They didn’t tell when we bought the place
Of the ghost in the attic room,
They knew that they’d have to drop the price
If the ***** jumped out in the gloom.
So we’d signed the papers and paid the fees,
There wasn’t really an out,
We’d had a couple of days of peace
Then it came jumping about.

It started with a terrible crash
That roused us out of our bed,
I said, ‘that sounded like breaking glass
And it came from overhead.’
But overhead was the attic room
And that was an empty space,
So I went up with a whisking broom,
Found glass, all over the place.

And worse than that, it was mirror shards
It was seven years bad luck,
So just like an irritated Bard
I yelled out, ‘***?’
I got to work with the whisking broom
And was cursing, fit to toss,
When the *****, in the corner of the room
Appeared with a blazing cross.

I noticed he held it upside down
Raised up, to cover his face,
I must admit that I threw a fit,
I acted with little grace,
‘What the hell are you doing here,
You’ve given us quite a fright,
Don’t you know, we were trying to sleep,
It’s an hour past midnight.’

It waved the blazing cross in the air
And gave out a dreadful groan,
Then flames from the floor devoured him
And left me standing alone.
I went back down to the bedroom to
The woman I loved the most,
Who said, ‘Well, what did you find up there?’
‘We’ve got us a Holy Ghost!’

From that night on, it was every night
It was boom and crash and groan,
While Jenny in fright, would curl up tight,
‘Won’t he ever leave us alone?’
I said, “It’s only at night he comes,
He must sleep during the day,
I have an idea, don’t worry dear,
He won’t have it all his way.’

I rigged up a speaker system there
And fed it all through an amp,
Then during the day, I’d blast away
And light the room with a lamp,
A blinding lamp of a thousand watts
To strobe, at a hundred clicks,
And blasted him with Metallica,
I knew it would make him sick.

The ***** came out on the seventh day
Stood trembling on the stair,
The flames on his cross had all gone out,
He stood there, tearing his hair.
He dashed on out through the open door
I thought he was going to puke,
And that was the last of the Ghost we saw,
So that’s how you ***** a *****!

David Lewis Paget

Look at her now.
The mattress, speckled Marborro-black
seized Grandma up again.

the paper sheet
rolled tight
like her Virginia Slim:
ultra thin

Her hand pokes out the sheet
clawed nails ***** the air and release.
"Grandma?" "Anne?"

When Grandma comes to--
out of that liminal space
between chocolate talk shows
and scotch on Fox News,

she labors to plant a rouge tattoo
on each of thirteen grand-kiddie cheeks.

We, her progeny afraid
to find an empty bed
or worse, the growl of life
mummified in paisley pink--
wonder who is this ***** who fell through sleep
tucking life away for sweeter dreams?

Depression
is like Spooktober
all the time
except
the funny memes
and decoration.