Best Apparition Poems
APPARITION
You came in the name of He who gave you breath.
As certain as the emptiness of time,
as hopeless as your life, as hot and cold as death,
You came to stay.
No holy water, no exorcist's demand,
can quench my thirst; my need for all you are.
You fill my head with things not meant to understand,
You came to stay.
I breathe your name, tormented in my dream,
and sleepless is the night, You fill my time.
You are the joy of life beyond my dying scream,
You came to stay.
You came in the name of He who'll give us death.
You are the calm and blinding of the light.
Forever part of me, you are my final breath.
You came to stay.
Sensuous apparition
my lady in the dark night
this wonderful silhouette
soft aim of adulation
and timeless as it would seem.
Fleeting moment of closeness
becomes the stuff of my dreams.
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November 11, 2014
Form: Heptagonet
Dr. Ram Mehta
Sixth Place win
Contest: Silhouette of Light by nette onclaud
Tendrils of fresh green
misting branches long barren
suddenly appear
Inspired by Carol Browns Springtime contest
Apparition
For several years
a photograph of my grandfather,
my mother’s father,
hung on my living room wall
There’s no date on his portrait;
family lore says it was taken
shortly before he deserted his family.
He was a handsome man,
easy with women,
or so I’ve been told.
In the photograph
he’s dressed formally
for a country man:
a dark suit, a white shirt,
a crooked bow tie.
I knew him as a broken old man,
pacing around the back yard fence
like an animal in a cage,
talking quietly to himself.
One evening long after his death,
as I sat quietly,
contemplating his portrait
(a casual close reading),
a ghostly hood emerged,
covering his face,
eye-holes roughly cut,
his bow tie and suit
disappearing beneath a white robe.
My grandfather
no longer needed Sunday clothes.
My parents often spoke of a twin
A sister who had died during birth
Strange hollowness always felt within
In teen years I doubted my self worth
Too shy to interact with my peers
On prom night I drove to Crystal Lake
Streaming down my face were lonely tears
This half of a whole whose legs did shake
From the edge of the bridge I looked down
A fifty-foot plunge, I’d surely die
But beside me in my reflection I found
A pleading form I could not defy
It was my twin, fully grown like me
For the first time I was free of pain
And though she disappeared suddenly
I have never felt lonely again
Written for the Ghost contest
It is not hard to fall in love with a beautiful apparition. You don’t know them, but are easily
entranced by their chemistry. Your brain ignites a myriad of sensual wishes. Carnal exploration
and fantasies played out in seconds, heating your heart like an oven. They disappear as quickly,
a wisp of smoke, but you miss them immensely. A hallow feeling leaves you weak, sad, and
alone stretching for minutes, days, or years till the next one steals your heart. Man or woman,
boy or girl can manifest and escape around corners and be gone, but in the moment you had
them for eternity. The Petrarchan romance you read lives in their dance and laughter. No one
goes without this fictitious ache; it follows you as your shadow does, comes to life as often.
Looking serene a placid lake reveals a reverse world where everything is as real as the earth
you tread, as vivid as those memories you hang on walls. Veiled in disbelief as a mere image
those waters taunt you with their likeness. The ghosts you long for are down there, but there
they know you as the beautiful apparition
- APPARITION-
Cloudy coffee in a silky morn .
A harvester was feeding in a field of corn.
My wishing was that I wasn't born
Apparition.
Her love has left my bed unmade.
Her heart has turned into a hand grenade.
Blinded justice with a flaming sword
Muted sentence doused the written word.
Apparition
Freedom found in a guilty plea.
I did the deed but it wasn't me.
Here we stand in a court of law
Words exchanged when she slammed the door
Apparition
Misty mountain is missing you
Blood pressure over two sixty two
Replay the scene as she walked away
Filling out forms - latest title - divorcèe.
Apparition.
Sold the van in lieu of suicide
Sold the house but kept my pride
Drive to town before she drove me mad
Envy others for what they had.
Apparition
Sarcastic scene I always criticised
Wheelchair cripple wouldnt compromise
Cremated love tries to patronise
I was never there had a love affair.
Apparition
Separation
Competition
APPARITION II
saharas at noon
at twilight comes a wheezing
night cannot forget
Apparition
Dark night
Bad fright
For Footle Contest
by Brian Strand
being charmed at ghost tide
in my sleep being warmed
again morn finds me
Ghost apparition
Covering the full moon, night sky
Shows cobalt through it
“What was I thinking? I lost track of time.”
Running to the seaside home before the clock is nine
The water cooling from the heat of summer
Her feet are numb from the cool temperatures that plunder
Across the waters, towards the house she glides
Beating the forceful midmorning tides
Ah but, she’s an apparition lingering in my time
The curtain that draws memories closed is a fine-line
Will she be noticed past my prime?
She waved! She said goodbye, then blew a kiss!
Looking at the beach, in memories, I will reminisce.
Who was she? What was her story?
Oh, perhaps it was for love, aw perhaps for my glory.
I will never know, perhaps, she knows already?
Every night
I sat up waiting
and waiting
for you to
sweep me up
from off my feet
instead you
would always
vanish away
into the shadows
from which you came from
without a trace
never leaving behind
your footprints
or a letter written to me
telling me
that you were here
When I first saw you, you were standing
beautifully in a river of moonlight.
You had appeared as if from out of nowhere.
Lonesome you seemed in the black of night.
But you were different, dressed all in white
and I was someone longing for a view -
the view of someone who’d be there for me
if it chanced to be I needed you,
I looked at you as if you were an angel -
an otherworldly creature you seemed to be.
You glanced at me with eyes that brightly shone.
Were you an angel sent to rescue me?
Could you dispel the gloom I often felt?
Could you lift me higher from my mortal plane?
How I longed for someone like an angel
to take away from me what was mundane.
I looked again and you had disappeared.
Had it all been my imagination?
Was I going crazy? Had you been
only a lovely hallucination?
Still I search for you and some redemption
when I stand beneath a moon that’s glowing.
And how I dream you’ll come again to me
with your angelic face so brightly showing!
April 5, 2023 for Sotto Poet's Free Submission Poetry Contest
The lighting, it was over-bright,
startled my eyes in transition
Awakened in the dead of night,
the lighting, it was over-bright.
Glimpse of sword in hand, ghostly white.
Blood spilled by vile apparition!
The lighting, it was over-bright,
startled my eyes in transition.
6/15/16