Oracle, and: House

Oracle

It was something about dying she was saying,But her words were lost in the high wind. SoWe went inside. All my life I've tried to resistIdeas of destiny, fixed stars, fate. But it keepsShowing up for all of us, given that our livesAre mostly distraction. For some it was instinctTo live by superstition. Quit speaking in riddles,I cried—is that just the way the fortune cookiecrumbles? You will grow into a cynic, havingonce believed that everything was holy. Cynic,I sat before her as she read the barrista swirls inHer coffee. She said that the future keeps adaptingItself to all of our fears. She spoke of the coming warFire-hand to fire-hand, among creatures. The poemsOf all poets mean nothing, she said, because theyMean everything. See that spider high up thereEncircling us in invisibility? She has a life worthDefending too. She knows what's coming in the door.Look at his eyes: locked, loaded with ammo. Fidgetingin line to order up his Americana. Grande of blood. To go.

House

After "Huis," Hester Knibbe

From the side path, what appears to be a houseIs only a facade. Beyond its still-standing wall—Slow shadows edge out light. There is a forestSurrounding everything, even such wild vacancy.Dark seeps over the forest floor where smallCreatures burrow in fear, shrinking into shadow.They will not find safety. No one will find safety.River water surges to sea (in flood, over rapids)—Unmooring the hill. It collapses, carrying with itAll that can be torn apart. A man stands watchingFrom a centuries-old bridge, watching apart fromHis body, like a blank presence hovering above a doll-house,a cradle. When did the facade become wall?Years before the flood, before it took his life, his house.