#phantoms
It's a clockwork — like the dances of phantoms in the hallways, in the glow of lights through the window at night. I stared like a burglar from afar, It's the fear and anger, that's keeping me restless — a reminder that I should sleep with one eye open, _meager, furiously shame_.
I understand how stubborn they are rewriting the history, as I try to recollect, catching trails like they were footsteps. Love is all they worship from the beginning of time, thus it crumbles them to dust.
Are they second - hand embarrassed? If I couldn't see the ghosts and shadows lingering everywhere, yet here I am nestled to all that fairy tale, for a momentary, and still plotting the sweetest lullaby. Did they haunt you too? as if it were a chunk to the armour or it counterfeits them?
Jun 1, 2025
Jun 1, 2025 at 9:40 AM UTC
Summer’s in the rearview mirror,
re-experience it at your peril,
it’ll only distract you now, and maybe depress you.
Summer shifts your orbit, from classrooms and remote zooms,
to lollygagging by beaches and snuggling in cozy hotel rooms.
As intense and vital as last summer was - as they all are -
it’s already blurring in memory.
Soon only the memory of sensations will remain,
like the warmth of the breeze and the sun on my skin
and sigh the warmth of a certain boy’s skin on my skin.
Those flashbacks ache, late at night, like phantom limbs.
.
.
Songs for this:
All I Wanna Do by Sheryl Crow
Aug 30, 2024
Aug 30, 2024 at 9:50 PM UTC
Last weekend was “Parent’s” weekend at Yale. A time when parents are formally invited to visit. They have receptions and other events - but no potato-sack races (which is disappointing). My parents couldn’t come, they’ve never come to parent’s weekend, but Leong’s parents came again, from Macao, China, a 16,060-mile round trip.
There was a time when boys could tank my self-confidence with a word. When the male gaze seemed overpowering. I’d felt constantly evaluated - but I’ve evolved - somewhat. We’re going to a party. Lisa, Leong, Sunny, Anna and I - we’ve got our shine on and we’re drawing looks. Well, ok, Lisa’s drawing looks and I’m in the general frame.
Lisa sneezed, “The air quality’s bad tonight,” she announced, wiping her nose with a Kleenex.
“I don’t have any allergies,” I bragged. “Me neither,” Leong added.
“If you can breathe the air in China,” I said, “You’re golden.”
Leong laughed “Tài zhēnshí liǎo,” (Too true!) She agreed.
As we left the more street-lit part of the path, the moon, wandering in and out of the clouds, created moving shadows that peopled the darkness with phantoms. Was that impression the paranoia of fatigue? I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. Or maybe it’s October and Halloween’s just around the corner.
I was walking in the rear, nestled in the mingled scents of my roommates' perfumes that, like rare blossoms, enchanted and excited the child in me. I wasn’t paying attention, and I stubbed my toe on a misaligned sidewalk tile. Don’t you hate the gap between stubbing your toe and feeling the pain?
Oct 11, 2023
Oct 11, 2023 at 8:15 PM UTC
We decided to take a walk.
If the moon and stars still existed,
they were hidden behind clouds.
Then a fog hit us like a wave, a cloud
that had run out of gas and crashed on us,
to further shrink the perceptible world.
Ordinary, walking people became vague
phantoms that could loom, in film noir
black and white out of the fog,
suddenly sharpen and colorize,
only to disappear again in moments.
Sounds, out of sync, or garbled, came sharply
from odd angles, turning that fifth sense unreliable.
Noises, at first muted, were abruptly amplified as
if the hand of that ghostly vapor ran a soundboard.
A man, moving in stalker-like silence, clops,
like a clydesdale on cobblestone as he passes close.
I half expected a distant fog horn to announce
the passing of a ghost ship where all be welcome.
Feb 1, 2022
Feb 1, 2022 at 5:23 AM UTC
How did we get here
How do we grow from there
I used to love the burn
Underneath those blinding lights
There you are crying
But not for me, not now.
I always wanted to know
If we were the cosmic joke
There's this hole
That we will never fill.
There's this hate
That we will always know
How did we get here
How do we grow from there
You're a part of me
It's my turn to be the phantom..
May 22, 2021
May 22, 2021 at 5:57 PM UTC
I’m certain that by now
The windows are all steamed.
There could be dust on my towel
But I sit here picking at my own seams.
The soap bottle is lying on the side
Watching with hatred from its huddle
As I stare at my hands and try to hide
My stomach with flannels and bubbles.
I squash the buds between my fingers
While hair clings to the skin of my back.
I scrub at the writing that still lingers
Faded to blue from black.
I remember only ink and tingling
And you smiling against a classroom blur
Our hands entwined, my concentration dwindling,
Who knows in what world we were?
I’m just scrubbing veins now the pen has gone.
I wonder why you even let me exist
In your world. Tell me, am I withered and worn?
If you kissed me- Ha would you ever kiss this?
I can still feel the ink prints etched into my skin.
Will they ever fade away?
No; the phantoms in the water always win
And I can’t help but listen to everything they say.
Mar 16, 2021
Mar 16, 2021 at 5:37 PM UTC
Our beds are full of phantoms
Of memories to keep us up at night
I can't deny that you aren't
Next to me when I'm alone.
I can't deny that you never meant something to me.
You are no longer in my life
You are no longer stealing my light
I've held grudges since I could hold a pen.
I should hate you but it left its scar.
You are nothing but a phantom
You are nothing but a memory
I wanted to end it all
To make you pay
I wanted to end it all
To make you suffer the way I suffered
One day I'll have the nerve
To tell you how I felt
Our beds are full of phantoms
You were the one I need to exorcise
Our beds are full of these memories
That's all you'll ever be.
Oct 27, 2020
Oct 27, 2020 at 6:41 PM UTC
Shadows
by Michael R. Burch
Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.
Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge . . . then drown.
We drown in shadows starker still,
shadows of the somber hills,
shadows of sad selves we spill,
tumbling, to the ground below.
There, caked in grimy, clinging snow,
we flutter feebly, moaning low
for days dreamed once an age ago
when we weren't shadows, but were men . . .
when we were men, or almost so.
Published by Homespun and Mind in Motion. This poem was written either in high school or my first two years of college because it appeared in the 1979 issue of my college literary journal, Homespun. Keywords/Tags: shadows, dark, walls, evening, starlight, moonlight, men, souls, drowning, phantoms, shades
Apr 13, 2020
Apr 13, 2020 at 5:40 AM UTC
Photographs
by Michael R. Burch
Here are the effects of a life
and they might tell us a tale
(if only we had time to listen)
of how each imperiled tear would glisten,
remembered as brightness in her eyes,
and how each dawn’s dramatic skies
could never match such pale azure.
Like dreams of her, these ghosts endure
and they tell us a tale of impatient glory . . .
till a line appears—a trace of worry?—
or the wayward track of a wandering smile
which even now can charm, beguile?
We might find good cause to wonder
as we see her pause (to frown?, to ponder?):
what vexed her in her loveliness . . .
what weight, what crushing heaviness
turned her auburn hair a frazzled gray,
and stole her youth before her day?
We might ask ourselves: did Time devour
the passion with the ravaged flower?
But here and there a smile will bloom
to light the leaden, shadowed gloom
that always seems to linger near . . .
And here we find a single tear:
it shimmers like translucent dew
and tells us Anguish touched her too,
and did not spare her for her hair's
burnt copper, or her eyes' soft hue.
Published in Tucumcari Literary Review (the first poem in its issue). Keywords/Tags: photos, photographs, pictures, album, keepsakes, mementos, ghosts, phantoms, past, memories, recollections, tears, grief, anguish, glory
Apr 11, 2020
Apr 11, 2020 at 1:34 AM UTC
reassuring taps of gentle footsteps upon marble
lightly echo through the clean air and fluorescent lights
a step past one door, warmth encompasses me
comfortable space, people in this town are few and far between
stop a moment, think
before another door. enter
to a ceiling much too low
so much i have to tilt my head to avoid it
there are urinals along the right-side wall
Eve is standing before one, just to look
a shifting glance, attention is brought to me
my angled eyes set at Eve’s level
maybe this way i can see
why the fleeting phantoms stay just long enough for our eyes to meet
Apr 2, 2020
Apr 2, 2020 at 5:01 PM UTC
Startled at night, I awake,
frozen, motionless, immobilized,
eyes straining into the black void,
phantoms darting about me,
springing from every direction,
heart racing, rapidly breathing—
fantasy and fear running amok
Oct 23, 2019
Oct 23, 2019 at 6:02 PM UTC
The silence behind every sound.
Felt, not heard.
It weighs on me,
stronger than gravity.
A constant background silence,
radiating;
permeating
from somewhere behind the
noise.
Perhaps,
not silence.
Hollow noise,
dead sounds,
phantom whispers.
Haunting me,
if you’re real
Hauntingly,
what came before?
Jul 2, 2019
Jul 2, 2019 at 5:40 PM UTC
A moment was all it took for my heart
To violently shatter and painfully fall apart
Will I ever halt these frustrated tears?
At this rate I will be sobbing for years
You let this relationship crumble; you can't deny
Smashed my heart completely; watched it suddenly die
My home now haunted by ghosts without names
Is it a graveyard for both of our shames?
Abandonment I attempted but failed
Every goal they followed and veiled
It seems impossible to shake
Apparitions my mind creates
The best part of being the last one to move on
Hearing you are better with me gone
I drain my pen of daily sorrow
It took being empty to fill with hope for tomorrow
It's getting easier to close wounds and mend
Write the damage to better defend
I hate I so easily let you back under my skin
Beaten into submission finally say you win
Mar 4, 2019
Mar 4, 2019 at 8:02 PM UTC
Somebody call Ben Affleck
We got phantoms in this *****
This endless haunted mansion
Their presence pervades
No company
In this lonely labyrinth
Only phantoms
The only figures resembling humanity
Are the corpses of those before
Who couldn't navigate this torturous structure
And of course, the masquerading phantoms
My soul they aim to puncture
I tried closing my eyes
But I just kept running into walls
I tried sleeping through it
But I just sank deeper into the basement
When I attempted to join the phantoms
You were there
You waited until I was hanging there
On the rope
And eviscerated everything
Lycanthrope
The rope in shreds
Your heart then fled
Leaving me alone again
Lying in my exhausted blood
The phantoms sensed my desperation
And took advantage of my disorientation
So I ran to the darkest recesses of the basement
To retrieve my blindfold and sledgehammer
But is my hammer powerful enough?
Will visual impairment abstain the trickery of ghosts?
I put Sisyphus to shame
With the determination I utilize to demolish these walls
But the phantoms are devious
They ***** new facades
Thicker, sturdier, with odder textures
I destroy them all the same
It just takes a bit more time
And time means nothing
To a man who's sole purpose is knocking down walls
And cowering from apparitions
Yet a man means nothing
To a time ruled by phantoms
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 11:54 AM UTC
My new lover is an old ghost,
who picked apart armour
left bereft by rust and rain,
to sit inside my ribcage
once more throwing pebbles at my heart
I did not welcome them
to my table
or to my bed
but this ghost holds me close inside my bones,
and each morning,
I entertain a phantom
that clamours to be fed.
May 22, 2017
May 22, 2017 at 6:17 AM UTC
Phantoms burnt prints into his bones, left behind marks and indications to let the world know of the vacant vessel he was abandoned with. A hushed physical being that never spouted a murmur of spirit. A vessel in need of a soul to split.
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 3:10 AM UTC
should u ever see me under the light of the night..
hear my song through the darkness and silver glow..
hold my phantom hand in this place of remembrance..
know that I have never given up on you..
i am still trying..
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 5:12 PM UTC
When dreaming, you enter a world that is entirely your own.
But what lies beneath the surface is something completely unknown.
A playground of wishes and dreams,
So happy it may seem.
But too happy too late
None recognize the fate that is buried beneath the shone.
Mystical thoughts that are buried within,
Haunt and terrorize the tender young kin.
A place of peace and sleep,
That one struggles to keep
Is swept from them all too fast.
At last! The fiends have their way,
To destroy and demolish the dreams of play.
Beasts unleashed in these little minds
and are pleased at what they might find.
Terror and horror and all the above
This is what they do and what they love.
Innocent minds try to break free,
But what help will that bring for you or for me?
Jul 30, 2015
Jul 30, 2015 at 11:42 PM UTC
We collided like a train rushing in from behind,
Your memory and I.
My breath stuck in my throat, unexpectedly.
Tears stinging my eyes, staining my cheeks, involuntarily.
Has your ghost been lingering, shadowed,
Waiting to spring upon me like a serpent in the grass?
Don't tempt me with that shattered past.
I'd gladly place the shards of history's heart back into your hands.
Blatantly disregarding every reserve my mind fires,
Happily risking it all just to taste our youth.
Begone with you phantom! If that's what you are.
Stay only if your monstrosity lingers well into our future.
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 9:36 PM UTC
soldiers at my door, buying meat
I am parts, bolts, circuits
to them, I am the gas prices
but they were never there
phantoms leaving footprints
they may be mine
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 10:34 AM UTC
now those eidolic dread horses have scarred your slumber, passed 9, passed 10, and even your furniture has silent, open mouthed, nightmares over the too soon dead, dead school friends who never ended their crossings, and see, see, she stoops, in shroud ghastly knelt as in prayer, but you can’t see, see through the tricks of light that scream “she is there”, your crumpling chest boiling as the bones in your legs subside while those, without body, cross the empty room, no need to surmise that which lies bereft and restless may yet have something to say and you, you are the luckless soul who lives upon their byway and now, now the voices, the voices start, those grody sounds, that won’t stop, stop your heart, beneath the floor, within the walls, the precedent for dull footfalls calling, calling to us one by one with no clear sight of saint or villain, a spectral round of hide and seek, directed by a floorboards creak, each time we search there’s nothing, nothing there, but of this guest we’re so aware, who was first, it or us, we can’t be sure, sure it wasn’t brought from distant shores, for it never raised its head or voice before, before that gift from land of Vlad was carried over our threshold and ushered in something, something cold, the bearer of an ancient fear, something as of yet unclear, or are we in thrall of phantoms more explainable
This is a combination and refinement of what were two separate poems, previously published, to make by far a more satisfying whole. I believe it more convincingly captures some of the fear and panic I was trying to convey and should be read in a breathless manner as if you were living in a world that was entirely scripted by Samuel Beckett
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 10:45 AM UTC
When the hour turns twelve,
I turn as the nightmares start to dwell.
It is the only time I accept
that I create these horrors by myself.
Caution is something right man repeats;
(just as the doors all open
the rooms turn and shift
and the dead starts to speak)
Left man is firm, ethical by all means;
'There are boundaries to humanity'
I betray them all in here
consumed by vibrant insanity.
'I feel like God' I admit.
My hands dipped clean
My tongue so gentle,
as the phantoms
all scream.
Left and right are silent
when the basement door rattles
A den of demon and monsters,
waiting for me to unravel.
'Sometimes we tame monsters
like lions in a den'
Left man resists,
"These are not animals
meant
to
be
free."
Right man says none.
His head hung and his eyes calculating,
(because he knows that)
Sometimes I create the monsters,
And in the end
They're all me.
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 8:41 AM UTC
You walk the whitened snow
in overcast-shadowed delight
You look back seeing
where your tracks traced you
from where you were before,
like words written on
snowy white paper
holding memories
gone by...
Your mind slowly
backtracks
to places only moments ago,
where small inclined drifs
on each side
reminded you
of miniature mountains,
you were a GIANT
in the middle of a tiny valley...
Sounds became muffled,
your planet became
transformed into another world
Silence prevailed,
brief shrilling sporadic gusts
nipped at your nose, nipped at your cheeks,
and had painted
your living portrait red...
You had felt your feet
crunch down
on the newly
softened snow,
its sounds created noise
that crunched LOUDLY...
In some places,
your wider lifting strides
became arduous,
they became wider in deeper spots,
but you did not mind...
This whitined fact
almost held by fantasy
ridiculed everyday life,
silhouetted trees
reached their bare arms upward
like black grayish winter phantoms
against the white horizon,
against the gray sky...
Tiny windy whirlpools
-ever so often-
danced around your feet
in a soft swirling
celebration
of your delight...
Charmed by your exploration
you had embraced every moment
Clever in your adoration
you now invoke this poem,
distinguished only
for the astute...
...Provoked by this flurry
wisdom and wonderland,
you now turn slowly
around then forward
Now realizing you have
just left your memories
and poet's signature
within those very backtracks
you have just left behind... .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .' .'
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 9:50 AM UTC