If walls could talk

I'm fascinated by old churches, and often find myself writing about them because I find so much beauty in them.

This got me thinking... what would walls say if they could talk?

For this competition I'd like you to write about an old building: an old church, a village hall, an old house, a cabin in the woods... any building as long as it's old. Use your imagination, and make it atmospheric. Tell me what the walls would say. What have they seen. What have they felt.

* No word count.
* Poetry please, not prose.
* No collabs
* New writes only
* Please title your entries
* Two weeks

deleted sounded more like prose....

Tales from an abandoned Church

Tall against the horizon
of dark grey lighted by a yellow sunset
the spire of the abandon church
now stand to a testimony to nothing

congregations have long gone
their faith as dusts
between cracks of the floor boards
hidden by curled old lino

the stale sweat of hobos
ruled over scents of incense
wax half eaten by rats
adorned an empty altar

yet once the floor was swept
by virginal white gowns
strewn with coloured confetti
adorned with pink roses

once joy of new parents
brushed the air with laughter
as they christened their offspring
wailing into the faith

once songs of praise rang
with adoration to the creator
through the rafters
once music of love played

the sunsets shone through tinted windows
painting hints of heaven
once it was a sanctuary
to all that's holy

it now brood like a forgotten widow
smelling of dusts and decay
the altar where vows were spoken
as vows were broken, as was the altar

so much tales to tell
if only the walls could speak.

Ancestral Home

Ten Years ago, as I walked towards the shore
I saw the decorous lighting, aglow
But little did I know, the decorous plot
Was my grandfather's ancestral home

A yard in the front with a well to draw water
Where women in sarees carried pots on their hips
using the pulley and more importantly physics
To hydrate their bodies with some clean well-water

The walls were crumbling, but inhabitable is was not
it smelt of earthen pots and puddles after rain
The incense stick after my grandma's ritual prayer
lingered inside the tattered down God's room

And the floor above where assembled the crowd
looked strong and sturdy as before
the crumbling walls were no match for the floors
Which stood strong even after years of being corroded

Today, the building is almost to the ground
Kissing mother earth, embracing her womb
But the smell of worship, smell of wet mud and the smell of excitement has vanished
For the insular house, is cowed down my a mammoth of buildings

Bending over to see, waiting for the demise, imminent
And the smug in the buildings, criss-cross, straight designs
All faces of rude impertinence
For my house is curvy. Lines move like a goddess' body
And no geometry can define its magnanimity

For the house was made by bricks, mortar and a whole lot of love and care
and the building beside, can't help it but hide
their construction on false pretenses, of artificial edifice

My family home is dying,
But never in the memories of her great-great grand children.
She will forever be thriving.
 

If walls could talk what would they say
A thousand memories from a thousand days
All the faces come and go
All the lives we'll never know
Months and years passing them by
All the tears from these men who don't cry
Still hear the same screams
The inmates of today still have the same dreams
Funny how to some it becomes a home
Alone in that cell wasting to the bone
Murderers or wrongly accused
The tails always leave me amused
But hmp continues to stand
Marking a blemish on the land
Maybe one day it will fall
And I'll smile at the crumbling walls
Hmp Birmingham I kiss you goodnight
I hope your dark cells let in some light

Sorry never titled it it's call h.m.p Wiston green

one sec,

Sanctuary of Filth

The morning sun,
beams through a broken window.
Revealing all that is wrong
in this sanctuary of filth.

If these walls could talk,
they would describe the assault
inflicted
upon the eyes of the weary.

On a floor of worn carpet
in a room with no door,
having been ripped from its hinges
long ago,

lay a lone mattress,
stained and decaying
tossed in a corner
like something discarded.

If these walls could talk,
they would describe junkie love.
Nude bodies entwined
and tangled,

committing acts
too lewd for this poem.
The ceiling above,
discolored and broken.

They would tell you of beauty
that once existed in this place
and love in whose
who once dwelled.

But these walls can’t talk,
their voices are silent
cracked and missing
from uneasy ground.

Ole Cabin in the Woods

There is mih lil gal lay so still there... shiny long loverly braids,
Pleated neat in her corn silk hair.
So durned pretty.
And she waz young 'nuff still to laugh.
To whisper childish secrets to mih.
Sweet reminants of once sun spattered freckles scattered cross her button nose..
She lays in her best cotton hand me down clothes.
Rag doll tucked under her now limp arm.

Lil gal has gone quite cold.
I let in light through mih windows..
To warm her..
To take care..
Her blanket is so thread bare.
And no one has been in to hold her..
Or rub her sweet dimpled hand up for a good day.
No reason to.

But she don' cry out no more...
No mo pain 'n tears...
Thats a ease ohn mih weary wood back for sure.
But i was home and love to her for so few years.
Now the rain that taps on my tin hat roof and ohn down mih panes are mih tears..
Felt so hopeless each time the cold wind blew through the cracks of my aging worn down spine.
And the lil gal would whine and shiver.

In the pines..
In the pines..
Where the sun never shines..
There were once happy songs sung..
Now if ever, Miss Lady fills mih space with songs laced with tragic rhyme.
I understand....
Have seen the tragic passin of time..
Have watched and felt her loss of a couple of precious chile..
What happens in these next days?
Some terrible Grief.
There's never the luxury of a moments release let lone relief...
No time.
Just hidden way tears durin the cover of night.

Hard work to be done..
Miss Lady tries hard to feed many in bare month's with next ta nuthin..
Hates herself for resentin her beloved Ole Man for bringin home what lil he kin provide.
He hates resentin her for the lil along with his diminished pride.
Yes. This families back has begun to creak and sag with mine..
Yes, they get older right long with me.
Once young man who built me proud and stong, the both of us were..
Now we are bent over.
We have all us grown weary.

The Ole man builds a fire..
This Ole cabin will do mih best to hold in the heat.


(There is no makin fun or judgement on intelligence of these strong people by mih dialect used. I come from the Ozarks. Mih family has been here forever, i am proud of mih name. Immigrants from ireland when they first came. Uneducated, but hard working and history was passed through storytelling. This cabin still stands and has been restored. On the historical registry. Mih great Granny had 7 children there..lost 4. I cant imagine how they managed to feed and raise the ones that survived. But they did...Mih McCurry name now flourishes..there are many. We started here with few..and with lil. Thank you for this comp. A special one to mih.)

                                WALL STORY
                               by James Hatfield

Do you like to apply your creativity to the internal spaces of buildings?
Playing a game of just imagine, do you enjoy that game of pretend?
Do you congratulate yourself on the power you posses to divine —
The deeds, thoughts, and feelings of the people who had occupied that space?

Think you know anything about what it feels like to have walls speak to you?
I am telling you now: That it is unlikely that you do!

Stand in the internal spaces that I have stood.
Looking over what the bank has taken from those who could not pay.
Looking with the eye of a profiteer, the eye that must see all so that the brain may calculate –
The how much to get to market, the how much will be the profit.

Figuring out how to sell this place as the idea of home.
Figuring out how to sell yourself the idea that you don’t have a heart.
Wishing that the walls would be silent and just leave you to your work.

But walls, don’t know how not to speak.
Especially when they have something unforgettable to say.
Like the story that a wall told me about the child who taped up a typical child drawing.
In his typical child’s bedroom In the back of a typical child’s home.
That doubled as a typical meth lab.

Cardboard home

This is the place of the past
That mirrors the present
It remains desolate and empty
Like the sahara dessert
If these walls could whisper
Shutter in fear
For the horror tales are hidden
By the skeletons near
This house filled with death
Filled with sorry and pain
Has walls of all white
Emotionless and plain
The death of a sister and a mother
Left the only child
Feeling smothered
Smothered by derpression greif and sorrow
Because this broken home never lived to see tomorrow
This place where her shadow lives
Lifeless alone
This place that became a house
And ceased being a home

Love the entries. Poignant.

Great

Thank you all for your entries so far. Keep 'em coming people :)