They say that shadows of deceased ghosts Do haunt the houses and the graves about, Of such whose life's lamp went untimely out, Delighting still in their forsaken hosts.
quote by Joshua Sylvester
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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They say that shadows of deceased ghosts
They say that shadows of deceased ghosts
Do haunt the houses and the graves about,
Of such whose life's lamp went untimely out,
Delighting still in their forsaken hosts:
So, in the place where cruel Love doth shoot
The fatal shaft that slew my love's delight,
I stalk, and walk, and wander day and night,
Even like a ghost with unperceived foot.
But those light ghosts are happier far than I,
For, at their pleasure, they can come and go
Unto the place that hides their treasure so,
And see the name with their fantastic eye:
Where I, alas, dare not approach the cruel
Proud moment that doth enclose my jewel.
poem by Joshua Sylvester
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Class Distinction
A quiet house where quiet ghosts
haunt quiet rooms but silently
The Ghosts respect their living hosts
and treat them most respectfully.
They can’t go back they won’t go on.
Confused by their predicament,
they wait until the daylights gone
before they show they are present.
They do not wish to cause alarm.
as common ghosts are wont to do.
All part of their well bred charm.
Though they are dead they hold the view
that no aristocratic ghost
should stoop to frightening their host.
26-Mar-08
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Ghosts
Some ghosts are women,
neither abstract nor pale,
their breasts as limp as killed fish.
Not witches, but ghosts
who come, moving their useless arms
like forsaken servants.
Not all ghosts are women,
I have seen others;
fat, white-bellied men,
wearing their genitals like old rags.
Not devils, but ghosts.
This one thumps barefoot, lurching
above my bed.
But that isn't all.
Some ghosts are children.
Not angels, but ghosts;
curling like pink tea cups
on any pillow, or kicking,
showing their innocent bottoms, wailing
for Lucifer.
poem by Anne Sexton
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After Pulling Down And Rebuilding A House
OLD Ghosts, ye all are dispossess'd,
Your former house is levell'd now;
Another house at my behest
Has lifted over yours, its brow.
But flit, old Ghosts, and live with me;
As yet we are but living hosts;
But watch the new house patiently,
You soon shall have companion Ghosts.
poem by Carolyn Clive
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Obtained By Ghosts
Ghosts obtain justice from us,
As we are near extinction.
Ghosts monitored our moves
Like houses of parliament.
Their revelry is unjustified
As far as lieutenancy.
I marry those ghosts meaningfully
To images of past poltergeists.
I have conquered burgers and chips
With a few of them.
They sedate me, cast a crate of food
On the floor in malpractice -
Professional or educational?
Both of these men are ghosts
And I am teased, when I am haunted.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Glee -- The Ghosts
In life three ghostly friars were we,
And now three friarly ghosts we be.
Around our shadowy table placed,
The spectral bowl before us floats:
With wine that none but ghosts can taste,
We wash our unsubstantial throats.
Three merry ghosts--three merry ghosts--
three merry ghosts are we:
Let the ocean be Port, and we'll think it good sport
To be laid in that Red Sea.
With songs that jovial spectres chaunt,
Our old refectory still we haunt.
The traveller hears our midnight mirth:
"O list!" he cries, "the haunted choir!
"The merriest ghost that walks the earth, "
"Is sure the ghost of a ghostly friar."
Three merry ghosts--three merry ghosts--
three merry ghosts are we:
Let the ocean be Port, and we'll think it good sport
To be laid in that Red Sea.
poem by Thomas Love Peacock
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The War of the Ghosts
Three Ghosts that haunt me have I,
Three Ghosts in my soul that fight,
Three grandsire Ghosts in my soul,
That haunt me by day and by night.
The first was a dark mountaineer,
Who hunted with arrow and knife,
To whom the turf was a bed,
And the wind of the moorland was life.
And the next was a mariner rude,
Whose home and whose grave was the sea,
For whom the land was a prison
And only the ocean was free.
And the last was a shrunken recluse,
Who lived with the dust and the gloom
And wrote of the Saints and of Him
Who went for us to His doom.
And all through the days and years
These ancient Ghosts contend,
And my soul is a battle-field
Of passions that pierce and rend.
And whenever a sunbeam alights
All gleaming and fresh on my page,
I am wild for the hills and the bush,
I am torn with the hunter's rage.
I am sick of the smell of a book,
I am off with the dogs or a gun,
Or I gallop my fifty miles
Before the set of the sun.
And yet from some loftier peak
When I look on the sea from afar,
I feel like one in a grave;
And I long for a ship full-sailed
And an ocean wide on the lee
I choke on the solid land
For the lift of the undulant sea.
Yet ever the battle goes on,
And ever there rises a day
When the Ghosts of the wave and the wood
To the Ghost of the cell give way.
Then the land is a wilderness drear,
And dismal and vast is the sea,
But cloistered in peace with my books
My soul is uplifted and free.
Three Ghosts that haunt me have I,
Three Ghosts in my soul that fight,
Three grandsire Ghosts in my soul,
That haunt me by day and by night.
Yet ofttimes there joins in the fray
One gross and sluggish of limb,
No spectre is he but a man,
Whose strokes are heavy and grim.
For a man is not nothing, I swear,
Nor a braggart am I when I boast
That though he be slothful or sleep,
A man is more than a ghost.
And my soul is my own, I aver,
The master and lord of it I,
And whenever I will to bestir,
All ghostly usurpers shall fly.
Then I what is mine will assume,
Nor diverge from the path of my will.
Though the Ghosts I have routed still call
From the desk and the sea and the hill.
poem by William Gay
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There’s a place with rows of cypress trees
There’s a place where rows of cypress trees
stand to attention
at the foot of a rocky hillock
and there are graves planted in rows.
As a child could have sworn
that there are ghosts among the graves,
when the wind went through the trees
and shadows move at night
over the graves.
We lived fifty meters away
in a old white house
and it was only
my dad, mom, brother and me.
If I were naughty
or did not want to eat my food
a man with a hat, raincoat and dark glasses
came in through the back door.
In the evenings my dad read poetry
to me and my younger brother
and his voice with the cannibal
and the rider of skimmelperd pan
resounds in me.
Untill a day that cancer
took my dad forever,
fifty meteres further.
[References: Die mensvreter and Die ruiter van skimmelperdpan by A.G. Visser.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Perceptions
Ghosts don’t haunt; fears of ghosts would.
God does not assure; faith in Him would.
Sins don’t punish; guilt of sin would.
Virtues don’t reward; pride of virtue would.
15.04.2007
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Empty Old Houses
Empty Old Houses
Empty old houses can talk…
But one must know how to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses have stories…
But one must be eager to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses can suffer..
But one must have empathy …
To feel it
Empty old houses can feel pain
But one must be able to bear it …
To feel it
Empty old houses have memories
But one must believe … that they have…
To share them
Empty old houses contain people’s lives
But one must believe…that they do…
To share them
Empty old houses can seem dead and deserted
But one must know that they’re not..
To know them
Empty old houses can teem with life’s pleasures
But one must walk through
to sense the aura of life
Empty old houses abound in life’s treasures
But one cannot help but…
To admire them
poem by David Whalen
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Ghostly Plateau
Ghosts make across the plateau due to their skill at being wanderers of great precision. Their ghoulishness makes a point for those on the plateau, so snowy now that we have ghosts. Ghost after ghost made journeys too long ago, too far away are their destinations, forming pity and concern. These graves remove the ghosts’ laughter, for the death of a young person is like theirs.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Ghosts
Oh, these Ghosts that haunt me, nightly, tearing at my soul,
These screaming, wailing, moaning ghouls, my senses do appall.
My sleep is wrecked, and torn apart, my silence is undone,
And all I see are shadows, where the nightmares have begun.
Then come, oh come, and do your worst, I will not share your pain,
If I can't rest, then nor should you, bound up within your chain.
You shall not load your guilt on me; your terror is your own,
Though heavy weigh my sorrows, they weigh on me alone.
What dreadful crimes have you committed, to be treated thus?
And who gave you the freedom, now, to visit them on us?
Or are you just reflections of the way we all must end?
A mirror of the harvest reaped, is that what you portend?
So, in my sweat soaked sheets I lay, my Ghosts for company,
The Black Crow on my windowsill, waits patiently for me.
I do not seek redemption, or an Angel's sweetened breath,
I've courted Sin throughout my life, and take it to my Death.
Yet who has claims yo innocence, in thought, or word, or deed?
And who among us sin soaked wrecks, have souls that shall not bleed?
So when I go I'll join these Ghosts, on their eternal quest,
To burden others with their chain, and find eternal rest.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
poem by Owain Glyn
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Forsaken
Now The Day Has Come
We Are Forsaken This Time
We Lived Our lives
In Our Paradise
As Gods We Shaped The World Around
No Borderlines
We Stayed Behind
No Boundaries Is Something Fragile
Well We Thought We Were Gaining
We Turned Back The Time
It Still Slips Away
Our Time Has Run Out
Our Future Has Died
There's No More Escape
Chorus
Now The Day Has Come
We Are Forsaken
There's No Time Any More
Life Will Pass Us By
We Are Forsaken
We're The Last Of Our Kind
The Sacrifice
Was Much To Hide
Our Grief Just Made Us All Go On
We Try To Hide What We Fear Inside
Today Is The End Of Tomorrow
As The Sea Started Rise
And The Land That We Conquered
It Just Washed Away
We All Have Tried
To Turn Back The Time
It Was All In Vain
Chorus
Now The Day Has Come
We Are Forsaken
There's no Time Anymore
Life Will Pass You By
We Are Forsaken
Only Rules Stay Below
"Een Hoop Gebrabbel"
Now The Day Has Come
We Are Forsaken This Time
Now The Day Has Come
We Are Forsaken
There's No Time Any More
Now The Day Has Come,
The Day Has Come
song performed by by Within Temptation
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Ghost Of The New World
'_There are no ghosts in America._'
There are no ghosts, you say,
To haunt her blaze of light;
No shadows in her day,
No phantoms in her night.
Columbus' tattered sail
Has passed beyond our hail.
What? On that magic coast,
Where Raleigh fought with fate,
Or where that Devon ghost
Unbarred the Golden Gate,
No dark, strange, ear-ringed men
Beat in from sea again?
No ghosts in Salem town
With silver buckled shoon?
No lovely witch to drown
Or burn beneath the moon?
Not even a whiff of tea,
On Boston's glimmering quay.
O, ghostly Spanish walls,
Where brown Franciscans glide,
Is there no voice that calls
Across the Great Divide,
To pilgrims on their way
Along the Santa Fe?
Then let your Pullman cars
Go roaring to the West,
Till, watched by lonelier stars,
The cactus lifts its crest.
There, on that painted plain,
One ghost will rise again.
Majestic and forlorn,
Wreck of a dying race,
The Red Man, half in scorn,
Shall raise his haughty face,
Inscrutable as the sky,
To watch our ghosts go by.
What? Is earth dreaming still?
Shall not the night disgorge
The ghosts of Bunker Hill
The ghosts of Valley Forge,
Or, England's mightiest son,
The ghost of Washington?
No ghosts where Lincoln fell?
No ghosts for seeing eyes?
I know an old cracked bell
Shall make ten million rise
When one immortal ghost
Calls to the slumbering host.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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A Small Lamp is Enough!
Let there only be a small earthen lamp lit in me!
There need be no white-washing brightness
My soul is put out by the brilliance;
And the ghosts of my lifeless body go berserk!
A small divine lamp is enough for me!
poem by Sundaram Chandrakalaadhar
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Some Days
If you see dark skies in my green eyes
Its just that I cant find no cover
These ghosts that haunt me
They get me when they want me
And some days are better than others
I didnt sleep last night, I guess thats the price
You pay for a soul thats troubled
And curse or blessing Im here confessing
Some days are better than others
I have these moments of weakness
But Ive had a lifetime of strength
And I know I will defeat this
But thats not what my heart wants to think
And even tomorrow is tinged with sorrow
When one fool longs for another
This cant last forever, just like the weather
Some days are better than others
If you see dark skies in my sad eyes
It just means that I cant find no cover
These ghosts that haunt me
They take me when they want me
And some days are better than others
Some days are better than others
song performed by by Trisha Yearwood
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Ghosts Of The Bunurong
On the sand dunes at Powlett river in the dead of the night
Dark shadows are moving in the faint moonlight
The Ghosts of the Bunurong dance their Corroborees
In a circle they jig to the music of the breeze.
And as they dance they sing an old Dreamtime song
This Country to their spirits always belong
When white people are sleeping the black tribes come out
And they sing on the sand dunes as they dance about.
The old ghosts of the Dreamtime have not gone away
Like the frogmouths they hide from the bright lamp of day
But on the stroke of midnight they come out from the trees
And they dance on the sand by the southern seas.
The ghosts of the Bunurong they have not died
They dance in the moonlight on the beach at low tide
And by old Powlett river their old Countryside
At dawn they return to their old trees to hide
From the bright lamp of day but on the stroke of midnight
They dance on the sand dunes in the faint moonlight
And to the music of the breeze they sing their Dreamtime song
This Country to their spirits always belong.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Cathedral Close for Friend Ben Gieske
When night falls on Cathedral Close.
The square is thronged by quiet ghosts
Who line the square on every side
their graves left empty yawning wide.
What is it that they hope to find?
Some salve to give them peace of mind
Why do they stand in silent ranks?
and seek to clear their memory banks.
The sins which will not let them sleep
the guilty secrets which they keep,
weigh on the conscience heavily.
and won’t be rid of easily.
When twilight falls the dead arise.
Each from the grave he occupies
and gather in Cathedral Close.
They seek forgiveness I suppose.
When morning breaks they flee in fright
they fear the coming of the light.
Cathedral close lit by the sun
is quite empty the ghosts have gone.
Back to their graves where they must wait
and in the darkness meditate.
Upon the sins they won’t confess
In agonising sleeplessness.
If only they would realise
within themselves forgiveness lies.
They do not need to stand in rows
When night falls on Cathedral Close.
Triumphantly they could take flight
and wing their way towards the light.
They should have done so long ago
. But guilt refused to let them go.
Why do they stay when they are free
to me it is a mystery
Why do they haunt Cathedral close?
They know no better I suppose.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Realms Of Darkness
Within the realms of darkness,
our nightmares stalk us
to haunt our mortal fears
in the hours we are awake.
They prey upon our fears
from the shadows of our mind.
Hiding in alleyways
that we leave behind
their footsteps can be heard
following close behind
as we traverse a new day.
Keeping us looking over our shoulder
ever watchful for what’s behind.
Even in the safety of love’s heart,
we look uneasily around
for within the realms of darkness
our nightmares compound
to haunt us there
as they spy on us
from the shadows everywhere.
14 November 2009
poem by David Harris
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Backyard
We had this
animal graveyard
set just far back enough
in our Clearing
so we didn’t have to be afraid
of all those furry ghosts, wandering ‘round in the cool, sharp Louisiana night and
seeking us out—their tiny patches of unkempt, crooked hairs
suffused with moonlight
cast up from the Palm Lake.
We buried our minds there, our memories,
unable to let slide the pulsing insecurity of feeling, fear; no
emotions at all
could be allowed to roam
with those shunned ghosts in The Woods. They must be buried—
the uplifting with the shattering,
like the weeds with the flowers and fruits,
from the rising daylight
till Momma said
the streetlights are on, come on inside for dinner.
We weren’t the only family with a
cemetery, I’ve found.
As the Clearing and The Woods turned to hazes of misremembered dreams and
days repressed or forgotten—and on the odd and empty day, fantasized about—
and as our animal ghosts continued to haunt us
well into the bloodshed of adolescence,
the bleak shield of adulthood,
the strange cadences and lulls of intermingling lives with others...
as we learned the beauty of our own wretched secrets and swamps,
found the silver in our sins,
I discovered
You mine around in others’ graves long enough,
you find their coal,
just as black and dirty as it is beautiful—
just as bleak,
and haunting,
and abashedly sinful and sweet
as the ghosts in your own backyard.