Open House - Steve Forbert

Open house now for your fading heart

Tell your ghost it’s time to hide;

Strangers won’t know when to stop and start

Once they’ve fin’ly got inside

Spir’ling staircase toward your dusty mind

With crates and boxes and bags and trunks;

No one cares what tender dreams they’ll find

All they’ll see up there is junk

With silver dollars from a ragdoll’s ear

And merc’ry dimes for buttons, too

And flutes and whistles only kids can hear

And peacock feathers green and blue

Deep depression in a walnut grain

Afternoons on rainy days;

Once it stacked up well in both your brains

And now it’s all some purple haze

With vandals picking locks and breaking doors

And smashing keepsakes all around;

Souvenirs of love and foreign shores

And scrapbook pages all unbound

It’s open house now for your fading heart

Tell your ghost it’s time to hide;

Strangers won’t know when to stop and start

Once they’ve fin’ly got inside