Walking in Beauty, Like the Night

(x = space)

x

x

Walking in Beauty, Like the Night

x

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

—Byron

x

The only place I live

Ironically

Is in the clock

(absurdly called the grandfather),

A prisoner

Of time

And time

x

There’s a dark space

Behind the weights,

Behind an ornate board

In fact, taller than I

x

I listen to the clock

x

I hear its beat,

Its announcements

Count the hours along

x

I got good at guessing

When it’s dark

Outside,

The dark of night and mortal people

x

So I might slide

As if it were amusement

Into the room night,

Of shapes and shadows,

Followed by another room

And then another

x

Accommodations for

Ghosts among the living

In a place

Where both reside,

Divided places aren’t worked out

x

When light touches me, I burn

And if it weren’t an issue

For the gossamer of tissue,

I would burn for shame

x

Life was love

Attended

x

I thought I’d be released,

But immorality

So far has judged me

Here

x

Where I must hide

In filminess

And flimsiness

Inside the dark

Of this dark place

By day

x

C L Couch

x

x

This work is in response to a prompt for horror writing from Katie Metcalf who writes supernally about the dark and winter and folklore and endurance.  Here is the link for you to try at your own magickal delight:

https://wyrdwordsandeffigies.wordpress.com/2021/01/30/writing-in-the-dark-horror-writing-prompts/

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Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash

Terrell, TX, USA

An old blue creepy haunted house | Please check out my blog at: matthewtrader.com/unsplash

x

Bump

(x = space)

x

x

Bump

x

In a week is Hallowe’en

Let’s reach up

Take down the ghosts

x

Dust the sheets

Sew a few stitches

Here and there

x

This is the time

When ghosts of the past

Year-round

x

We know the kind

Deserve some sublimation

For the humanly

x

Storied things

Chased with chocolate

Chasers

x

While fun

Is fright

All pathologies aside

x

Mars is not invading

If you think so,

Happy Hallowe’en

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

San Francisco, CA, USA

San Francisco 2020, after the Labor Day fires.

x

Christmas Ghosts

Christmas Ghosts

(for anyone when looking at the lights is sad)

 

Christmas ghosts

They come a-haunting

Like eldritch carolers

Singing of the past

Offering misery for the present

I don’t know how to get rid of them

 

Maybe we need to

Invite them in

Drink their eggnog for them

Actually, I don’t think anything spiked

Will do

Open a present from the future, maybe

Letting life go on

Remove a shackle of the holiday

Leave it nearby, if need be

Allow something to be new

The snow, if snow

A phone call with an acquaintance

Something that is mild

Like a babe when sleeping

And sleep, too, you should

Maybe leave a light on

Of an unusual color

For season when a miracle

Or matter of will,

A gentle exorcism

Might happen

 

C L Couch

 

 

Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Letchworth Garden City, United Kingdom

lights of Christmas

 

 

Ishi

Ishi

she is the last
one in her family
a hermit in Siberia
rescued recently

they were religious
they fled the Soviets
(one could name another
group when it oppresses
or suppresses) and
she is the last

when she is gone
from earth
only her story will remain

another ghost of Ishi for
she is the last

celebration of the season 3, Ghost

Ghost

it is like us because it was us
breathing, living once like us
ghost become, be-turned in death, untimely
and unfinished

are they real?—we are real, and
we’re the ones who make the ghosts, for
they were us

we know a ghost of one kind lives
we meet it every day: anything that
haunts us in our daylight lives, the
choices and the acts we want to leave

behind but carry with us in a lingering
way not finished

we make our ghosts, and they haunt us

the other kind?—well, why not, since
so much of us is left behind, undone
so that we carry it in some
unresolving way

after dust, before heaven
what we leave that’s extreme and
exigent persists

so we make the ghosts, and they persist

is it bad, then, on one day a year, we celebrate
the ghosts this once?—and then again next year

Happy Hallowe’en
while remembering

they will be