Insomnia by Dana Gioia

Insomnia by Dana Gioia
Now you hear what the house has to say.
Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,  
the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,  
and voices mounting in an endless drone
of small complaints like the sounds of a family  
that year by year you’ve learned how to ignore.

But now you must listen to the things you own,  
all that you’ve worked for these past years,  
the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,  
the moving parts about to come undone,  
and twisting in the sheets remember all
the faces you could not bring yourself to love.

How many voices have escaped you until now,  
the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,  
the steady accusations of the clock
numbering the minutes no one will mark.  
The terrible clarity this moment brings,  
the useless insight, the unbroken dark.

When I heard Alexis give her poem for the class back in December I really liked it. I love the way it is written and really enjoyed how she delivered it. The poem seems to be about the regret the narrator has for caring more for the material things in his or her life then for the people in his or her life. The speaker laments all of the things in the house that are falling apart, the clanking pipes and shifting walls. "All that you've worked for these past years, the murmur of property, of things in disrepair," the speaker realizes that all of the material things he or she has worked for over the years are falling apart. The narrator of the poem is regretting not spending more time with his or her loved ones, "the faces you could not bring yourself to love." He or she avoided all the things that would have brought happiness in favor of material things. 

The personification of the house really allows the poem to make an impression. I envisioned the house as the person speaking. The things in disrepair were the aspects of the speaker's life that were falling apart. I could hear the noises in my head as I read the poem. Gioia rhymes the last three lines of the poem. I think this is to emphasize the "unbroken dark" and loneliness the speaker is feeling at the close of the poem. The last three lines help the narrator to understand that the "minutes no one will count" are the more important things, not the things one owns.