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Curb Appeal
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I.
You really couldn’t find a better plot
On which to build a house. The yard is rimmed
In masonry. The hedge is neatly trimmed;
Without a doubt, a perfect corner lot.
There’s something everywhere you look to please
The eye: the mailbox post; the shrubbery;
The blooms; surrounding woods for privacy;
A lawn that’s manicured; the sapling trees.
Behind the faux facade of faded stone,
You have to wonder what it’s like inside.
The residents were two, until one died,
And now the widow lives there all alone.
It has an almost antiseptic feel;
Although, one must admit, there’s curb appeal.
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II.
They park their cars on the lawn—I kid you not;
And not just one or two, or three, but four!
I can’t imagine living right next door.
The owner’s wife is known to be a sot,
Who fell down drunk in woods across the street.
The porch is full of junk. You never see
Them even make an effort. Can’t they be
Good neighbors, and try to keep it somewhat neat?
There’s more—a pile of tires, a fallen branch.
Who wants to see that eyesore every day?
It gets to where you can’t just look away.
The yard is small—the house a modest ranch.
The people may be nice; but still, it’s blight.
There goes the neighborhood—a sorry sight.
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Cheryl Corey is a poet who lives in Connecticut. “Three Sisters,” her trio of poems about the sisters of Fate which were first published by the Society of Classical Poets, are featured in “Gods and Monsters,” an anthology of mythological poems (MacMillan Children’s Books, 2023).
Cheryl, these two delightful poems are great renditions of the experiences of neighbors who must try to live their lives in close proximity to death and decay. They are as profound as they are insightful.
Thanks for reading, Roy. The contrast between the two is striking.
I always enjoy poems about houses and gardens, and these present a real contrast. The first is pleasant and deeply comforting (just like Evan’s chosen photo), although there are two discordant words: the stone facade is “faux,” and there is an “antiseptic” feel to the place. These two words disturb the comfort in some degree.
The second poem describes a messy, untended place that upsets the neighbors with its ugliness, piles of junk, and a publicly drunk woman. There’s plenty that is disturbing here.
But I wonder if the poems are perhaps mirror images of two different attitudes — that of middle-class propriety and neatness, and that of working-class roughness and dysfunction. A quick reaction to the two poems is an unthinking preference for the first place and immediate disgust at the second place, but those two word “faux” and “antiseptic” suggest that both homes have their problems and limitations.
The division between the middle class and the working class is today at the starkest it has ever been since the beginning of the 1900s. That’s not just in where they live, but in their characteristic attitudes and problems,
Ours is a neighborhood of older homes. The owner of the first property lives down the street at the entrance of a cul-de-sac of those who are wealthier. Everything about it is so perfect that it seems out of place. The other house is on the hill around the block from us. We call it the “hillbilly” house. In addition to the four cars on the lawn, there are two more in the driveway – one’s a work in progress under a cover. They just don’t seem to give a damn. I feel sorry for the gentleman who lives across the street and has to see that every day.
I used to sneer “Cliches!”, try not to read
The melodrama we are stuck in now:
A wicked cousin, swallowed up in greed,
Has made destroying neighborhood a vow.
How I miss chickens, straying cows, old cars
And parts spread in the yard, and bickering teens
Offering forbidden cigarettes to the stars.
We didn’t know what “a bad neighbor” means.
We’ve witnessed fouling of our mountain springs,
And cruel death of creatures tame and wild,
And constant thefts of worthless needful things,
And poison sprayed to harm parent and child.
If I had ever given a hoot, I vow,
How neighbors’ houses *look*, I wouldn’t, now.
Thank you, Priscilla. Your very intense sonnet enfleshes the point that I was making in the last paragraph of my comment.
Thank you! (It also expresses some intense feelings about what’s going on in my real life, so thanks for letting me vent.)
Cheryl, I see your pair of sonnets as two kinds of “curb appeal,” that could be subtitled or re-titled “Bad Neighbor Blues.” I myself have lived in homes approaching both ends of your spectrum, and it does always seem a concern to please the overall neighborhood. There is more than class involved. And there is more than neighborhood opinion to struggle with, when one considers city codes and state laws and the encroachment of commercial and criminal activity. Your pair could easily become a longer sonnet sequence!
I hadn’t planned on making a pair. The second poem was an afterthought, but the contrast was too great to resist.
Very well-crafted contrasting poems! You’ve got all the bases covered in your neighborhood. We just sold a house and got dinged in value (or at least we think we did) because of a few who didn’t do anything to improve their curb appeal.
Thanks, Warren. We’re mostly what’s you would call working class or lower middle class around here, but we do the best that we can.
Dear Cheryl,
I love these -so fun and easy to read, and full of reality.
Though I grew up in a modest home in a working class neighborhood, my father took immaculate care of our yard. How the neighbor down the street (with farm animals) vexed him, as well as the teen next door always working on cars.
You clearly communicate that the possession of a beautiful and well kept home and grounds cannot do anything for the loneliness of the resident. Like all homes, and all people, there is more than meets they eye and it isn’t always what you think!
Gigi
What a contrast. So visual and with such 3-dimensional characters, especially in the second sonnet.
The ‘faux’ facade had me in mind of the comedy film ‘Hot Fuzz’ – no spoilers. I once lived in a village that was a mix of old and new (13th century to modern!), and there was constant debate over who was spoiling the ambience.
The second poem resonated more with me, since that’s the kind of neighbourhood I was brought up in. The family I’m most put in mind of had a skip in their overgrown front garden. The lady of the house forgot her keys one day and I had to climb through the kitchen window and open the front door. I’m still traumatised!
Thanks for the reads, Cheryl.
Thanks for these two very thought-provoking poems, Cheryl. Your words make it easy to picture the two houses, and the questions raised by them. In my neighborhood, every house has a neatly edged lawn, except for one, where the residents apparently see fit to allow the grass to grow at least a foot onto the sidewalk on each side. The house otherwise is unremarkable. I’ve always wondered what the owners or residents of that house are thinking in allowing such a contrast. It’s both ugly in every opinion I’ve heard expressed about it, plus it forces the many neighborhood side-by-side walkers, most of them seniors, to have to alter their positioning, or step on the grass, which is mildly annoying. Is this some odd form ofprotest? Could those responsible actually prefer that look? My mother used to say – “different isn’t necessarily better.”
Thank you, Cheryl.
In reading your compellingly stark labors,
I wondered if their subjects might be neighbors.
Mainly because of the details mentioned by Prof. Salemi, no. 1 feels like Hill House perhaps 40 years before it becomes the setting for Shirley Jackson’s novel.
Well, I’m not quite sure what to say. My basic problem is this — someone else’s house is exactly that: SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE. I don’t see why anyone should have the right to tell another person in the neighborhood how his house should look, or how often he should trim his grass.
Of course there are qualifications: If a house is falling down, or gets infested with vermin, or is a major health hazard, then of course the local authorities have the right to step in. But if the place is just a little scruffier than you’d like it to be, or if it could use a paint job, then that’s really none of your business.
The middle class has a serious obsession with external appearances.
This is lovely and very memorable. Looking at life from both sides of the fence so to speak. You describe both beautifully and poetically.