"A Trojan House"

(The following poem was previously published in the [now lamentably defunct] magazine Champagne Shivers.)


A Trojan House

Pine Barren palace, its marvelous architecture a fait accompli.
To the stunned crowd of onlookers, the old hunter
Insists the scene was uniformly sylvan but three days ago.
Then how to explain such uncanny masonry,
This granite mansion now towering before them
Sporting myriad occulting windows?
The ecologically-inclined bemoan the rape of nature
While the landowners grouse of property taxes unpaid
And the dreamers stand mumbling of still greater mysteries
     that must be labyrinthed within.
In the end they form one delegation--
The curious and the querulous marching side by side
Through the non-deterrent front gates.

Unwitting housewarmers, their very presence set the darkness blazing
And a raucous party into sudden motion.
Alight with malice, the palace began to roar and pulse
Then sank slowly again into its earthen grave,
Ushered itself back to more accustomed depths.
(The three rules of surreal estate: relocation, relocation, relocation)
But not before the few survivors outdoors
Caught an awful glimpse through newly stained glass
Of the carnage so knowledgeably effected by the horned grotesques
     that had been squatting inside.
And thus grasped a singeing truth, something of which
Blind Milton had failed to forewarn:
Pandemonium was a mobile home.