This is another poem that started with a thought — my grandparent’s house — I just started writing, and as is often the case, the poem kinda just took over.  So for those of you counting — this recent poem number two.

My Grandparent’s Basement

Sticky sweet smells
of maple syrup
in morning
or early evening
spicy scents of chili
seemed to hang
about the house,
like pictures of meals
past, present and future
from grandma’s kitchen .

Even hanging in the basement
amidst wrenches and rasps,
saws and screwdrivers,
planers and hammers,
– a whole platoon of tools
my grandpa’s troops
in his winter sanctuary.

Where two cots wait
for my brother
and myself –
laden with centuries
old wool blankets
adding their mothball
dryness to the air,
while scratching skin
on lumpy musty
neglected mattresses,
no better for egg-crate
foam laid on top.

We lay awake
in the shadows
cast by a beer sign
– a strange nightlight
and source of fascination  –
in an alien basement,
with it’s queer clicks
and creaks and dark
dangerous places
we were told never
to explore and thus made
all the more mysterious.