Write a ghost story

Here we are at the nightmare parade
after hours you hear cries in the night
the shadows fall as you witness ghosts of the midway
living dolls steal your soul
you dare to ride the haunted carousel?
calliope plays mysteriously in the foreground
the circus freaks storm the theater of sorrow
the snake charmer hypnotizes you  
spellbound, you await for Madame Endora to foretell your future
the proclamation looks good
you arrive safely at home and into your bed
the next time, your fortune may not be so lucky.

One year from now will I arrive?
A premonition of death & lies
complicity burns the remembrance
criminals sleep, compelling evidence
tight rope of hopes begin to fray
ghost of the sun hides in the shade
thoughts & memories dissolve & fade
one last breath where my body will lay

From a land I was exiled
I sail on,  
 
Forevermore
 
Who will guide me now?
The sun never rises
Beyond the stars,  
 
Unknown
 
Ploughing through angry waves
cold winds blow
ice forming on the mast
 
Desperate
 
Memories of loved ones fading away
Children grow & die
Who will remember or accept me
 
Discarded

Waiting to die.

    Sheila is and always was a schizophrenic. This misery has haunted her since the dolls in school shifted their eyes to her – whispering… she still hears them. Shrieking glasses in the cabinet… no they were only fracturing, shattering when she slammed her own head through the cabinet door. Oddities plagued her mind more so than the fresh taste of reality.
     “Sorry” she’d say to herself aloud for believing nonsensical delusions, for even believing flowers come into blossom because they have eyes, parting their petals to see the sun. She still swears those dolls looked at her.
     There she was. A late October day enclosed her body with a shroud of cold. The beautiful foliage of dead leaves embracing their brilliant, white Autumn star. Sheila wandered into an old Gothic cemetery which cradled her friend Savannah’s deathly reticence, for her headstone was the youngest in the aging burial ground. Not a mourner left to visit, she took a briskly walk around every shrubby hill and bend on the vanishing dirt paths. Pikes of crab grass and tall weeds blanketed the graves, the headstones were as well draped in green moss and thick branching vines. There’s beauty, no depression here.
     Sheila would memorize the names upon the headstones and their dates of departure. ‘Their day of deliverance,’ as she thought often of her own coming sunset. Still, there’s enough ‘burning sun’ she held. These walks in the cemetery bring respiting moments of purgatories within. Distant voices from beneath the earth still call for her to come back. There was only one headstone Sheila came to visit however.
     Savannah’s headstone is nearly uprooted from the swelling roots of a great maple she was buried beside. “That tree was a child, and you were a child when you came to rest here Savannah” Sheila whispered to her headstone. Savannah’s tilted, moss-ridden headstone was sacred. These were the times she cherished with her only friend. Sheila would prop herself against the maple’s trunk beside Savannah with her poetry journal.
     Whispers constant, Sheila often daydreamed rather than compose her ‘legacy in pen.’ She typically wrote enough a day to fill a page, no more. Everyday a whisper, everyday a poem spoken to her. Grasping her journal, head leaning on the trunk, eyes shut, pen in hand… always listening. This day yet a whisper. The page vacant of words, only a white-hot glare from the paper in the glaring midday sun, her eyes shut… listening.  
     “I come when you’re cold” a voice whispered.  
Sheila’s eyes shot open as if to the hell of gunfire. She looked about the stone clustered cemetery.
     “It can’t be” Sheila stammered.
Her mind spoke in doubts; her heart hammered her chest as she came to. Her eyes came to rest on her friend’s headstone till they glazed over. She laid her head back, her eyelids snipped out the daylight.
     She felt the warmth of the descending sun fade from her face. The illumination of her eyes dimmed in her long-awaited sunset as it bled to death into the blue twilight of her life. She’s come to rest beside her only friend. She thought not to leave anytime soon, she felt her friend watching over her. “One hug” she whispered, “just wished I coulda’ given’ ya one last hug.” Without parting her teary curtains, she crawled over to Savannah, wrapped her arms around her, and kissed the mossy stone.
     The stone chilled her cheek.
     “Come back” Sheila whispered. A tear trickled and disappeared into the moss…
“Come back.”
Her eyes drained of their last tears as their wells have iced over.    
     “Sheila” a soft voice crept into her ear.
A damp eyelid hoisted, the frosty night gave a fresh chill to her teary eyes. The needles of crab grass dagger into her bare feet. The whites of her rainy eyes illumined in the pitch-night’s white moon.
     “Sheila.”
Her eyelids unlocked from their death, something opaque had filmed over her eyes it seemed, for whatever it was, it couldn’t be what her eyes were showing her. Then a ice-cold hand rested on her cheek.
     “Thank you” the soft voice whispered.
Sheila detached her cheek from the moss and looked up into two brilliant, wide eye-moons. Moss dangling from her tear-sore cheek, her eyes finally found her whisperer.
     “Here…” a hand combed the moss out from Sheila’s hair.
     “I missed you” Sheila’s voice choked. Savannah smiled.
     “I’ve been hugging you all along.” Savannah drifted her fingers over Sheila’s mossy cheek.
Sheila couldn’t speak. She couldn’t find the words save three that define the most powerful emotion.
      “Hush” Savannah rested a finger upon Sheila’s lips, “I know.”  

      “Going home is a bitch, because all I do is deal with ghost
The spiritual motherfuckas most defiantly be doing the most,
      “Every time I unlock the door to let myself in
They change the temperature into an artic freezing wind,

      “Covered in frost from my head down to my feet
Now another ghost is bombarding me with intense heat,
      “I shake my head and just fucking stare
Because another one is hovering around in my Jordan’s and underwear,

      “Constantly they move furniture without my permission
Levitating pots and pans every time I go in the kitchen,
      “Watching TV-you can say is an impossible task
With them becoming part of the show-that shit makes me mad,

      “During the final season of the Game of Thrones
Next thing I know the Night King was fucking up shit all in my home,
      “But every time I start watching Ghostbusters
The haunting stops and it gets real quite up in this motherfucker,

      “Had a woman who wanted to spend the night at my shit
I said no-to save her soul, but the girl started bitching and having a fit,
      “Thinking I was cheating so she showed up unannounced one night
Ever since then the nosey bitch has not been mentally right,

      “When I called a priest-they said ‘motherfucka bring it on’
Hours later he renounced God and family and never went back home,
      “Newly created ghost thinks that my body they can posses
Little do they know its instant annihilation-a permanent rest,

      “Some try to convince me to slit my throat whenever I shave
Or at times hover electronics over me whenever I bathe,
      “Suicide is not my field of expertise-so they can kiss my ass
The shit they constantly do is unearthly pathetic and goddamn sad,

      “Their means to the madness is to prevent sleep
Because when I dream all haunting instantly cease,
      “My evil spirit is then released and able to roam free
But until I awake it is an all-night ghost killing spree”.

   
Two sets of footprints    
lead from the door    
to the bedroom.    
   
Graveyard dirt and heartblood    
mixed into a sludge    
and slurred across    
my pristine    
oak floors.    
   
I was chopping onions    
because it’s something I do now    
And froze at the sound    
of your knuckles on my door.    
Palsied hands moved underwater    
as existentialism became bullshit    
   
because zombies and ghosts  
and all the things that scream  
 motherfucker in the night    
were real.    
   
You were real.    
   
My hand digs in my scalp,    
face a rictus,    
because I buried you.    
I threw myself on your coffin,    
I screamed to god that it wasn’t fair,    
I begged the universe to take me    
because life on your headstone    
wasn’t life at all.    
   
I buried you.    
   
Clods of dirt marred my    
rattan door mat, and    
a handprint I could have    
traced from memory    
stained my door frame.    
   
I stabbed first,    
before I could so much as think,    
shoving my onion knife in your chest    
with a feral scream,    
but the light in your eyes didn’t fade.    
   
I’d forgotten.    
You can’t kill the dead like that.    
   
So I put it through my own heart,    
too fast for you to stop it,    
and fell to my knees like a puling Juliette.    
   
I looked up,    
as always,    
from your feet;    
you smeared heartblood,    
like red lipstick    
across my cheek    
from where it bubbled    
on my mouth    
   
And helped me up.    
   
I staggered away, leaving the door open.    
   
I staggered away,    
clutching furniture    
like an old woman    
as I made my way to a    
shroud of sheets    
beckoning me onward.    
   
My bare feet dragged    
through the maroon river    
cascading down my    
slim body    
   
And there are two    
sets of footprints    
leading    
from the doorway    
to the bedroom.

Everyday ghosts are whispers in the light of day.
Echoes of veiled desires in an empty soul.
They hover over the routine in silence and agony.
They are shadows that follow us in the night and in the sea air.
 
The ghosts of desire, burning and hidden,
they dance in our dreams covered by thin veils.
They are flames that burn without being seen
in broken hearts, desires that haunt us on uncertain paths.
 
In haunted houses, endless stories,
spirals of mystery and fear where time has stopped.
There live the specters in the dark confines of love.
Where the past still lives and the present is silent.
 
Life is a theater of shadows, a reverse stage,
where each act is an echo of a submerged verse,
the reverses of the reverses are the bonds of the universe,
encased and eternal in a scattered poem.
 
So we wander between the living and the dead,
meaningless search, between what is seen and unseen,
the clear and the hidden.
We are all travelers pursued by ghosts,
on the journey of existence, for extended time.
 
In the dance of days, ghosts cross walls,
with the threads of destiny, in weaves that embrace us.
They are memories and secrets that silently bind us
and lead us to question the truths that threaten.
 
Desires are ghosts that whisper in our ears,
promises of a tomorrow where everything is permitted,
but they are just illusions, in our lustful minds,
that leave us waiting for a promised future.
 
The houses with their specters of ancient stories
they keep echoes of lives in their friendly walls.
They are refuges for souls that take shelter among the dust
and they tell us, in whispers, their ancient legends.
 
Life follows its course with its ups and downs.
Every moment lived is a scattered ghost
that haunts and enchants us with its mystery immersed
and teaches us that time is the wisest of contexts.
 
Between the real and the fantastic our existence grows
with the threads of the visible and what the mind desires.
We are made of moments that warm the heart
and of ghosts that we love and on our chests they fall asleep.

It's dark and damp in Georgia, near    
this Cahulawassee river,    
a jungle like Borneo, it's clear  
as I break another nail, and shiver.    
On the Appalachian trail    
a visit to the primitive past,    
" I must be outta my tree," I wail    
but mostly I need food and fast.    
    
" Dinner's ready " a ghostly moan              
dies away in the falling night,              
a rattle of pans make me groan              
coz I ain't dined since early light.              
The smell of smoke awakes my plight              
as does the aroma of roast pork,             
I've already pulled my belt in tight              
as my hike starts to feel, like work.              
              
No campfire flame, as yet, is shown              
no track pointing to campsite,              
just torturing smells, these are blown              
up my nose becoming my sight.              
And my tracking skills track it right              
Ah! a Bisto-Kid... in the gloomy murk              
but still slavering for a bite              
but no welcoming campfire spark.              
               
But my nose leads me to a hut,              
a stone stove, a G.I dixie,             
my belly thinks my throat's been cut              
but the smell of long-cooked-piggy,              
turns my hands to tearing claws              
all is silent, not a sound,            
but slurping lips, my chomp of jaws           
filling belly, now heaven bound.              
             
I poke the fire up to a blaze              
and see the roasted leg is, kinda small,             
no crackling but hell I'm ready to praise              
the cook an' clean an' wash an' all.              
In the gloom I kick a boot              
and my delight is changed to fright,              
coz horror of horrors in it, a foot              
as I bang outta there into the night,            
I knock a table, something rolls to the floor,                
a chopped up head with accusing eyes              
watched me chase my vomit, out the door...

Once upon my time. There was a small person. Well not as small as the smallest but not as big as the biggest, either.

This person walks around in the world seemingly invisible to all unless there is a need to be seen.

Today this person was certainly needed. Rin of the Renard’s heard the summoned plea on the wind and knew the time had come to be visible once again.

The Summoned

“Lily it is forbidden to call a Renard.” Julian stated in a whisper.

Julian, her sister, not by blood but by circumstances that she refused to relive. Since it brings back horrors to her mind.

“What good is it, if we cannot use it in our desperate time?” She whispered back.

She made it to the clearing in the shaded woods to begin.

“I can not be here with you.”  Julian turned and ran back.

She closed her eyes and said, “Wind and worry, sorrow and fear, I bid you Renard to appear.”

The figure appeared before her covered in shadowed light.

“What is your need?”

“I lost a pendant that is linked to my soul. Please return it to me.”

“What are you willing to give in return?”

“Whatever the price.”

“The body the soul is attached to.”

She nodded and unclasped her hands to find the pendant in it. She honored her word and prepared to die with her eyes closed.

Winds whirled and whipped about, and silence came after.

“Open your eyes.”

She did and saw herself before her.

“Thank you, Lily, for giving my soul a home again.” Then Renard left in the shadow.

“You’re welcome.” Whispered.

You see Renard’s are the forgotten souls of those who felt unneeded, invisible to all. What would you give to be needed and save your soul?

If you promise not to speak to anyone about this, I'll tell you my story. It's not out of shame or embarrassment that I prefer confidentiality. It's just that, well...not many people believe such a wild tale.  
 
      You see, around this time every year, I am tormented by a nightmare. I've tried to stay up without sleeping but I inevitably fail at my attempts each time. It's as though I'm under some menacing spell that refuses to break its hold. But I believe I may know the source of its origins.  
 
      I've been a Buddy Holly fan since I can remember. His guitar playing sounds like a breath of fresh air to me and the 1950's seems like such a magical era.  
 
      When my first girlfriend broke up with me I consoled myself by listening to his song 'Learning the game." And his song 'Peggy Sue' had such a great beat I drummed along to it on my bed every night. I even learned the paradidle pattern I knew his drummer Jerry Ivan Allison performed on the song.    
 
      But about five years ago, something happened I can't explain. I know this sounds rather peculiar, but you see, every February 3rd the idea of going to sleep horrifies me. As though I'm cursed, I experience the most terrifying nightmares that leave me questioning why.  
 
      It happens like this....  
 
      At around 1:22 in the morning I'll sense an eerie breeze with a whistling wind that borders on being sinister. Then, Holly's voice will come fleeting by as though pulled from the fabric of time. His melodic southern drawl is unmistakable as he sings:  
 
      "You say you're gonna leave, you know it's a lie 'cause that'll be the day that I die."  
 
      As the last word dissipates, there's the sound of a coin dropping to the floor.  
 
      The following sounds of a troubled, sputtering engine descending to the ground at high speed keeps me locked in terror. My face will fill with sweat. A trickle will run down my cheek. Internally, panic will set in. A quick series of sickening thuds will fill my room before finally it all comes to a frightening stop. The silence that follows keeps me from opening my eyes.  
 
      What happens next torments me. In the dream, I'm suddenly at the crash site. I see the plane smash beyond recognition; the skid marks; and the dreadful site of the bodies spread throughout the freezing snow-covered cornfield are debilitating.  
 
      Then, in ghostly form, I see him. Holly looks at me with a fearful look on his face repeating the words: "I'm not supposed to die. Please don't let me die! Don't let me die."  
 
      In a flash, he's lying back in the bloody snow with a piece of his head missing. How can I possibly describe the icy feeling I'm left with? It's like being in a freezer, unable to move a muscle.  
 
      But the sound of that coin never goes away. I can't get that out of my head.  
 
      As the story goes...before the flight, Holly flipped a coin with Country star Wayland Jennings who was part of the band (the crickets) that night. Whoever tossed heads was the one who would fly on the plane and avoid the drafty bus that everyone got ill on rolling across the country. After holly won, he jokingly said to Jennings, "I hope your bus freezes up." Jennings joked back to Holly - "I hope your plane crashes." The rest is history.  
 
            The small private plane took off on February 3rd at around one in the morning after a show at the Surf Ballroom which starred Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens. The pilot Roger Peterson put the plane on auto pilot unaware of the rough winter weather ahead and the plane crashed in a cornfield in Clear lake, Iowa.  
 
      I wasn't alive in 1959 when the crash happened. I'm just a fan like everyone else.  
 
       Why the nightmares? I don't know. But I do know this.  
 
      The dreams have always been a part of me. They've haunted me every year. I go to sleep and then as it always does, the music dies--in the cold, silent, snow.  
 
      So now you know my story. Please, tell no one.  
 
      Oh, and there's just one more thing. For the last three days, Holly has visited me in my dreams. Each dream is identical. He stands in my bedroom holding a bouquet of flowers next to a coffin. The top is opened. As I stand from my bed I look in to find it's me lying inside.  
 
      You see, yesterday, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer.  
 
      I may have only days or weeks to live.