The House Of Henry James
Home is where you make it, yet
Henry fakes it, living in cookie cutter
Houses stacked against each other
Like upcoming housing developments
Advertised by a mind splitting sign spinner,
Begging you to find a place for dinner,
For Henry James a new house must be built,
Set and ready for the felt point pen to sign
The lease, life for him has been like turning
A house into a home, making his name known,
Walking dusty streets alone, a stranger his best
Friend, a homeless man a beggar, Henry’s hope
To forge together, to have a story to tell each other.
The four by four lumber to make stronger
A house fresh with lacquer from the local
Painter, trapping the mouse in moldy holes,
Bedroom sheets a mess from hiding underneath
the blanket, pulling pillows over Henry James he
Seems insane to rebuild and build
Houses not yet his home
Against the grain he aspires to be
Adjacent to the checkered grass front
Yard, how life is so ridiculously hard,
Through each rag tag box he remembers
White socks with no shoes running through
Open streets but reprimanded beyond the
Usual spanking by parents in the living room, things
So cruel and mean done to break Henry
Down and spiral him out of his innocent
Tranquility, Henry seeks a new reality,
New realty, new billboards 140,000 or
Less, no matter the cost Henry will pay
To runaway from all that was a loss,
All that was not given to him,
Like a boss overriding work assignments
Henry James has been sticking out his
Fist for a long time and new cement
Keeps pouring the gasp and pant,
The new payment to make rent
‘When will it be bent inside of me’
Henry seeks to understand
His topography, old cabinets
Of misery, dresser drawers of
Old memories of his wife once
Lived so close to his skin, akin
To every love story ever told,
This once made Henry so bold.
His recent house now sold,
The rustic picture frames, the
Dusted window panes once for
Seeing a beautiful life worth living,
The dingy and shoddy faucets,
Resemblance of all Henry’s facets,
Like placidly plain diamond rings
That sit in his soul, that make the pain
Sting, ‘why me, why all this miserable
Pain’ the asylum would maybe cure this
But the world to blame is how Henry would
Sing
The bedrooms once gaudy, full of poetry
Framed and signed Allen and company,
‘where has the artist died in me’ that’s how
Its gonna be, He sees flat screen tube,
Old grease and lube for once ridden
Bicycle chains used for exploring
A new world
Henry has emptied out his closets,
Made his jeremiad, fired the maid
Sold his soul for more money to
Run away and in seeking to jump
From house to house he has
Blown to bits and pieces his
Only bridges to stitch him together.
No place for dinner, just turpentine
Peeling off layers and layers of
Bitter offenses and painful sequences.
Henry James is alone.
Henry James has no home.
