moon slips behind the eaves
old floors breathe ghostlike sighs
a shadow stirs the stillness
night keeps its whispered truths
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ fog creeps from the ¦¦¦¦ sea ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦
Over ¦¦¦ pale grey ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ towers,—
And settles among ¦¦¦ roofs, ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦
Along damp ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ streets it crawls,
Curls ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ among the ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ trees
And seems to freeze.
¦¦¦ fog slips ghostlike into ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ rooms,
¦¦¦¦¦¦ over sleeping faces,
¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦
And blows in ¦¦¦¦¦¦ waves over open spaces . . .
¦¦¦ one ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ looking down,
Peers at the ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ town,
And thinks its ¦¦¦¦¦¦ towers are ¦¦¦¦ a dream . . .
¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ within whose brain
¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦ shadows revolve ¦¦¦ ¦¦¦¦¦ and gleam.
(Blackout of The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city by Conrad Aiken)
I caught a ghostlike glimpse,
of steel breath on blunt mirror,
as my taut brain mulled scars,
from fractal bleak life motif,
zooming across skewed glass,
reflections glum and forlorn,
black ink eye ring capture,
shadow, shade, or shield,
brittle convex, abject cog,
whoa, my frail image riven
ghastly ghostlike hobgoblins and greenish ghouls
glowing and glistening per October’s anti rules
gold bricking amid god’s acre of granite gravestones
this is the way gremlins and gargoyles enjoy autumn poems
gruesome giggles and guffaws could tear an ethereal entity’s face
realms of those ghastly ghostlike goblin-like ghouls without grace
gauche gaudy gamins galloped around the gravestones, diving in
need I mention that after Halloween night, they were not seen again?
Deprived of your love I become a will-o-the-wisp,
a ghostlike entity, whose illumination has faded
with the echoing of your final word, "Goodbye."
Not a daunting wisp of the shimmering kind,
nor one to haunt or harm. Feel no alarm from me
for I am no longer whole, the woman I used to be.
Without your hand to hold, your lips to kiss,
your arms enfolding me close to your chest,
there would be no love to quell my need.
Desire would wither like a forsaken seed.
Felled, would be my heart as if it were a tree.
The brokenness of me would be conceded,
left alone to live with yearning and in misery.
My heart would die a little each day,
without hope of being resurrected.
Its beat would slow, severely impeded.
I would live in a grayling world on my own
where Winter winds would chill my bones.
I would stand on the edge of a frozen lake
contemplating inching my way to the middle,
knowing water flows there, swiftly to the sea.
A break in the ice would end my heartache
as I ride on the current like a felled tree.
#Repetition_of_irremediable_calamity
Stare the dark gloomed space of shooting casanovas, blurred with shades of karma, coated with deja vu, I was here the mind says, my hands mired with more dirt, contaminating my hard work and effort to never to pass through this hind streets of lingering pain and regrets, a rotational oozing of ghostlike tormenting shadows of my yesterday, and feel pacing in slow motion in this circles of no exits, no matter the effort pores punches all over my hope, feel drowning, suffocating and my soul ebbing, dilating in volumes I can't contain any further
My calamity takes everything out of me, regret there be nothing to identify me with, after it's taking, invisible blows shatters me from every direction, how can I not give in when I too was made from the very dust of this earth, a human like the rest
Here I'm tested to never rise again or to man up and prove the naysayers and those who have written me off even before my birth, spirit lead my me to faith without borders, pass me a riffle to eleminate every doubt before me, face up, faith on, and irremediable is just a word in my calamity
#Poetic_Ink
High in the western hills near Kathmandu,
A place to stand and gaze at dawn of day
And marvel there at far off ghostlike view.
Bold shadows lurking in the distant grey,
Before the solar arc comes to break through
And dominate with its amber display.
Now comes into focus a sharp outline.
See Annapurnas standing, three in line.
When love is torn asunder and there is nothing left but dissent,
a lover's heart will be shattered, mortally wounded and rent.
In a relationship that was once held as sacred and eternal,
sorrow takes a heavy toll on the one left behind, and infernal
flames of grief scorch the lonely heart so that it must dwell,
suffering in what seems like the fiery abyss of emotional hell.
Forlorn the man when his once-upon-a-time love went astray,
and became a wraith without a face. She refused to stay.
Dressed in bridal gown, perhaps she seeks a new marriage mate,
a man who will please her instead of treating her like a roommate.
She looks forward to a brighter future than one she's left behind,
wondering why she married him. How could she have been so blind?
Could it be there's another side to the separation of two lovers?
In death she was buried in a white shroud. Sorrowfully, he hovers.
A bouquet of crimson flowers he's brought to leave at her grave
but he cannot bear to look at the tomb. Today, he's not that brave.
Ghostlike she appears to him, a wispy figure, floating in the mist.
He's haunted by memories of the lips he'd passionately kissed.
This is a poetry eerily populated with ghosts and mummies and zomboid creatures who go on living though dead from love.
— Patrick McGarth*
ZOMBOID CREATURES
no way out of the well…ceaseless pulley.
forlorn, deep is the grave.
for the dead, love is a bully
no one can save.
doped up, tears dry in somnambulant night.
bones rave toward the cliff.
a blind man’s bluff, i’ve lost my sight -
this zomboid stiff.
love dropped out; i’m eaten up with her scent -
bouquet of floral bath.
i pursue - a ghostlike lament,
off beaten path.
she sat upon the mound, of fresh dug soil,
wrapped up in her own grief,
a mummy terrified - a foil…
aperitif.
1/7/2023
Writing Challenge - Zip, Zig, Zag, Zing
Sponsor: Constance La France
Theme Z word: Zomboid
Used Howmanysyllables and rhymezone
*Obtained from Merriam-Webster
I have a fabulous dresser, an antique
made out of gorgeous wood of teak
It is totally Victorian, and yet somehow sleek
Found a long time ago at a home beside a creek
Its interior drawers are shabby, quite bleak.
Yet the outside has an incredibly well-built physique.
She is pretty when refurbished, totally chic.
Her clothes drawers sometimes have an ominous squeak.
She once had a small gray inhabitant who gave out a shriek.
His mousey noises were to us humans little understood Greek.
Once in a while I still hear a ghostlike tiny small eek.
You can ask my cousin about it too. His name is Zeke.
In the gray dawn, ghostlike,
A mist rises over the lake
Like a floating whisper.
My shorts and tee shirt
Are damp and clammy
From hanging on the bedpost
Near the open window.
The dock is slippery, and
The yellow kayak slips
Soundlessly into the water.
The paddle barely ripples
The breathless surface.
I am adrift in my imagination.
I am a loon, skimming
The water with its haunting cry.
I am the Indian Hiawatha
In his birchbark canoe.
I am Jacques Marquette,
Exploring the Mississippi River,
Watching for Indians.
I am a lone leaf, drifting.
I am the wind and the air
And the thick gray fog.
I am the water itself,
Calm on the surface but
Teeming with life, as it
Wends its way to the sea.
I am the wind and the rain,
The sun and the clouds.
I am all things in this
Haunting, misty world.
As the fog slowly lifts,
Lightens, and turns golden,
I slip back into myself and
Paddle toward the shore.
Someone very near and very dear
leaves, perhaps forever, no offense
but he has his own right to life, it
just happens to be thousands of
miles away...
and so I go about my daily grind
grim-faced, gusto-less, ghostlike going
through the motions, until I feel
his message shoot through my veins
pricking my conscience and bringing
out the sunshine in my heart of hearts
chewing the fat with a ghostlike gristle,
a likeness lampoon on cell
5/9/2020
The day yawns
stretches...
like a flower
petals upturned
ghostlike vapors
drift away
Bullfrogs croak
My dog slumbers
The Wolf
A much maligned animal of lore
With a gnarled snarl, frothing saliva,
And fangs that rip and claws that gore,
And eyes that focus to choke the throat.
With ears that hear the slightest stirring
And noses to smell the faintest scent,
They, ghostlike, blend into their surroundings
On soft paws, scarcely heard is their presence.
They join wits and instinct in stalking packs,
And with unrelenting stealth, they track.
Ambient howls transmit jolts down one’s back,
Of their voracious appetites to match.
The design was complete, and the wolf breathed,
An apex predator beyond belief,
Where only the alphas breed progeny
And learn to master their environment.
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