When you wrote "The House," were you being facetious or maudlin? I read it and I don't know whether I should run away or emote some kind of dilapidated depressive countenance; either way, I'll be on the move from myself. "My house, the walls whose fresh, recently cut wood still smells... sullen scars, men without money, the mineral claw of poverty." I would say you are being scooped up into this world you do not understand yet. You are too young, too innocent, the kid in his pajamas who sits by the balcony on the stairs listening attentively and giggling to every adult word slurped during a dinner party. I, too, yearned for the sweaty brow, the pleated pants, and the G & T.
"Later I loved the smell of coal in smoke, oils, axles of frozen precision, and the solemn train crossing winter stretched over the earth, like a proud caterpillar." I get it; I take in every single, solitary coffee drop of wisdom you fling to the world with pen and ink. You longed for the passing of time, but time is like a caterpillar, proud and obstinate, and also very inscrutable. You did not make "time" any other living thing, for it could not be a cat, or a sparrow, or even a gorilla, each entity representing some element and movement of time perceived by the human eye, but in this case, in this poem, it is a caterpillar.
I love the sound of "caterpillar" when it escapes from the mouth. It makes the tongue twist and jive, only to shoot towards the teeth at the penultimate syllable and then suddenly disappear into the depths of your maw.
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