HOUSES
   Anjaneya S. H . Watt

My house
Is an enclosure
Joining two doors together
My house
Is the space
Between two doors
Which ever where you look
You look right through the eyes
You will see the view beyond
You will not see the house.
My house is me
No one lives with me
And do I
Live in my House?
Whichever where you look...
Your house is over there
Where the road ends
But if I have to keep moving
Even along the road
Where does the road end?
Your house...
Other people's houses
Open inwards
To secrets which
They are do not reveal
Other people's houses
Are in cities.
Cities
Are in other people's houses
Other people's houses
Houses
Where are the houses of which we talk?
All talks of houses
Are privy houses
We do not talk to houses
About houses
What we talk to others about
Are not houses.



        "Houses" is a beautiful poem in which the poet explores the complex idea of life through the metaphor houses. The poet uses two words such as 'space' and 'enclosure' to refer the life as a limited
space and the two doors are stands for birth and death.
          When the poet comes to experience the essence of life he feels loneliness. The rhetorical question of the poet implies that every life is structured.The poet uses capital letter H for Houses to specify that life is prestructured. The dots after the line "which ever where you look"  shows incompleteness which depicts the hesitancy of life.
          In the third stanza the poet sees other's life but he cannot understand it because he cannot interpret his  life either.The word 'road'  stands for the understanding of the poet about other's life and it clearly states that he fails to understand other's life.
          The poet cannot reach at other people's life through their secrets of life is open. So he cannot understand other's life.
          The poet conscience the lines to explore the emotions and to emphasize the idea that we cannot access other's life.
          In the sixth stanza the poet became uncertain of the life of others and their secrets. People didn't concerned about life until their death.
          The poet used the term cities as a metaphor for isolation, loneliness, selfishness,secretiveness and mysterious. By emphasizing on the inextricable link between cities and houses,the juxtaposition of the lines 'other people's houses are in cities, cities are in other people's houses effects this. The poet is very curt and precise when he dismisses other people's houses as other people's houses. The irrelevant tone in the last stanza is a sign of genuineness with which the poet philosophizes. When he asks the question 'where are the houses of which we talk?' it is rhetorical. In the last four lines the poet categorically emphasizes the fact that we have no knowledge of the lives that we live and it addressed through repetition and inversion of words in the poem.