Dave Bonta's "House arrest" is a tiny poem about being stuck at home, and about how that confinement feels. The title suggests the speaker can't leave, and the first two lines sum up the situation with dry humor: "a little new history / and a little hell." Perhaps something fresh and significant is happening in the world, but living through it from inside four walls is also miserable.
The central image is the strangest part. Home is "like an old gun / full of bark and use / and little action." The wordplay does the work here. A gun has a bark, and so does a dog or a tree. "Action" can mean the mechanism of a firearm, but also simply things happening. So the house is worn, noisy, and well used, yet nothing much occurs. The mood is restless and bored, with a thread of irritation. The speaker seems to feel like a weapon that can't be fired: loaded with energy, going nowhere. The poem's brevity makes the feeling sharper.