Friday, May 27, 2011

rental reality

(or how i learned to stop worrying and love living in squalor)

this house is a festering hole
walls racked with creeping gout
floors stained and crusted with soil
varicose veins showing
above skirting boards
carpet dandruff a disgrace
mould festering in corners
water damage every time it rains
real estate agent says call the landlord
landlord says if you complain you pay
so we salvage what we can
wading through the rental debris
with a pervasive sense of ennui
furniture dented and battered
wall hangings stained and matted
ceiling buckled and thin
creatures scuttling within
light bulbs blown
smoke detectors gone
windows smashed
letterbox obliterated
fuse box disintegrated
yet we call this home
its always been this way
unable to afford anything better
in this dissolute den of disease
even rats would feign to stay

© shaun patrick green 2011

1 comment:

  1. squalor
    forever
    in the eyes of the beholder,
    a dread carpet underfoot, a chimney caked with soot
    the drain that doesn't, and the ceiling that mustn't...
    the street with pretty pictures painted in rubber
    beneath
    the window that isn't
    the precious light incandescent
    illumination present, perhaps for a short while
    into the future
    the past we plunder, filter the debris
    until dawn

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