The stare isn’t vacant;
it’s absorbed; attentive –
the being on high alert
I’ve seen cats like this before
crossed the road to avoid
their supernatural curse
But this creature is different,
dares me to make a move…
Why do I feel I’ve already lost?
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter. Image mine.)
Envisioning breakup –
past haunting possibility –
she navigates uncertainty
an angry dreamer
Tries to settle on truth
but with rage as filter
she processes and processes
reaching no solid ground
Love, she concludes,
is beyond availability
plans a solitary existence
until vulnerability caves again.
(for Eugi’s Weekly prompt: haunting, and Reena’s Xploration challenge: filter.
Image my own.)
Globules of rain
hit the window
panes sloshing
Day has not yet broken
the sun held captive
unforgiving clouds
A ghostly figure
perches mid tree
leers eyeless
I recognize
feline contours
fearless slink
A daemon stalker
We’ve wrestled before
Have I summoned her?
She shifts
haunches easing
into pounce
Not today, Lord
I pray aloud
Not today!
(for Eugi’s Causerie weekly prompt: ghostly. Image my own)
Paint, we vowed,
would negate the haunting,
make the house our own –
selected with care:
sage green and dust of pink –
sanded and scraped,
pulled back baseboards…
same colours there –
ghosts had penetrated
our psyches.
A whiff of pipe
a peripheral glimpse
a gentlemanly presence
a shiver and a recognition
heart swells with warmth
refuses to pronounce phantasm.
(Image from personal collection.)
The veil grows thin
past midnight, as
sensibility dares
to sleep – spirits,
restless, yearning,
drag me from dreams,
fill my thoughts –
messages from beyond –
I am but a simple
woman, hold no sway
in the physical realm,
send them back
to carry on
their haunt.
Spirits dwell
in unlikely places,
speak to us
through lenses
their essence
embodied in
child-like faces,
or animal snarls,
begging to be freed.
I am shamed
by my awareness,
helpless to intervene,
have not perpetrated
the original sin –
guilty by DNA,
lineage tracing back
to the slaughterers,
those who ravished
land and Peoples,
disregarded the elementals
who once breathed life
into this sacred place.
How is it then
that I should capture
the tortured?
Is this merely projection
of an internal demon,
or am I being called
as witness,
my hand poised
to illuminate,
give voice
in service to
the suppressed
and violated?
Is this not,
after all,
the artist’s call?
(The image that inspired this poem was taken on the Kettle & Stony Point Reserve on the shores of Lake Huron. Can you see the face?)
(Note: Inspiration for my poetry is derived from the Dreamtime. Occasionally, a nightmare will evoke the creation of a short story. A recent nightmare continues to haunt me, so I have attempted both forms of literature to garner new meaning. The poem follows and the prose version can be seen here. Which form offers more insights I wonder? objectivity in the form of comments appreciated.
Nightmare: A Poem
Melancholy hovers, haunts,
fed by isolation, taunts
threads of sanity.
Darkness, incomplete,
reveals movement –
trickery of light?
Fear’s grip renders
motionless its victim
serenity shattered
Logic has no tolerance
for the undefined,
ghosts off-limits
Is disease the culprit,
inflammation upsetting
equilibrium, a mind aflame?
The veil between worlds
is flimsy, unhinged, shifts
awareness now peaked
I know you are there!
Show yourself!
Stillness.
Madness threatening,
pleas gather insistence
Come forward – be known!
These are merely games
one reality pit against
another, neither winning
A feminine figure emerges –
her presence emitting an aura
of alarm, indicates a window
Two figures, cloaked in black
towering shadows stalking
live prey, the scent of vulnerability
The ego withdraws, seeks
cover, cannot stop the onslaught
of monsters emerging from walls
Delusion, one last prayer for sanity
but the floorboards recede, reveal
skeletons, there is no escape
One Woman's Quest 