In the wheeling reeling Jazz Age
Time of salmon pink and green
Mediterranean mansion
German-American dream.
Adobe walls and ochre tiles
Drowse 'neath California sun.
Phantoms echo down the hall
And I feel I am left alone.
The walls sweat age and shadows cluster.
The ghosts of generations flee
Before my steps, down breathless hallways,
Leaving echoes in their wake.
Sunwashed rooms seem strangely empty.
Strangers gaze through doorways bare
Where once passed generations of
A noble family.
Where are the home's ancestral chattles?
Where the children, women, men
Who all once lived out their lives here?
Will they ever come again?
And yet the sun still beats down strongly
Turning motes of dust to gold
In this home, this grand museum,
Where Muckenthalers lived of old.
Early October, 1998
This is about a museum and cultural center in my town, known as,
unsurprisingly, the Muckenthaler. From April 1998 to April 1999, I was involved
in a project involving the Muckenthaler, the local college, two teachers
and a gaggle of student writers, editors and artists. The end result: a rather
spiffy book. I'm a published writer now! Kinda. But my point is this: one
day, I was supposed to be writing copy. I couldn't. Had writer's block. What
did I do instead? You guessed it. I wrote a poem!
This piece of web madness created, implemented and maintained by
Napoleon.
I like getting mail. Hint, hint.