the finger bits cut off so we could feel the ivories. On top of the piano, it was an upright, I mentioned that, right? … well it was, and we used an old metal, coiled-neck lamp for light and Mother’s old kitchen timer, a white tick-tick-tick wind-up thing that ticked …..
This is a prose poem, a bit lengthy, so to read more please join me at http://miskmask.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/grandpa-and-the-coal-heap/
Please see my reply below, Misky.
I left a comment on your site, Misk. But I must ask: True story?
Marie Elena
Yes. True as true can be.
Sorry for delayed reply. Iøm in Denmark helping mother-in-law who has cancer. Be back in September.
Totally amazing. Oh, what we don’t know about the world(s) in which we live, eh?
I’m so sorry about your mother-in-law. You are a sweetheart to be there for her.
Marie Elena
Love Needs No Name
Nestled in a gigantic fenced yard on 160 acre farm,
you humbly beckoned to all strangers.
Warm and inviting, your laughter was contagious.
Your outer garment had weathered into dull gray;
yet your worn exterior was like a flour sack dress,
faded and bleached by the sun into a gentle softness.
Gigantic fenced yard was your skirt that made you appear
like a modest lady with a dress draped to her ankles.
Milky Way was your halo, stars twinkling like jewels in a crown.
No air-conditioning ,so on hot summer nights,
we took the roll-a-way out of doors for Sis and I.
Daytime aromas of fresh baked bread, or cinnamon, or bacon.
enticed one into the kitchen to inspect the source.
The stove bubbled with joy, bidding one to stay and enjoy.
Back porch accumulated boots, cats, and children.
One could sit and eat watermelon while dangling feet or
spitting seeds at one another or into the expanse of yard.
Cistern was on the back porch also so the water was carried into
the house by loving hands, not fabricated hydrants and pumps.
I am not sure we ever locked the doors, just closed them against the wind.
Windows were seldom closed except in winter, and birdsong mingled with
voices, radio, and shrieks of laughter from inside your wallpapered walls.
Doorway into the dining room bore pencil marks beside our initials.
Our height was recorded each fall to indicate our physical growth.
Storybook houses have names like Tara, or Wuthering Heights, Monticello
Ours was just simply and lovingly called “Home.”
Beautiful, Iris… just Beautiful!!!
Thanks Hen. I am just now getting time to reading all the poems. I just had time to post. Been gone all summer and missing everyone. So love this prompt!!
!! 🙂 !! So glad you had a nice summer, and happy to see you back!
Beautifully written, Iris! You are another who managed to hold close to the prompt, and manage to give a full picture and feel of family life.
Wonderful piece!
Marie Elena
Oh, Misky!!! This was DELIGHTFUL!!! Your prose-poem writing style is soo ME — I have just never let myself “flow” like that — but you have just inspired me! Thank you, so much, for this lovely, funny, teary piece!!!
Thanks, Henrietta. 😀
No time to read & comment — hoping I’ll make it back for that.
For now, here’s my offering:
Home is Where the Heart Breaks
Architect must have been drunk
when he designed that house —
two beds, one bath, and a kitchen so small
someone had to stand and push in his chair
in order to open the back door
if anyone came calling during dinner
The only one of ten on a tiny dead-end street
set sideways on its lot, only two lonely
windows of welcome facing forward
(no such notion as curbside appeal);
front door cowering on the side
under aluminum awning, nestled
behind trellis of red roses each June, and
the focal point upon entering?
Toilet in the tiny bath across the hall.
Still, that home managed to make room,
with some additions to accommodate
expanding and extended family,
housing, at one time or another,
both grandmothers and a widowed aunt,
and offering, always, a seat at the table
to a widower friend and his son at the holidays
House and homestead proffering up
all the peace and pain, grief and joys
of a mostly functional family
where those who love can hurt us worst,
with comments never intended to draw blood
but, doing so just the same; over time
alcohol erodes, cancer creeps in, and stroke
revokes all recollections of hearth and home
That house (long since sold off), still stands
sideways on a street of mostly strangers now
Former neighbors remain loosely connected
through distance and time by shared histories,
tied together by bittersweet memories and tales retold
when they meet to mourn their losses at wakes & funerals
And those folks who still recall, confess
that since she left the family
Christmas Eves have never been the same
Ahh yes… “Christmas Eves have never been the same…” the magic…
Oh, PSC … an emotive read, indeed. I feel the mixture of feelings from the home of your “mostly functional” family. Well done.
Marie Elena
“The White House”
It was white.
Always white because it cleaned
up easy and that was what he liked.
He hung me out the 2-story window with a
brush and a bucket of white and ordered me
to paint.
I would have given him a quarter just for the
thrill.
When the tornado roared down the street in ’67,
we lost our trees, and spent the rest of the week
squeegee-ing the sewage in the basement, then
sealed the floor with gray and once again painted
the siding white.
Two girls
—me and Arie—
slept in our twin-twin pink-pink gingham beds,
downstairs, the two boys tussled upstairs in an
unfinished dormered room with deep dark closets.
We hid behind the scratchy woolen coats and
clammy dry-cleaner bags, sneezed from the musty
boxes and screamed when the silver fish dropped
into our hair.
My dad may have mortgaged that dog-eared
Cape Cod but Miss Katrinka owned it.
I hated her.
Twice, Miss Katrinka gave birth to a dozen blind
pink babies and whenever she lost a few, she woke
me.
I slipped on my pink pink slippers and slid across the
scratched geometric linoleum into the living room
and searched the tiny yellow kitchen with the
nail-scored linoleum, slid back across the linoleum
into the linoleum bathrooms,
into the linoleum bedrooms
until I found them all.
My mom buried her ashes in a box in one of the deep
dark silver fish closets.
Just this past week, my dad loaded two of those musty
silver-fished boxes into my car. I drove them home
and unwrapped a gift from my Grandma Dolly—twenty
years of Danish plates, painted blue and white.
Sometimes love is buried in dark closets.
Oh, I Love this, especially: “Always white because it cleaned up easy… he hung me out the 2-story window with a brush and bucket of white and ordered me to paint 🙂 ! )
Thanks, Hen!
“We hid behind the scratchy woolen coats and
clammy dry-cleaner bags, sneezed from the musty
boxes and screamed when the silver fish dropped
into our hair.”
SO descriptive, I am right there! And your ending is brilliant.
Marie Elena
The Red Door
A nut brown ranch house
With a Red door
Ivy curving in the eaves
Marigolds, tulips and crocuses
In the garden
A huge fruitless (thank goodness)
Mulberry tree in the back yard
Perfect for climbing
(if you could reach that one lower branch)
There was a playhouse, too
(a shed taken over by a sisterly coup)
Cherished wall to wall
Avocado green carpet
(we were the last to get wall-to-wall)
Three bedrooms
In grade school, mine was heaven
Lavender, with bright pink furniture;
High school soothed with blue,
Homework with the radio blasting
Reading with the radio blasting
(transistor mind you, so cool!)
Vinyl dinette, four seats perfect for
The four of us
And a yellow and green kitchen
That always smelled amazing
(Except on “liver” nights)
Safe inside, cozy-excepting sibling screeches
Outside a cold war
(“Better dead, than red”)
Whispered loud enough
For kids to hear
A Commie had snuck in
With a red door
I remember the terror of waking up to the screeching sound trolleybuses make and thinking: this is it, it’s war, the evil Americans are dropping bombs on us.
Such memories evoked from this prompt. Great read, Sara!
Marie Elena
Since my dad was a preacher, we moved too frequently to have one single childhood home. We had a whole collection:
Just Houses
Never settling for long in one place,
we moved from one house to the next,
never a place of our own, on the heels
of the last preacher moving out.
We’d give up a yard heavy
with the scent of mimosa trees
for another bordering a pasture,
cows ambling up exchange looks
over our fence. In one place,
we had a big back porch, perfect
for sitting in our underpants,
burying our faces in watermelon,
oblivious to the rat living behind
Mama’s stove resisting all attempts
to exterminate him. Our favorite home
had trees perfect for climbing, branches
hanging over the house’s blue roof
patched green by the deacons
when we reported a leak. One came
with a tool shed full of cats, another,
with a ping pong table and algae-choked
aquarium abandoned by other kids
we knew only by their exploits
reported to us like challenges.
No one told us never to grow attached.
We learned that lesson on our own,
always moving about the time
we had our rooms arranged to suit us,
when we had finally made friends
we expected to keep for life.
We learned to call then pen pals.
“We learned to call them pen pals” ! 🙂 !
I always wondered how folks who had to move often managed to feel a sense of home.
I love reading everything you write, Nancy. I see your name, and I anticipate a great read.
Marie Elena
My childhood home had a great brown sofa and blue carpet. Funny the things we remember most…
Home
I sailed a brown chenille ship
across an ocean of blue carpet
to reach my land.
I knew I would stay forever on
this coast, but lacked the fire
to burn the ship.
Her timber scraps became the fort
where my claiming flag caught the
morning breezes high off the bay.
It is now a ruin, a monument
to the first days of discovery
in a world no longer new.
:)!
You have a style all your own, Catherine, and it always fascinates! Excellent work!
Marie Elena
Thanks, Marie!! 🙂
Lehrback Road
My parents built her
the year before I was born –
She was a house
of many coats
resting on the
slope of a river bluff;
Protected by
Walnut trees,
grand Cottonwoods
and dainty Sumacs.
Inside my closet
was a secret chimney
that didn’t go anywhere
perfect for hiding
my wheat pennies
and half dollars.
We had a long living room
where you could look
out the front and
also the back –
Our first inside dog
was not allowed
on the carpet
so when my parents
were gone
I laid a trail
of doll blankets for
him to walk on
so he could watch TV
with me (my parents never knew).
Running barefoot
on the gravel cinders
to visit Grandma in her garden
or to pop in on my Aunt
for a popsicle –
More than a house
I had a valley
full of family.
“More than a house, I had a valley full of family.” Wonderful read, Michelle, the stuff of story books. 🙂
Marie Elena
Just WONDERFUL! Loved, Loved, Loved: “…Our first inside dog was not allowed on the carpet… I laid a trail of doll blankets for him to walk on so he could watch TV with me…”
[…] Poetic Bloomings wants us to think of our childhood homes. Visit to read what our hosts say and to read their poems in response to the prompt. You might look around and check out their latest in-form prompt, and their interview . […]
Oh my, is it already Friday? I had every intention of posting many days ago, finally found the time to finish my rather “homely” submission.
Home to Me
Never one to really feel an
attachment to a home, I take
a look back and reflect on one.
It wasn’t where my childhood
started or ended;
but where I lived the most.
The big front porch with swing and
slamming screen door was often
“homebase”, or a stage or the place
to talk about boys and listen to the radio.
Through that screen door I told my mother,
(who hails from Memphis), that Elvis had died.
Two old fruit trees, a swing set, a garden
and dirt alleys carved out the borders
of the big back yard. Although no
childhood yard really has borders.
Even the neighbor’s gigantic hedge
had openings for games of hide and seek.
My bedroom was in the back,
Mark Spitz and David Cassidy
on the door. I really don’t recall
the color of the room, but clearly
remember my salvation prayer
in my white framed double bed.
Homework at the kitchen table.
School photos on the window seat.
I always wondered why dining rooms
were so big and bathrooms so small?
I rarely visited the dark, scary basement,
except to retrieve laundry (quickly).
That house created some memories for me,
but my best memories of Home
are the people, the smiles, the tears
and the dreams. Home is
the comfort and security of those
with me, not the structure in which we reside.
© Kelly E. Donadio 2012
Loved: (Black velvet…. and that little boy smile…) and “…Although no childhood yard really has borders…” But, most of all I will remember these GREAT words: “…Home is the comfort and security of those with me, not the structure…”
Kelly, this is SO “you!” Love it!
Marie Elena
This was such a hard prompt for me! Glad I made it in here just in time this week…
Escaping Home
Row after row
Of rusting metal shacks
Masquerading as homes
For the desperate,
Our trailer very much
Like the others…
The yellowing linoleum,
The dingy shag carpeting
That never came clean,
The claustrophobic brown
Of the cheap paneling
That oppressed joy
And consumed laughter.
Home was never a refuge,
Rather a prison to be escaped.
I would sit on the metal steps
Leaning back against
The dented white metal door
Until the grates wore grooves
Into the backs of my thighs,
Notebook in hand
Furiously trying to write
A happier ending
Than the trailer park promised.
😦 … I hope your story’s ending was bright, Mary…
Well, I made it out, which is definitely cause for happiness! Really a tough prompt for me, not a subject I like dwelling on…much prefer looking toward happier days!
All our backgrounds are different one from another. Yours is a poetic rendering, written in true Mary Mansfield style. EXCELLENT.
Marie Elena
Thanks, Marie!
… Yes!
🙂
…getting in just under the wire…
Eleven Fifty-Five
The numbers are still there
but the house is gone.
Now a medical professional building
Stands where my own baseball diamond
once was. There were pear trees
and stately weeping willows.
We moved there when I was four
because my mom and dad
could no longer live in the old house
where my baby brother died.
There were so many rooms and closets there,
some so very large and others quite cozy.
Four bedrooms there and at one time or another I would call each of them my own.
Although there was a dining room,
most meals were in the huge kitchen.
The Christmas tree was always in the dining room.
The family always gathered in the living room.
I knew every square inch of eleven fifty-five,
even that crawl space under the addition.
I loved the sun room in the front
almost as much as the garage in back
where I built bikes and go-carts
and stored my sports equipment,
my pogo stick and my unicycle.
By Michael Grove – Copyright 8/17/2012
I can’t imagine staying in the same home where I lost a child. Nor could I imagine ever leaving it.
Great poem, Mike.
Marie Elena
Loved: “…There were pear trees and stately weeping willows…”
I am late to this party… but these prompts are calling… so here is mine:
Williamsville, New York- by Teri H Hoover
the old farm on a hill became a treeless street
that grew a home on every half acre-
our home facing east
half way between
the very top and very bottom of the hill
from my second story bedroom window
I watched the clouds and pretended I saw the ocean.
http://smallstonegatherer.blogspot.com/2012/08/williamsville-new-york.html
WELCOME, TERI!
Lovely job of creating atmosphere and feel in your poem. I love “grew a home on every half acre.”
Marie Elena
Hummmmmmmm
Guess I did not post for this prompt! I was on vacation with no internet connection. I wrote something – will need to ‘find’ it!!
It is not the same now
The arms that held it are gone
But oh, in my mind is an echo defined
That somehow lives on and on
Cradled by two weeping willows
I thrived in their sighing embrace
Now the ghost-willow trees frame fond memories
Of my dear, unforgotten home-place
I cherish the humble brick dwelling
Of panel and paint decor
But the sweet echo of nine siblings I love
Drench the walls and the floor
The old wood-stove in the kitchen
Served as cook-stove, laundry and hair dryer
In the winter we woke to the smell of smoke
As mom rekindled the fire…
…and set the pot of oatmeal a-boiling
Ready for ‘farmer’s’ breakfast at eight
Midst the chatter of nine siblings I love
As we would argue, discuss or debate
Until Farmer’s firm, unchallenged ‘QUIET!’
Dropped the up-roar to a hush
And all that was heard was the slurp and stir
Of ten respectful children eating ‘mush’
I learned as a young teenager
Which steps to skip at late-night, cause they squeaked
But no matter how I would tiptoe or prowl
Somewhere an errant board creaked
…and casually at breakfast
The cereal box became a shield
Until Farmer cleared his throat, (we always looked when he spoke)
And the culprit was revealed
The furniture was scarred and battered
The rooms lived in to the max
But home was a place of learning and grace
Where we worked hard and where we could relax
Often in the evening it was quiet
As we set aside our work and our play
To find our own nook and curl up with a book
The highlight at the end of a day
You asked for “…just a glimpse…” This is more than a glimpse. For Monday your Memory posting, I will need to trim it down. 🙂
Small Island hundred miles by fifty set in Alaska’s watery gulf warmed by southern ocean currents. Five thousand feet mountain, trees and grassland and a hundred small coves and harbors for boats, surrounded with neighboring small islands. Famed vacation spot for fishing and hunting, Home of the towering Alaska, KODIAK brown bear.
1944 —- Homesteading in old log cabin on small dairy farm with added chickens, ducks, pigs and dogs. Behind cabin, tall forest with berries and wild roses. Small stream from woods, flowed through meadow down to salty bay which invited children to play. In wintertime wood stove and oil lamps keep family warms against the drifting snow.
1946 —- New home in old naval housing set overlooking City Dock where ocean liners and freighters tied. Children race among mounds of cargo, play hide-and-seek in warehouse and visit ships gallows for ice-cream and fresh fruit treats. Score beach treasures, build rafts to ride the tide, and ‘barrow’ rowboat to make journey to harbor buoy. Then scale mountain over bay festooned with red fireweed, white daisies and blue bell hiding in tall grass. Play neighborhood baseball games.
1949 —- Community Center dwelling with ‘downtown’, hospital, school, Salmon cannery and town dock, boats, churches, beach and mountain all within walking distance and the freedom to explore it all. A children’s paradise filled with fun.
July 1951 – Farwell to our beloved island life.
Sept. 1951 —- In LA, CA – 28 year old mom, with minimal education and work experience, (daughters age 9,10,11) buys 1000 square foot home, on 50×150 foot lot in suburbs. Perpetually white stucco with plain off-white rooms all round. About only things of note were built-in cabinets on one wall of living room (desk, gas fireplace, closed book shelf) and one in dining room (enclosed china curio shelves and small window seats each end) Dining table and chairs with mom’s cabinet sewing machine standing open by dining room picture window. Bedroom: One for girls, one for mom.
Sept 1953 —- Mom remarried, and house began a morphing process.
—BEDROOM – small walk-in closets became room length reach-in closets over double layer of drawers. Bunk beds added. Younger step-sister sometimes slept over.
—BATHROOM – received a new sink, counter and large triple mirrored with cabinet, shower added to tub, and wallpaper with small fish accidentally hung upside down (never changed!)
—LIVING ROOM – pillars dividing front rooms were removed, and small piano replaced gas fireplace. Coffee table and rod-iron décor lamps made by dad were added. Large mirror, winged with small back decorator shingles, was the only thing allowed on the wall.
—DINING ROOM – large mountain scene mural placed on wall over china cabinet, with curtains that could be drawn over it to provide impression that one was looking out a window. Large rod-iron legged table (made in newly built shop at back of lot) expanded to seat 12 or more people. Both rooms painted a light bash.
—KITCHEN and back mud room – became one with all new cabinets, fixtures, pantry, bar and breakfast area and Huge picture window over sink. The area finished off in bright, sunshine yellow.
1957 —- Mom’s ailing mom moves in with us and the one car garage (storage place) become ‘the girls’ barracks’. The bunk beds were moved there to join the washer, double concrete sink and a tall cabinet holding dad’s photo processing equipment. In the back was a low open closet (for cloths and a small desk) over which were stored (alone with other things) boxes of books from mom’s book club and years of Readers Digest Condensed Books. I spent many hours nested amongst the boxes reading. I liked having my own space and by now dad’s mom had moved into the second bed in the house.
1961 —- Grandma died, ‘barrack’s was empty for a year while we older three lived on to various college campus.
1962 —- I returned for two years to be the sole occupant of the barracks with its still unfinished walls, accumulation a storage and painted over windows in the garage door.
1964 – I left California home and only returned for short visits until it was sold about 1980. …and 17 other places have I lived in since then.
1977-Today- Living in “The Fourth Corner” where Canada, Washington and Strait of Georgia meet. Custer and Birch Bay)
After-note – 2001 – I went back to see the ‘old place’ in LA. It had recently been renovated and was vacant. The outside was painted yellow. Wood flooring replaced the old rugs, the huge kitchen window was reduced in size. The ‘barracks/garage’ was gone and a two car garage ( set 15 to 20 feet further back in the lot) was closed off by a tall gated fence that extended from the front corner of the house all around the back lot. The fence prevented me from seeing inside anything beyond what was visible from the front window. (836)
[…] Written for Poetic Bloomings Prompt #68 (Memoir Project – Part #3): Welcome Home […]
Home, Sweet, Home
If you drove by it now you’d never realize
What a great little house this was long ago
So long in the past, this house was a home
To my grandparents and I and my older bro
Now it’s a broken down shack
I bet it would love to go back
To the days of its youth when it stood firm in place
Shake shingle siding aged by nature not paint
A small enclosed porch that faced the main road
The place for the puzzles my Grandma would make
With puzzles and books everywhere
My Grandma really loved it there
Our kitchen was small with a large black wood stove
No running water, just a pump in the yard
When the pump froze in winter, oh well, that’s life
We didn’t know we were poor, we didn’t know life was hard
That little house was our castle
Life was just normal hassle
Our living room was small, barely eight feet by eight
An old couch and table, and Gram’s rocking chair
Our TV had rabbit ears; with only three channels
So many happy memories were made while in there
Happy memories fill my mind
Of days long left behind
Upstairs was small, with only two little rooms
A small bedroom shared with my older brother
The front bedroom was a mystery for the most part
It was a place of privacy for my Grandpa and Grandmother
Their bedroom was their getaway
They’d share at the end of the day
So small was my house in the woods of Northern Maine
So poor were we all, though we never realized it
‘Cause love filled the gaps that wealth never could
As I look back on it all, I don’t regret it a bit
For that house filled with love
I thank the Good Lord above