Further extracts from
The Old Man in the House of Bone
There’s someone else in the house of bone, someone
moving in between the silences, slipping through
and around them, stepping over them on tiptoe, trying
not to wake them, someone in some other room
rummaging through the boxes, emptying the cupboards
scattering their contents across the floor
as if searching for something. The old man listens
at the door, afraid to go in, he goes in, there’s no one there
the room’s empty, it’s undisturbed, just as he left it a lifetime ago
but there’s the creak of a floorboard behind him
Who’s there? there’s a shadow at the top of the stairs
Who is it? he feels a hand squeezing his heart
a mouth pressed against his sucking his breath
there are fingers lifting the edges of his face, peeling
them back to look underneath, Who is it? Who’s there?
the old man wants to hide under the bedclothes, he hides
under the bedclothes, Who’s there? Who is it? Who is it?
Who’s there? the house of bone puts its finger to its lips
says nothing, it’s keeping its secret to itself.
*
Let the house of bone be a leaf
clinging to the last branch of the last tree
*
The old man is making a model of the house of bone
using anything he can lay his hands on, old odds and ends
scraps of things found down the sides of the chair, under the settee
at the back of the cupboard, bits and pieces of his life
which is made up itself of the bits and pieces
of other people’s lives, those he may have known once
those passed in the street, vaguely familiar, or complete strangers
all their leftovers and scrapings of themselves
he gathers them in a heap in the middle of the room
and sticks them together, using the glue from his own
melted fleshpile, making a perfect miniature
of the house of bone, which he lifts and places on the table
and switches on the lamp, and peers in
through a small window, where a lamp is lit
and an old man’s standing, peering in through a small window
he goes to his own window, he looks out and up in horror
at the face looking out and down at him in horror.
*
Let the house of bone be a magic mirror
where the world is slowly disappearing
*
Listen, the house of bone is talking to itself
mumbling something, charms and incantations, maybe
fragments of old fairy tales, and the old man’s trying to overhear
straining to catch the drift of those gummy mutterings
but he can’t make it out, his ears are stuffed with dirty rags
everything comes through muffled, and meanwhile
the house of bone goes on talking, as if speaking words
of a dead language, some ancient epic, maybe
or a shopping list, or the secret of the universe.
The old man knows he’s missing something, he feels
the absence of it, like someone’s just walked out of the room
taking half his brain with them, and he listens harder
he shuts his eyes down on himself, he clamps himself fast
to the roots of his ears, he does all the fine tuning, and at last
he hears it, it comes through loud and clear, the dull drone
of his own voice repeating the same meaningless phrase.
*
Let the house of bone be a stone on the ridgetop
shaped by the wind to the shape of the wind
David Calcutt is Writer in Residence at Caldmore Community Garden. And author of Crowboy, Shadow Bringer and The Map of Marvels: Oxford University Press, and Robin Hood: Barefoot Books http://davidcalcutt.com/about/