House on the Hill

House on the hill stands three storeys proud,
aloof and haughty, ignoring its lowly neighbours
of two storeys, and pretending that its three storey
copies are just shadows of itself, lurking, awaiting
an invitation into existence – an invitation that is
no more than mere fantasy.

House on the hill is aware that it, too, is a fiction.
Objects such as itself only exist in the gaze of the
beholder. No-one is looking at the house of three
storeys. And no-one is looking at its neighbours.
All human presence has scattered, dissipated into
the drudgery of schools, offices, shops and factories.

House on the hill, surrounded and hidden, feels
its own fragility. It cannot be seen, by the empty
eyes rolling along on conveyor belts of meaningless
monotony. Not visible, in turn, to the house on the hill,
the empty eyes turns in on themselves, their routines
no more than private images within nightmares.

House on the hill, seeing that the public is private,
defeated, slumps down into nothingness.

This poem, too, is a nothing; a mere recording of a flow
of thoughts from a poet, who cannot be seen and is,
therefore, unreal.

Made up.

Nothing.

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, January 2019

Inspiration taken from ‘Three Dimensions’ , by Man Ray.