ode to an abandoned house

Oh poor abandoned house,
how sadly the afternoon sun strokes your ivy-bearded face

How dejected your once proud roof,
now the slates have slipped and lie shattered like dreams on the ground

How wistful your dense front yard
the plants bowed and motionless as mourners at your funeral

Weeds poke from your gutters,
sad lashes on eyes that will never again see

Your windows gone, the wind howls
like a lost child at your rugged bones

The sky blue peels from your front door;
sharp flakes litter the porch like confetti from a party that moved on years ago

A hundred childhoods watched over, kept safe within your sturdy arms
and this is how they repay you?

You who have tasted so many summers and listened to so much laughter
now stand vacant, unloved, forlorn.

everyman

i see no faces,
just shadows
flitting over the buildings opposite.

who they are
remains a mystery
and they are oblivious to my very existence
though united by a moment in time -
a mere coincidence of dimensions
their purpose here unknown
no details of their lives betrayed
they could be anyone for the difference it would make
they are anyone yet they are everyone to me.
for I have seen the whole of humanity flitting over the buildings opposite.