The weathered sign by the cemetery gate
Is painted in faded red:
“When passing through Fairlawn’s ancient arch,
Do not step on the cobblestone, step on the larch.”
No elder down on Broadway remembers the night,
Or why we avoid the stone,
Or what had occurred near the dusty track
When a traveler walked alone.
We single-file past the red-dirt drive,
Careful and light-of-toe,
Eyeing the dull gray paving block
Where the prairie winds never blow.
The children whisper it like a rhyme
On their walk home from the square,
Though the gusting air through the pecan trees
Sounds like a warning there.
For last fall, young Thomas, to prove he was brave,
Set his boot on the stone with a sneer—
And the ground beneath swallowed his shadow whole,
Though Thomas is standing right here.
He walks down 3rd Street, quiet and pale,
His eyes like two hollows of frost,
Never stepping on wood, never speaking a word,
Forever untethered and lost.
So we bow our heads in the October chill
And tread on the timber, aligned—
Observing a law whose reason is dead,
Lest we leave our shadows behind.
Her sparkling words seemed strung as gems
Upon a lyric golden chain
Her songs settled soft as fresh falling snow.
Now haunting hearts in huts heard on the heath,
Mourning on moonless nights, warble music
Such as soundless Sharon once sweetly sung.
Whither shall I go—
Shall I haunt the willow
Drag my nails 'cross thy dewy window
Push the wicker chair to and fro?
These are all terrors that I know
What do the newly dead do
When there is nowhere
We would venture to
Or care feel despair
Or shed boo-hoos
Should I wait in the broom
Closet for you
Radiating gloom
Waiting to shout "boo!"
What do the newly dead do?
They said it would be fun
To watch the frightened run,
But so far that just isn't true
And maybe a little mean
From the little I've seen—
But hey, I'm new;
Maybe just one of the few
Who wishes there was something better
To do
Than scare another bed-wetter
Or ruin a new hairdo—
It's just all so boring
We sit 'round till morning
Then some awful cock crows
Ringing thro' fields and clear 'cross meadows
And everything just turns black—
And it's cold
And there's a smell—
Like putrid mold.
Well,
I guess it's better than hell,
But who the hell knows
I walk where old spells loosen,
d
r
i
f
t
i
n
g
like specters
through the rafters of memory.
My iron cauldron sits
cold
in the corner.
Herbs hang brittle
on the wall,
whispering
their forgotten names.
Even the moon seems wary
of the path I take~
a thin,
watchful crescent
that remembers more than it reveals.
I have outlived the glamor,
the bright-eyed hunger
for power shaped from shadow.
What remains is quieter,
but it follows me like a presence
I once called
mine.
Sometimes I feel the old magic
stir behind me~
a faint rustle,
a shift of air,
as though the past
is trying on my silhouette.
But I do not turn.
I keep walking
through the dusk,
my haunting gentler now~
a reminder, not a claim:
even spells leave echoes
worth carrying.
moon slips behind the eaves
old floors breathe ghostlike sighs
a shadow stirs the stillness
night keeps its whispered truths
Genie, old genie, grant me a wish.
I wish life would get better than this.
For a fortune in happiness,
A lifetime of bliss.
Any life would be better than this.
Dust collecting on the bottle,
My wish so simple, so pure.
Surely it wouldn’t leave me craving more.
Shackles of life,
Ruins in shambles.
You and I are the same—
I, the bottle.
You, the dust.
Trapped.
The feeling of hopelessness and despair,
Trapped by memories
I can no longer outrun.
The loneliness settled like dust,
Covering the dream that once was.
Please grant my wish,
For it is not a long list.
I waited for magic,
I waited for change.
But the dust kept falling,
And the bottle stayed the same.
A haunting mignon. My sweet Musette,
of darkness. A pale silhouette weeping
on cold stones, in heaven’s crypt.
Cracked by the frost of blind angels,
carved from bones, bleeding in the rain
With haloes. Trapped in a holy tomb
of profane.
My eternal call. Half dead, half alive
walking on cracked bones. My reason to
live.
The glitter in the eye, when you are
exhaustly tired. My sweet Musette. My
eternal love. A haunting mignon.
The midnight knew my hidden name
Before she learned to cry;
The moon, a pale and trembling flame,
Hung like an ever-watching eye.
The floorboards whispered, one by one,
Of footsteps buried long ago;
They walked where neither star nor sun
Had found the courage yet to go.
The walls inhaled a silent breath,
As though the house itself could mourn;
Its timbers dreamed of love and death,
Of broken vows and hope forsworn.
A voice arose without a tongue,
A shadow moved without a face;
The ancient bells were never rung,
Yet echoed through that haunted place.
I fled—but every road I knew
Returned me to that shadowed door,
Where grief, more faithful than the dew,
Waited as it had before.
Then softly spoke the endless night:
"You cannot outrun what you keep.
The deepest ghosts avoid the light—
They make their silent homes in sleep."
So here I dwell, and here remain,
Where memory wears a spectral shroud;
For every heart that shelters pain
Becomes its own eternal cloud.
As I slip into the void of this endless black,
Stardust ignites the darkest night sky,
And though I want to I cannot ever go back,
To where our love once learned to fly.
Love seeps from curling words
into a floundering bloodstream,
While amongst the stardust fly birds
escaping farther upstream.
How could I have not seen
Your acidic tongue drips venom slow,
Your kiss concealed the poison between,
It all was lost within the glow.
Now I yearn for eternal rest
Amongst the stars and stardust,
My heart has ceased to beat in my chest,
While leaving you is still the hardest.
Burdened by a boulder,
That once was a star,
Dragged by the colder
End of a scar,
To feel a wish
Bleed from a stab,
To die among fish,
To be pinched by a crab,
Alone in the sea,
Envying the summit,
What I was shaped to be,
I cannot over come it.
Gental despair,
A coffin from sorrow,
A storm in the air,
Killing tomorrow,
Tangled knots,
Numbed by a blade,
A line of dots,
The heartbeat fades.
What is mine,
A thief takes back,
A paralyzed spine,
Wine in a rack,
Locked by a knife,
Yet stabbed at the heart,
Miserable short life,
The sadness of art.
Violin plays a teary note
The wind whispers a sad refrain
Then, through the trees, it starts to float
Violin plays a teary note
Hidden by the night's velvet coat
Owls hoot out a haunting strain
Violin plays a teary note
The wind whispers a sad refrain
My soul is like a dark room in an abandoned house, where phantom piano keys still dance in the air. Where cracked and broken windows send whispering chills down your spine, yet welcome bird nests on dusty bookshelves. There’s foliage from thunderstorms that scatter on cashmere sheets where ghosts of lovers still lay & hazed mirrors on the wall that still ache for presence.
Her eyes still haunt me.
Inside she was living on the edge.
I didn’t know. She jumped.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
For Many years unable to identify
this haunting whoo whoo sound
Could it be an insect or a bird up in the trees
An amphibian by the creek perhaps ?
or something, else not identified, rising from the ground
The hoot was mostly early morning but sometimes through the night
unable to get vision of this creature
perhaps through camouflage it kept itself from sight
The mystery, finally it was solved
in the middle of the day
When the haunting hoot erupted,
not too far away
In desperation as a result of an attack by a marauding crow
the sound was emanating from a desperate immature creature
A frog? no not really but part of the name,
of a bird, that's how it does feature
In appearance it much resembles some owls
Its called a Tawny "FROGmouth"
a name with several vowels
A few metres from our house there are up to four
perched upon the same branch roosting
and sleeping through the day
They are nocturnal feeders, intermittently the branch is vacant
as they opt to stay away
When the lights come on, memories evaporate. The walls of the room behave. Porous, primed, and paper white. Fear retreats where it learned to wait. And here I stand anew and unmarked. But, darkness does not forget. When the lights go out, the walls ooze and exhale. The dark consumes me once again. Old versions of myself return, merciless. Wounds not yet turned to scars resume their bleed. Guilt and regret dance like shadows. And I let them watch. They do not accuse. Extending their hands as if we once agreed to meet. They ask why I am startled. They have worn my face for years.
when the lights go out—
the ghosts I once left behind
breathe my name again
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.