Welcome. Come in.

Shall we begin?


You ask me why I'm haunted
And by what?
A good question
I will try and tell you.

Ghosts are not things of night. They live on
In abandoned margins of our own
Ancestral selves. When something that was us
Is now an entity unloved and so too dark
To live in frail modern skin.

So, lest others see, I have Shunned it -
A powerful Amish word - it is no longer me -

It is some thing I can disown, avoid
Abhor; seek safety by concealment in another's
Hurt - so I see it lurks
Out There.

- a furtive fly tip of a still breathing form abandoned
on a cold flat road far away from friends or familiar habitation

So Lest others see

- then drive away to warmth to light to reassuring
‘There there’ conversation.

But I know it never goes. It survived my hate.
And crawled away to wait.

It is still dwelling in the cold fen winter landscape
Of the mind - the soul -
As dusk invades the stillness of the barren pasture
Near that road, have grown to know that ‘distance-from’
Is no longer safety.

And the shadows change the sight of my familiar path,
To strangenesses of my own self that now
Stare back from shades. Then a sudden howling  
From a distant wood half seen against a skyline.  
It will soon be dark. And it will be uncoiling.
And I know I will not sleep.


Nothing more terrible
Nothing more true


Where neither words nor another's presence
nor priests
nor books
nor God

Can distract from or protect from

WHO IS THIS NOW WHO IS COMING?

Closer yet, and closer yet, to me.  



Good heavens. Well that was interesting
I really felt the fear creeping towards me then.
Tell me Do you think it's real?


You mean Do you think he's real?
Oh yes - he's real. He's looking at you now..

I don't yet know him well you understand.

I have discovered we were friends once in a long forgotten war.

And we have spoken well - it has been hard.
But we did not turn our eyes away this time

So I am hopeful that together -  we will be
Anew.  
So let others see: I said to him
Welcome. Come in

Shall we begin?