In the Basement of Large White Houses

A Poem by MKERED

First in a series of 7 poems I am working on, loosely tied to the day of the week.

There are Kindly Ones in the basement

with the empty Mason jars and unplayed

board games. Soaking in the weak sun-

light that sneaks through the half buried

windows on the north side of the house.

They wave to me in the morning. Three

faces crowded behind a pane of glass, smiling

as I walk with my backpack over one shoulder

to the sensible mid-sized sedan in the drive-

way and hook my ipod into the auxiliary jack.

And, though I can’t verify this, my wife tells

me they play an extended game of connect four

in the basement. Playing in the ambivalently like

a parent, winning and letting win, because one

is younger than the others, and they are of

a mind not to imbue this one with failure,

but to give her a sense of her limitations also

so that she grows up neither sure of her faults,

nor ignorant of them. A moderated Fury

primed for a success short-steeped in passion,

yet unscurrilous and tainted by nothing unjust.

Still my wife, who has negotiated for a more

flexible work schedule which allows her to

be home during the day, tells me that their

presence is wearing away the corners of this

home. She finds it disappearing, and finds tiny

horrors that she cannot explain, and though I

have not seen these myself I am thoroughly

convinced of their existence, because I see the

mad look in my wife’s eyes as she describes

a mouse decapitated by a disposable Tupperware

storage container, the long fetid stretch of black

mold that stretches down the wall of the master

bedroom, or the shooting pains that carry down

the length of her legs and keep her bound

to the bed on bad days. But to me, the Kindly Ones

are always most formal and kind, asking with great

gentility as to the wellbeing of my family and I.

Wearing high-necked well-formed Victorian blouses,

and sitting primly erect in chairs of ancient ash.

Studiously polite, their demands are minimal

they seem to draw sustenance from the dank

moisture of the unfinished concrete floors, but

still they mention off-handedly how they maybe could

do with a computer or a television with better definition.

And I tell them that it does not fit within the family

budget right now given the economy and such,

to which they reply, of course, of course, just a

thought of course, and go back to their board game

which I believe is Risk, but cannot be sure.

Then thin stretched Monday mornings extend

further into the week, and the backpack slung

over one shoulder becomes heavier, and my

wife (who has taken some sick time, but should be

back to work soon) becomes flat and distant like

an island far off on the horizon. Meanwhile I am

consumed with finding cheaper car insurance and have

little time anymore for games in the basement with

the Kindly Ones. Just quick conversations during

loads of laundry and trips to grab another flat of

Diet Coke from the pantry. Still I have a nagging

cough, and a tight-scalped ache at the temples. The cob

webs are forming thick cords now in the corners of

every room, and we wake sometimes in a mesh of

billowy dust and fiber. We have an inkling, an intuition

that they are to blame, but they do not seem to stir

and only play game after game of UNO in the light of

a single lamp blazing from the basement half-window

until the seeping dark of night drains into the

blue morning half-dawn. They do not seem to sleep.

I was angry yesterday, about something, maybe politics

or the way my wife turned her face from me as I walked in the

door that evening. But I cannot recall what, and I have been

awakened by their persistent banging this morning,

accompanied by a willowy dread, that this is all deeply

flawed, and that I have failed. Anxious that what

creeps and grows here in a large white house burdened

by old gods will not be to our liking. And I watch

neighbors through the brownish film of their great room

windows, and wonder at how we all alone will wash it away.

© 2013 MKERED

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CLM

Great voice here. Great use of language, measured, with a quiet steady pace to it. The mix of the metaphysical and the day to day, nice. A few notes::

There are Kindly Ones in the basement
with the empty Mason jars and unplayed
board games. Soaking in the weak sun-
light that sneaks through the half buried
windows on the north side of the house.
(I am off on "kindly ones" this could easily be non-descript as in "those, them, etc". Unplayed? yet they play the games, don't they? drop the dash after sun and let it go as sun without the light which is given. You make good use of enjambment here, but dashes are off)

"hook my ipod into the auxiliary jack." less topical more non descript we are distracted from the voice with the branding and the aux jack.

" Playing in the ambivalently" Playing ambivalently

"but to give her a sense of her limitations also" drop also not needed

"primed for a success short-steeped in passion," move the comma to after success and let the line run into the next stanza

"a mouse decapitated by a disposable Tupperware..." totally unbelievable

"which I believe is Risk, but cannot be sure." drop this line completely, branding and it finishes better without this tag

" (who has taken some sick time, but should be
back to work soon) parenthetical is totally distracting, this line stands alone just fine

No rating given. Good work.