Under the Bridge (Nobody's House)
Written for Anna.
Under the bridge, there
Is a house
A house with a grey roof
A moss roof
A footprint roof where squirrels run and nuts roll and leaves fall
Birds nest and branches catch and raindrops run
Down, down, to the ground
Is a house
A house with big windows
Glass windows
Clear windows with curtains behind them, silk or green brocade
Grey or spun white-grey
Curtains that waver and tremble like rice fields in the wind
Rippling pale, rippling dark
Over and over
Under the bridge, there
Is a house
A house made of stone
A grey stone, a cracked stone, crawling with creepers, covered with
Grass growing from the gutters and by the door
The glass door, stained and dark
Where rabbits look at themselves with big dark eyes
And twitching noses, twitching feet
Twitching like the clocks that never stop running
The clocks in the house
Under the bridge
Walking past the bridge, there
You can see the house
Without lights shining behind the trembling curtains
Without smoke sifting up the old chimney
Without sound inside the glass door
Only the twitching of the clocks that never run down
Twitching time
Clocking time
For-ever time, running time, ticking time, twitching time
As you see the house
All the while you see the house, while
Walking past the bridge
And on the other side of the bridge, there
Is no house
Just an empty tunnel with a light at the end
Leading to sunlight
Leading to daylight
A moss-stained tunnel made of cracked stone
And when you go inside, the grass growing on the ground will tremble
Waver and tremble
Like rice fields in the wind, colouring light, colouring dark, colouring for-ever
And when you walk, your feet on the ground
Inside the tunnel
Make a sound
A rustling, clicking sound in the grass
A ticking sound, a twitching sound
That climbs and echoes all around
While you walk through, walk down, walk in
In the tunnel where the house might be
The tunnel under the bridge
On the other side of the bridge
In the tunnel under the bridge, if
You look up
There are shelves
Long shelves
Stone shelves that run all along the tunnel, to the end, to the light
And on the shelves are clocks
Hundreds of clocks
That twitch and tick with your footsteps, for-ever and for-ever
Clocks that never run down
As you would as you walk in the rippling grass that trembles dark and light
As the end of the tunnel comes nearer
As the light grows clearer, brighter, light
Good light
You walk with twitching tick-tocks
Down the tunnel lined with clocks
And the twitching never stops, never stops, beneath your feet
As you go down to the end, the end of
The tunnel under the bridge
At the end of the tunnel under the bridge, here
Is a house
A grey house with a grey roof
With creepers and creatures and windows and walls
A glass door with cracks and missing pieces
A glass door like a mirror where you see your face once
And your face is beautiful in the glass door
In the stone wall
Of the grey house
That has come back at the end of the tunnel, the
Tunnel at the end of the bridge
Behind the door, there
Is a hall
A grey hall with a red carpet and mirrors on the walls
And ivy on the mirrors
Reflected over and over, reflected for-ever, for-ever
Ivy leaves for-ever
On the mirrors
In the hall
The red carpet leads away to a red door
Red and gold door with nobody's name written on in stencil and gold
Like the prints of bird's feet, written on the door
And smelling of ginger and dried lemon leaves
Nobody's name on the door
The door you go on through
Following the red carpet
And the red carpet goes on through the red door, past nobody's name
Into nobody's room, filled with bookcases
Broken gold chairs
Fallen gold tables
Old red rugs that aren't red now, aren't bright now, old red rugs that are grey
And torn
In nobody's room, filled with bookcases, the air
Smells sad
In nobody's room,
Behind the door
Past the red door, there
Is a bookcase of books, old books, books with no colour at all
Empty books with no colour at all
And you take a book, an empty book
With a grey colourless cover
And colourless letters to spell a title that can't be read, that can't be said
The book is dead
And the letters fall out in your hands
They spill on the red rug that is grey
Sifting down through the air that smells sad, in nobody's room, falling on the floor
A sprinkling of colourless words mixed together on the floor
Topsy-turvy
Drop the book; you take a different book, a grey book with green
A mossy stone book
The sad smell whispers around the words on the floor, and you turn
And run
From nobody's room, past the bookcases
Past the red door
From the house, there
You run
Down the hall with mirrors
Past the ivy-covered mirrors reflecting for-ever
Reflecting back never over and
Over:
Down the hall with mirrors on the red carpet
Through the glass door where your face was beautiful
Beautiful a face
In the glass door
Stained and cracked and dark and chipped
The glass door
Past the glass door, and
From the house
To the end of the tunnel, there
You run
Down by the shelves with clocks
The stone shelves that run with you down
The clocks that twitch and tick, tock and twitch to your footsteps
Rustling and twitching in the grass that trembles
The rice-field floor of grass
The clocks that never run down, that run for-ever
That quiet never
That tick for-ever
You run and your footsteps echo
In the clocks
On the stone shelves
That run down the tunnel with you, until you find
The end of the tunnel
At the end of the tunnel, the
House is gone
But the book is there, in your arms, in your hands
And it isn't colourless
The book is red
With gold letters
Like nobody's name on the door to nobody's room
On the book, the red book, the gold letters stay
The gold letters are still
And do not fall
And do not drift
And do not blow away
The title of the book is
Hello
Hello
Keep me
Yes, I will
In your bookshelf
Yes, always
Don't read me
No
Hello
Hello
You brought me out
Yes, I did
Keep me safe
Yes, I will
You are good
No--
You are good
I think
Stay good
Yes
Hello
Hello
And you take the book and go, there, from
The end of the tunnel
On the other side of the bridge, there is a house
A grey house
On the other side of the bridge again, there
Is a house
A stone house
You cannot go in
No one can go in, no one knows how, no one does, no one wants
But the house is still there
With its grey roof, running raindrops, rolling nuts,
With its glass windows hidden from the inside
With curtains, rippling trembling rice-field curtains
With its walls, made of stone and creepers
With its door stained and cracked and glass
Where the rabbits see themselves, twitching, twitching
And the house
Is full of clocks
That never run down
And nobody's room is full of books
That nobody reads
And you never go back to the house, you
Keep the red book in your shelf
And the red book is called
Hello
And you keep it safe, and
The red book loves:
You
And you never go back to the house
On the other side of the bridge
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