Kansas, Old Abandoned House (v4) by Michael Lee Johnson

House, weathered, bashed in grays, spiders,

homespun surrounding yellows and pinks

on a Kansas, prairie appears lonely tonight.

The human theater lives once lived here

inside are gone now,

buried in the back, dark trail

behind that old outhouse.

Old wood chipper in the shed, rustic, worn, no gas, no thunder, no sound.

Remember the old coal bin, now open to the wind, 

but no one left to shovel the coal.

Pumpkin patches, corn mazes, hayrides all gone.

Deserted ghostly children still swing abandoned in the prairie wind.

All unheated rooms no longer have children

to fret about, cheerleaders have long gone,

the banal house chills once again, it is winter,

three lone skinny crows perched out of sight

on barren branched trees silhouetted in early morning

hints of pink, those blues, wait with hunger strikes as winter

that snow starts to settle in against moonlight skies.

Kansas becomes a quiet place when those first snowfalls.

There is the dancing of the crows−

that lonely wind, that creaking of the doors, no oil in the joints.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *