Flickering flames,
Elemental spirit,
Beautiful yet untamed
I bask in the warmth of your light
Your motherly love generous and unrestrained
With every child like curiosity,
I am drawn near
Wild eyed and adventurous
In Uninhibited fear
I am choked by your toxic fumes
By your heat I'm consumed
To get too close, dare I?
I am hopelessly doomed
Yet with every flicker
Of your ****** dance
I am drawn into you through a hypnotic trance
We turn and we turn
We burn and we burn
Until out of control
Loves inferno unfolds
Like a raging wildfire
Hot passions spread
Consuming every fiber
Of human resistant thread
Until like two small dying
Embers of light
In each others arms
We reach a climactic height
Two flames weak and exhausted
Extinguished by the night
Flickering flame,
Elemental spirit,
Beautiful yet untamed
Fire is your name.

Life’s roads are full of twists and turns
Quickly as friendships are built bridges we burn
When from a lifelong love our heart towards another is turned
And trust once had now is harder earned
And
Soon with age and experience
Time may confirm
In these relationships we form
We live and learn

A toast! To
My gentleman ghost, my friend,
Though in the daylight his daunting form I cannot see
The perfect host he is me.

At night he makes his way down the winding stairs,
As master of the house he has no need to put on airs.
He asks ,”if there’s anything I need or lack” and offers to take my coat and hat.
Though no form in the flesh to addressed I see,
A cold and imperceptible hand he extends to me.

Of each room in the house he gives me a guided tour, then bidding me good night,
He, slowly behind him closes my chamber door.
His dense footsteps fade against the rickety aged floor until deafened by the dead silence I can perceive them no more.

Late in the night I hear him roaming around,
Doing whatever ghost do and making moaning sounds.
But he’s considerably polite not to wake the town,
Ah, yes my gentleman ghost friend.

As all about me is settled and still,
Suddenly, with this melancholy and melodious sound the chilling air all around me fills.
For somewhere in the house in some adjoining room
A grand piano plays a daunting tune.

“TIS some clever guest who plays”, I hastily presumed.
So I rush down the stairway by a single candle lights flare,
Just to reach the distinct place only to find that no one is there.
Yet, as though possessed by some invisible entity the piano it plays,
By this display alone I am bewildered, spooked and amazed.

Suddenly, a hazy yet discrete specter I clear as day could see
Of what seemed some distinct gentleman sitting with his back facing me.
By the light of a candle I draw closer to get some better clue,

“Ah, my gentleman ghost friend (I sigh in relief) clearly it is only you”
Slowly, he turns to face me and asks “by chance, do you play”?
Therefore all that evening in the company of my gentleman ghost, as his guest I did stay.

To the first light of morning I awakened rested and yawning.
Still replaying in my head like a dream from the night before was that melody so hypnotically charming.
When besides me on the table I find a little note, in the hand of my gentleman ghost
And this is what he wrote, “I regret I cannot join you, I’m afraid I must decline,
Since I never appear in daylight and I rarely ever dine.
So, at this heavenly spread set before me I am left to dine alone,
I am left without another friendly face before me, or pleasing voice to set the tone.

Shut up in this old house, with each passing moment I spend.
He stands there in the shadows waiting, on my comforts eager to attend.
Like a fog gliding down that staircase, he with ease descends,
To demonstrate some token of friendly gesture his kindness to extend

His footsteps though, I cannot trace, but his presence I can feel.
I never see him throughout the day but at night he appears at will.
Among the living a kinder soul to me has never been,
None came as close to even surpass in charm or civility to that of my gentleman ghost, my friend.

In time this house has come to be my home though empty it may seem,
Yet this it makes up for the times spent alone with misplaced spirits that it brings.
And now these corridors haunt us together, my gentleman ghost and I,
As we both wait to play the perfect host to whomever come stopping by.

When evening resumes
And the play of clouds and the light of the moon come together
From high in His heaven God is amused
By the friskiness of a cat chasing its shadow
It bounces
And pounces
And  acrobatically leaps
Landing with ease
On  its tiny snow capped
Feet
It chases its shadow
Around and around
Pawing at it
As it reflects on the ground
Till upon its tail  and  between its ears
Finally daylight appears
And quietly it creeps
To find
A cat and its shadow
Curled in a ball, Purring,
Fast asleep

There stood a crow outside my window
With hard coals for eyes that peered straight through to limbo
At times it seemed it could see straight through me
Into some futuristic omen only it could foresee.

This reaper so grim, dark, stately, and trim sat there quiet patiently high perched on a limb.
It was such a curious yet an eerie sort of bird, just gawking at me while not saying a word.
And if it opened its mouth what words would it speak, perhaps some wisdom of Plato, or some poetry from Keats?

I admit the strange creature I found a bit curious, yet its boisterous silence made me nothing but furious.
So on opposite sides of the window we remain,
With it picking its plumage and I wracking my brain.

At length could I no longer stand my callers silent duration,
So I pulled up a chair to make light conversation.
Finally, I came to myself and thought it absurd, to sit at a window and talk to a bird.

Quickly I grew weary of my persistent guest, and with a wave of my hand yelled “away with you pest”!

With that the crow returned with a courteous bow, there followed by a flapping of its wings
It let out a loud caw!!


I thought to myself, what could all of this mean,
Surely subconsciously I’m having a dream?

Till out of deep contemplation I abruptly was shaken
By a sound so familiar it could not be mistaken.
For above me frantically fluttering to each corner of my room
This bird like a banshee pronounced prophesies of doom.

Caw, caw! Caw, caw!
It repeated the same, as the first time it came calling at my window pane.

For a moment it sat there just gawking at the foot of my bed, frantically flapping its wings and bobbing its head.
Just for a moment peered I through those embers for eyes, and got a flicker of a glimpse of my foretelling demise.
Cursed me! I thought, this is the telling of my end, for over my head my shadow descends.

To my feathered reaper I pleaded and prayed that by some miracle this death sentence might somehow be stayed.
Has my plea come too late, Has Death sealed my fate?
At last I am making provisions for my own funeral wake.

Suddenly, in relief my visage was lifted, for from the claim for my soul, that reapers focus soon shifted.

It was there in the corner of its eye by the flicker of candle light,
That something slick and shiny caught fancy to its sight.



Suddenly, it swooped upon it without a moment's delay. Seizing the object in its beak and out the window it flew away.



Since then I sit and ponder how once I cheated death
Now the nightmares haunt me no longer, and the crow has long since left.

And so I sit here waiting at the spot where it all began for the call of an old feathered acquaintance whom once I invited in.
But no more upon that branch would the shadow of those black wings descend.
No more would the crows caw, caw! Come calling,
No more at my window again.