ESSEX POETRY FESTIVAL COMPETITION 2007

Third Prize
Richard Halperin, Paris, France

Diagonal House

Of course the house is diagonal. Right over there. No one
even knows how it could be standing. No foundation, leans on point,
as it were, right off the ground, going thataway.

Of course, the ground could be diagonal and the house straight across,
it's hard to tell. Don't know how he can be living in it without falling
out a window, one day he might.

We see him in it walking about sometimes, or sometimes
just reading and a bit of writing. The curtains don't work right, they hang down straight,
so with the windows parallelograms it's not too hard to see in.

Works wonderfully in the rain, a diagonal house, no need of gutters, the rain slides
right off the roof, grey it is, used to be nut brown not so long ago.
We I mean we didn't mean to go on about one diagonal house.

Wonderful
the way it points up away from or maybe points down into, it's hard to tell.
Well, no matter what, you've got to say diagonal's got its good points,

for one thing with all that air and light freed up beneath it, it's lovely for
the rabbits, gives them more of a chance to scamper. Well, all we meant to say is, it's a
diagonal house, right over there.