Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Amanda Kay Burke Jun 2023
With soggy sight and leaden heart
Path is hard to navigate
Stumbling on snakes slithering underfoot
Faltering under hefty weight
I want to feel light again
For an hour or maybe two
Since you vanished from this earth
Found floating impossible to do
Nothing hits senses like before
Shackled by all I have lost
Athough summer has graced us with warmth
Surroundings are coated with a layer of frost
Everything touched crumbles to ashes
I am terrified to move at all
If I step and the ground gives way beneath me
Will be ****** to an eternal freefall
I'm too puny to pull myself up from the dirt
Only manage to splash in the mud
Skin stretching until wounds reopen
Apologies painted in blood
An ocean of shame pours out my eyes
Salty like the sea
Taste is sour in my mouth
Wish thoughts would just let me be
I strive to stifle sorrows to no avail
With any substance fingers can find
No matter how high my body gets
Unable to detach from my mind
The pain in soul won't let me grow numb
If going to work it would have by now
Try distracting myself from the terrible truth
Second of relief more than life will allow
I cannot help but dwell on past moments
Making my head stagger and spin
Turning mistakes over and over in hands
I am consumed by agony within
I am hunted by savage animal
Known by name of regret
Haunted by ghosts all sharing your name
Guaranteeing I won't ever forget
My mind is consumed with sorrow
J C Jun 2023
I expel smoke into the atmosphere
and think of all my ghosts this year.
I fumble the deck in search of fives
but still find the Jester half alive.
I stumble through old alleys
we used to go to, in search of songs.
But I do nothing right but fill valleys
with all of the right wrongs.
I absorb oaked *** into my veins
and felt hot tears in the rain.
All those moments — lost in time
the second you were no longer mine.
Do Ghosts of Spring Fever's Past Dream of Electric Sheep, a.k.a., I'm Not a Smoker

And, hey, Hello Poetry can actually publish poems now. Yay.
the dead find me amusing
it's why they come around
they visit at their choosing
no time is out of bounds

they notice if you notice them
and there-in lay the key
they have no use for non-believers
or those who'd rather flee

once upon a gloomy night
I began a chat at 4am
this 100 year-old private school
that I protected
perhaps from them?

I rattled off the first few lines
of 'Roses are Red' down this long dark hall
and a spirit replied to his companion;
'He knows poetry' as if in awe!

The lone light flickered
and a chill rushed by
as I continued on my way

I had a good chuckle
and wished them well
we shall chat another day
true story
Anais Vionet Apr 2023
Rational men among us state plainly
- that no ghosts walk among us.
But they haven’t really searched the shadows,
or smelled the sweet musk-roses you wore
when windchimes twinkle like your laugh.

If ghosts haunt, then spirits linger.
If ghosts bedevil and terrorize,
spirits hangout, abide and remain.
Time is as nothing to them,
they are now and they are then.
We are shadows, that are becoming
shadows, that were shadows before.

Rational men know what they see,
but they’re dull and though waking,
remain unaware that lemures tamper,
with impressions, subconscious voices
and barely perceptible shenanigans,
across death’s thin, permeable veneer.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Shenanigans: devious tricks


Lemures = From Roman mythology: spirits who become involved with the living.
David Hilburn Mar 2023
Nine angels
Care and naked simplicity
Future weal, to remind in open quarrel
Speed is a having guest, to avarice when implicitly...

A heart of darkness
And the cares of calling a friend to the table
Rued gestures of candor, a candle of secrets
And the stir of something greater, than a justifiable...

Looking hard, for a salient generosity of ply and can
Will a shared eye, begin here, or in the meet
Of promises told to take their time, a stodgy plan?
Letting boding become a shame? taking a seat...

Ten angels
And the blindness of voices attuned to a pitch
Vice and curiosity to tender a vantage, well
Who is the other side of privilege in the dark, so rich?

I am, says one, the truth in terrified gifts...
Is a language we can afford; a hatred of hearts, and nix?
With a nobility of silence, we have adjusted might's to is...
A hearkening joke, the only way to survive the day, ad sic.?

All flee, but the one, and the need of cause serious
To remember the taste of couth, complimenting the hour with aim
Did, says the one to remain, the word of composure is ours furious
Adding, says the rest to a whole comfort, I knew by the very name...
The eaves of possibility, do they ever know any better than themselves?
Odd Odyssey Poet Jan 2023
Falling into love, falling out time
Falling out of reasons to keep you in my mind
Don't know where I'm going
I just hope I'm running my way to you
Everybody wants love, I don't want a love without you
I'm just falling, please don't let me fall away you

Finding my way in new seasons,
Finding my way to you
Haunted by my exes, telling me I'm a fool
I could sing a thousand songs, to be in tune with you

All of the kings, have all of the queens
All of the ghosts are living inside of me
And I can't save myself
But I'll save my love for you

And it haunts me knowing I'll fall in love
Touched by inner spirits of the spirit of love
I've opened heart before, till love haunting it's house
I'm haunted by a past, haunted by insecurities,
waiting to be haunted by you— don't you ever call me boo
spirit calls my name as he passes overhead
child cries for mommy 400 years dead
silent disc over trees with faces alive
fireballs falling but never arrive
lights flicker in room 308
unseen occupant says the room is great
numbers , coincidence a daily routine
I've been touched in the dark
if you could see what I've seen
I am terrified and yet drawn near
my curiosity outweighs my fear
they watch me while I'm sleeping
from home to home they follow
they noticed that I noticed them
and without them I am hollow
I snuck into the cemetery where we were buried
I still keep the knife you used
My back still holds the scars
I thought since years had passed, you'd have moved along
But your ghost stays right where you did me wrong

I broke the seal on your afterlife
Now I'm being haunted even when I say goodbye
I wish I had never come to this side of town
I picked up your memory
Now you won't put it down

It's my fault
I raised up the bones from where they lied
I thought they'd say something
I thought we'd apologize
I'm sorry I was tired from the weight I had carried
Now I know what's dead should stay dead and buried

Chased by the undead, it's too late for regret
I dropped what I carried
I should've left you dead and buried
Julie Grenness May 2022
Are you scared of ghosts?
Is one hiding under your toast?
What is that creaking sound?
Whoops, your poster just fell down!
From my book, More Verse on the Skids. Feedback welcome.
Next page