Survivors

Survivors

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Ghosts


©  2016 Steve King
All rights reserved


I can’t believe in ghosts—
at all.

Not me.

That sound I hear
is just the ancient clock
crying out cruel hours
and a cache of ruined days;
vagrant seconds spilling
on the threshold of that dark hallway.

I would say
I’ve never seen a ghost.
Strange fancies fall away
at will before my gaze—
as if undone by magic;
that is, if I believed in magic,
if it were allowable
beyond the issuance of dreams,
although each dream itself might seem as real.

I have never felt a ghost, nohow.
That breeze upon my neck
is from the unthought open window
beckoning strange airs
through all the attic maze,
up and down the shadowed stairs
and settling here, easy as can be,
close within this dusty window seat.

I have never held a ghost,
though I have tried:
the semblance of a memory,
husks of undone wishes,
rustling through all useful life,
endowing form to shades of other days.
But seldom in my ready moods
have spirits ever lingered to obey.

Yes, I have paused for many things
as they have come my way.
Most kinds of things, okay…
but never once an honest ghost.

Nope
Not me. 
Not ever nowadays.


A new poem for Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads
http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/