The House- by Winfield T. Scott
When will violence come, when break me--
Make me at last cry out? What loss
Heavy to crack my personal sky? What
Failure darken to bring me staring?
What good thing, evil thing--come either--
Split me and let the frozen blood?
I hear beneath the wind, beneath
The leaves' skating on the ground,
My ancestor's hair growing, whispering,
A tide out of the old men's skulls:
Think it flicks me, teases my fingers,
Writhes at my ankles, rejoices and grieves.
I walk up the stairs and walk down,
Hear news of murder and confront my death:
Death--death--death of love--a shape
Rocking in a chair somewhere in this house,
Mirrors everywhere reflect me here
Going from room to room, lest I decrease.
If smaller, harder--then for what escape?
The sky grinning through the window
The hair furtive under the door--
What damnation damns me! And you:
I might speak of it and find it with you.
The air chokes my open mouth.
Haunted then? Caught? snagged up
In a web of lies? dreaming?
Many questions for you and no answers.
I dare not and I know not what I dare not.
Then this is mad? and black blood wants peace?
Come peace. Come violence. Come violent peace.