The House of Dust:  A Symphony

by

Conrad Aiken

To Jessie.

Part I

• I.
• II.
• III.
• IV.
• V.
• VI.
• VII.
• VIII.

Part II

• I.
• II. The Fulfilled Dream
• III. Interlude
• IV. Nightmare
• V. Retrospect
• VI. Adele and Davis
• VII. Two Lovers:  Overtones
• VIII. The Box with Silver Handles
• IX. Interlude
• X. Sudden Death
• XI.

Part III

• I.
• II. The Screen Maiden
• III. Haunted Chambers
• IV. Illicit
• V. Melody in a Restaurant
• VI. Portrait of One Dead
• VII. Porcelain
• VIII. Coffins:  Interlude
• IX. Cabaret
• X. Letter
• XI. Conversation:  Undertones
• XII. Witches' Sabbath
• XIII.

Part IV

• I. Clairvoyant
• II. Death:  And a Derisive Chorus
• III. Palimpsest:  A Deceitful Portrait
• IV. Counterpoint:  Two Rooms
• V. The Bitter Love-Song
• VI. Cinema
• VII.

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This poem is in the public domain; the text was taken from Project Gutenberg.

By Alison Knowles. One of the first computer generated poems, it consists of an indeterminate number of stanzas of four lines apiece with this structure:

1. A house of (broken dishes, steel, dust, roots, etc.)
2. In (a desert, a swamp, etc.)
3. Using (a type of lighting)
4. Inhabited by (people from many walks of life, people who sleep most of the time, people who sleep very little, birds and fish, etc.)

The program, which I've yet to track down, simply plugs in random phrases from the lists in parentheses. Sounds dumb, but was considered really hot stuff in the 1960's.