The poetry thread

[Mik]

[Aqua Letifer]

Link to video

[Mik]

My daughter is a big Dorothy Parker fan.

[Mik]

"The House With Nobody In It"

The poem was written by Joyce Kilmer in 1914. In April 1917, he enlisted and was deployed to Europe to fight in WWI. He would not survive as he was K.I.A. by a German sniper's bullet on July 30, 1918, in France.

"Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track

I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.

I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute

And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;

That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.

I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;

For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,

And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.

It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;

But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid

I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.

I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be

And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,

Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.

But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone

For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,

That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,

A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,

Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track

I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,

Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,

For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart."

[Horace]

It's an evocative piece, but I'm afraid that guy might have been a depressive.

[Mik]

I had a house like that off a bike trail I used to hike daily. It reminded me of that.

[jon-nyc]

A Yeats excerpt that feels all too current.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
Are full of passionate intensity.

[Aqua Letifer]

@jon-nyc said in The poetry thread:

A Yeats excerpt that feels all too current.

Know what he's referring to here, though?

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Being Irish, he means something very specific.

[Horace]

I guess we need more anti-Trump conviction to set things right. All the passion is on the pro-Trump side.

let me go over to Bluesky and convince them they don't hate Trump enough, they need to be more passionate about it.

[jon-nyc]

@Aqua-Letifer said in The poetry thread:

@jon-nyc said in The poetry thread:

A Yeats excerpt that feels all too current.

Know what he's referring to here, though?

Yes, which is why I excerpted it.

[Aqua Letifer]

@jon-nyc said in The poetry thread:

@Aqua-Letifer said in The poetry thread:

@jon-nyc said in The poetry thread:

A Yeats excerpt that feels all too current.

Know what he's referring to here, though?

Yes, which is why I excerpted it.

The change already happened, though, according to Yeats. Following along your reason for sharing this, Trump's not the beast but rather a byproduct of it. Same for Biden.