T'was not a spirit,
T'was not a ghost.
There is no specter,
Which haunts my soul.
In a joyous world,
I and I alone,
Am the inspiration,
For each sad poem.

You fill me up,
You break me down.
Then scatter the broken pieces of my body all around,
A grim load of seed,
From which sprouts a wicker tree.

You seek foreclosure,
You'll find none from me.
I will be an angry spirit,
Lying amongst the wicker trees.

I wish to get soaked in the rain,
and dry my flesh by the sunlight.
When the day gets too bright,
I want it to be hit upon by the night.

I wish to be carried away
by the wind,
here and there; wherever it takes,
I don't mind.

I wish the ground to hold me,
very tight.
So that when I fall,
I could still stop my flight.

What am I aligned
to make of this?
And have I given up on magic
if I don't?

Gentle oracle,
some things
just happen to us.

You aren't alone
despite spirits
not showing the interest
you desire,
but I taste your emptiness.

I desire a control too.

Despair of
silence from the gods.
Demarcate reality
from the hatred and
the odds.

Bleed me like the root
that burns sins away.

Find me green with envy
along the Mica veins.

Sermons over tiny crescents,
Jack-in-the-pulpit given.

Ghostpipe smoking
with incense risen.

-

Fern's red flower.
Trumpets, devil played.

Creeping by the hour,
Periwinkle's struggle inlaid.

Spirals, the vine choking,
Birch witnessed it all.

An elongated anticipation
before the king snake's fall.

In this dim night
before the dawn of All Saints,
no need to take fright
of the spirits you acquaint —
for they are merely the ones who went on before.

Beloved dead whom we miss
reenter the world of the quick
and blow us a kiss
with a treat but no trick —
as we celebrate their return from the dark shore.

Ornate iron bars that twist and swirl
on windows of a stone Baroque house:
Their billowing lines flow and unfurl
like the linen of a wan lady’s blouse.

Late sun casts her umbra on the stone wall,
a dark bramble of shadowy vines
that cling to the plaster in ways that recall
hung forests of lost memory and time.

Into this dark wood I walk with my mind
to retreat into the past of this place
and see how far the clock I can unwind
for to pass through its pale numbered face.

There faces now greet me, spirits of old
who once walked this very same street.
They look astonished at how I was so bold
as to travel there to warmly them greet.

To be remembered and seen once again
is a gift for which they’ve waited a year.
For as this day fades, the dark windowpanes
between our two worlds turn into a gauzy frontier.

And so the veil of the quick and the dead
turns thinner for just a brief night
while the faces of those who’ve gone on ahead
to the other side shine their dim light.

They say I'm alone
But I am not.
I work with the dead,
So I’ve got
Ghosts and ghouls in my head,
Each of them a friend,
Sharing their wisdoms
In rot.

It’s been some time
Since I’ve met a living.
They come
Insisting my giving
To them my help,
Often of health
But their stories
End only in sinning.

A woman’s just entered
My morgue.
With courage,
She came through the door.
He stride struck a chord-
Like I’d seen her before-
Like I knew my advice’d
Be ignored.

Of course,
She wanted my help.
From death,
Was the terror she felt.
She had come all this way,
I had nothing to say?
So she thanked me and
Returned to her hell.