Nightriders In The Sky
T’was a night for dreaming
as I lie there looking at the stars.
My head rested against an old oak tree,
as I lie on a bed of heather new.
I could hear the ghostly breath
of the nightriders in the sky.
Their fiery steeds were like shooting stars
racing across the black velvet heavens,
as they rode their eternity quest.
I closed my eyes to dream of glory
just how they may have done.
Riding a white charger full gallop
to save a maiden fair,
to scoop her up into my arms
and into the sunset fade.
Rescuing this beautiful maiden fair
from the lustful clutches
of those who would do her harm.
Into sleep, I drifted deeper
and another quest before me lies.
To join the wandering band
of ghostly nightriders in the sky.
My steed sped with hooves of fire
across the black velvet heavens
in search of the eternity key,
but I was woken from my slumber.
The gamekeepers stood before me one, two and three.
They asked if I had been poaching
and where was my booty store.
I told them I was just a dreamer,
but they took no bid to my answer.
A rope across the oak was thrown and now
I am swinging there my body dangling free,
my spirit is now riding with
the ghostly nightriders in the sky.
poem by David Harris
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Enchanted Glen
The king sat on his lavish throne
and ruled his people all alone,
no queen at his side only an empty chair there.
His would be queen a princess fair
had run off with a tinker from across the square.
The crowd stood a gasp as the tinker
on his white charger rode passed
the princess fair clutched in his arms
smiling face filled with her charms.
They rode into the enchanted glen
and were never seen again.
Sometimes on cold and lonely nights
you can hear the king’s men galloping after them.
They too rode into the enchanted glen
and were never seen again.
All that is heard is their ghostly horses in flight
on cold and lonely nights.
No one rides into the glen no more
to discover the secrets it stores,
those who have tried
like the tinker, princess fair
and the king’s men
where never heard of again.
The enchanted glen remains quiet
with its secrets it will not tell
except the echo of ghostly hoof beats
on cold and lonely nights.
6 September 2009
poem by David Harris
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My Fair Silver Maiden
Oh my fair silver maiden
I see your eyes in the stars that light the dark,
Your hair in the swaying summer grass,
Your smile in the majestic sunrise
Oh my fair silver maiden
Your scent is always on the next wind
Your sweet, intoxicating scent.
Oh my fair silver maiden
Tell me where you are
So that I might find you
And my heart be complete.
Oh my fair silver maiden
How I long for you
How I cry for you
How I search for you.
Oh my fair silver maiden
Always beyond the next wind.
Tell me where you are
So that I might find you
And my heart be complete.
Oh my fair silver maiden.
poem by Cameron Bird
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Mother and sphinx
(EGYPTIAN FOLK-SONG)
Grim is the face that looks into the night
Over the stretch of sands;
A sullen rock in a sea of white--
A ghostly shadow in ghostly light,
Peering and moaning it stands.
"Oh, is it the king that rides this way--
Oh, is it the king that rides so free?
I have looked for the king this many a day,
But the years that mock me will not say
Why tarrieth he!"
'T is not your king that shall ride to-night,
But a child that is fast asleep;
And the horse he shall ride is the Dream-horse white--
Aha, he shall speed through the ghostly light
Where the ghostly shadows creep!
"My eyes are dull and my face is sere,
Yet unto the word he gave I cling,
For he was a Pharaoh that set me here--
And, lo! I have waited this many a year
For him--my king!"
Oh, past thy face my darling shall ride
Swift as the burning winds that bear
The sand clouds over the desert wide--
Swift to the verdure and palms beside
The wells off there!
"And is it the mighty king I shall see
Come riding into the night?
Oh, is it the king come back to me--
Proudly and fiercely rideth he,
With centuries dight!"
I know no king but my dark-eyed dear
That shall ride the Dream-Horse white;
But see! he wakes at my bosom here,
While the Dream-Horse frettingly lingers near
To speed with my babe to-night!
And out of the desert darkness peers
A ghostly, ghastly, shadowy thing
Like a spirit come out of the mouldering years,
And ever that waiting spectre hears
The coming king!
poem by Eugene Field
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Ghostly Man
Ghostly man
Look at my Life
I can see thru and thru
Ghostly man
You're alot like me...
And you...
Pale grey heart
full of wisps of love
Oh, Ghostly man
What reason do...
Pale in sight
Hollow, Hollow, vision
Do you haunt my way
Ghostly man
poem by Midnights Voice
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The Bunyip
Oh, came you up by the place of dread
(west red, and the moon low down)
where no winds blow and the birds have fled
and the gum stands dead and its arms gleam white,
and the tribe sneak by with a stealthy tread
in the ghostly light,in the ghostly light.
Brave Worraland went one grey nightfall
(A woi! woi!) where the grim rocks frown;
he came no more to the camps at all
(Skies dark, and the moon low down).
As we came up by the gully side
(Deep dusk, and the moon low down)
A Dingo whined and a Curlew cried
and the reeds replied as in hushed affright
where tall brae Worraland screamed and died
in the ghostly light, in the ghostly light.
For the Thing lurks there in the haunted place
(A woi! woi!) where the pool is brown,
where lost ones vanish and leave no trace
(Day dead, and the moon low down).
Of, go not by near the bunyip's lair
(Stars dim, and the moon low down)
or tip-toe past and beware, beware
the dark pool snare and be set for flight,
for things of terror have happened there
in the ghostly light, in the ghostly light
and in the gunyas we crouch and hark
(A woi! woi!) where the dead men drown
The monster's bellow across the dark
(Stars gone, and the moon low down).
poem by James Martin Devaney
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A Black Cat Crossed My Path
A black cat crossed my path
On a night of a full moon
He was carrying a pack on his back
And dancing around like a loon.
I thought it was a funny sight
I couldn’t believe my eyes
Then I saw a ghostly cat
In a transparent disguise.
His eyes glowed like fire
In the darkened night
My hands grew cold
I was filled with fright.
Just then the ghostly cat
Found the black cat by a tree
They both did a jig
And started singing merrily.
I was no longer scared
As they danced ‘round and ‘round
It was an unusual scene
And an unusual sound.
They sang Halloween songs
About pumpkins and goblins and bats
And as they sang
Along came about fifty other cats.
They all joined in
The sound grew so loud
But it was a happy sound
From a jolly crowd.
All of the cats were dancing
And having a good time
Then the ghostly cat invited me
To have a bite of a lime.
I told him it would be sour
He said “Well, come dance instead”
So I joined the singing cats
And danced with a cat named Fred.
He moved around quite fast
Hopping left and right
We both danced and danced
Deep into the night.
At last I had enough
I couldn’t dance anymore
So I said good-bye to all the cats
And Fred walked me to my door.
He asked if he could come in
I said “my two cats would probably mind”
So he said “I’ll see you around”
I said “I had a nice time.”
One year went by
Halloween was here again
A black cat crossed my path
I knew the party was about to begin.
Happy Halloween.
poem by Connie Webb
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Knight Aagen And The Maiden Else
TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH.
It was the fair knight Aagen
To an isle he went his way,
And plighted troth to Else,
Who was so fair a may.
He plighted troth to Else
All with the ruddy gold,
But or ere that day’s moon came again
Low he lay in the black, black mould.
It was the maiden Else,
She was fulfilled of woe
When she heard how the fair knight Aagen
In the black mould lay alow.
Uprose the fair knight Aagen,
Coffin on back took he,
And he’s away to her bower,
Sore hard as the work might be.
With that same chest on door he smote,
For the lack of flesh and skin;
“O hearken, maiden Else,
And let thy true-love in!”
Then answered maiden Else,
“Never open I my door,
But and if thou namest Jesu’s name
As thou hadst might before.”
“O hearken, maiden Else,
And open thou thy door,
For Jesu’s name I well may name
As I had might before!”
Then uprose maiden Else,
O’er her cheek the salt tears ran,
Nor spared she into her very bower
To welcome that dead man.
O, she’s taken up her comb of gold
And combed adown her hair,
And for every hair she combed adown
There fell a weary tear.
“Hearken thou, knight Aagen,
Hearken, true-love, and tell,
If down-adown in the black, black earth
Thou farest ever well?”
“O whenso thou art joyous,
And the heart is glad in thee,
Then fares it with my coffin
That red roses are with me.
“But whenso thou art sorrowful
And weary is thy mood,
Then all within my coffin
Is it dreadful with dark blood.
“Now is the red cock a-crowing,
To the earth adown must I;
Down to the earth wend all dead folk,
And I wend in company.
“Now is the black cock a-crowing,
To the earth must I adown,
For the gates of Heaven are opening now,
Thereto must I begone.”
Uprose the fair knight Aagen,
Coffin on back took he,
And he’s away to the churchyard now,
Sore hard as the work might be.
But so wrought maiden Else,
Because of her weary mood,
That she followed after own true love
All through the mirk wild wood.
But when the wood was well passed through,
And in the churchyard they were,
Then was the fair knight Aagen
Waxen wan of his golden hair.
And when therefrom they wended
And were the church within,
Then was the fair knight Aagen
Waxen wan of cheek and chin.
“Hearken thou, maiden Else,
Hearken, true-love, to me,
Weep no more for thine own troth-plight,
However it shall be!
“Look thou up to the heavens aloft,
To the little stars and bright,
And thou shalt see how sweetly
It fareth with the night!”
She looked up to the heavens aloft,
To the little stars bright above
The dead man sank into his grave,
Ne’er again she saw her love.
Home then went maiden Else,
Mid sorrow manifold,
And ere that night’s moon came again
She lay alow in the mould.
poem by William Morris
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Nightmares
Asian nightmares come from the heavens,
Under the flowers is a soil to grow,
Where nightmares exist,
The folly of horses and different steeds,
In the right path they tread.
Africa has no dream of its own
But that of horses riding, openly dying
When they gallop, stealing the grass and sand
With their enormous hooves.
Nightmares are against the teaching of the public.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Haunted Hollow
The hollow is a group of trees,
whose branches intertwine to form an arch.
A column of noble trees,
standing tall and erect.
However the hallow is haunted,
by ghostly lovers who died there,
on one stormy night,
walking arm in arm
underneath a cloudy moonlight.
Now when the north wind blows,
and clouds drift across the moon.
You can see the ghostly lovers
in the shadows of the hallow,
where they walk for eternity,
linked arm in arm.
Their love has lived beyond the grave,
for everyone to see.
Two ghostly lovers
simply called you and me.
poem by David Harris
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At That Scary Night
As if, curfew, prevailed at that scary night.
In stillness, I heard a cranky sound of fright.
Waking up I looked through my open window,
Did I see a man or his ghostly shadow?
A blackbird flew over age old Maple tree.
The moon behind the cloud could not be free.
The waning light fell, on my tired cold bed,
The shadow, pushed in my room his demon head.
Leaves of Oak danced without any blowing wind.
My sleep and peace of mind thus simply got ruined.
‘Who is there? '-I asked in shivering fearful voice.
Canine teeth shined and flashed a pair of green eyes,
Then, dog wailed and moaned behind my house's hedge.
But, I could not gather all my lost courage.
Pressing the Cross uttered I—‘ My Lord save me.'
Vanished ghostly shadow, no more I did see.
poem by Nilakshi Das
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Seasons of My Love
I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunrise in her hair
There lived no other in the world could in my heart compare
Her eyes were stars of midnight bliss, her laugh a meadow breeze
I would have done all that she asked, so quick was I to please
I loved a maid as red as autumn, with sunset in her hair
Embraced in velvet lullabies, such sweetness did we share
We were all we ever had but we were wild and free
And in the lands you would not find a soul as lark as me
I loved a maid as white as winter, with snowflakes in her hair
The seasons of our love had both a beauty and despair
Two hearts that beat as one were we, our song was meant to be
And in the skies you would not find a dove as spry as she
I loved a maid as bright as spring, with blossoms in her hair
I loved her fierce, I loved her true, we were doomed; we did not care
The hands of time would take from me, even she was not to spare
In the whispers of my dreams, I still see my maiden fair
poem by Leonard Snow
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On A Night Like This
See the Milky-way, a great bowl of wonder
Filling the sky amidst the crisp magic air
You are in the stars and the stars in you
The camp fire crackles, the breeze is easy
The night is old and sleepy
I watch the heavens in silent wonder
You are my star child, laying in my arms
Comfort me in your serene universe
An owl hoots, the loons are calling
Everything else is in peaceful bliss
I am justified and cleansed
Only God could make a night like this
A shooting star flickers
The lake is like a dream
The fire brings pine tree shadows
The crickets are playing their music
Your face dances with fire light
Time is a drama from the heavens
The north star is bright tonight
There's nothing I miss on a night like this
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
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Black City
Riding, crashing, charging
Run to the wrong side in the night
Bastard, savage prowler
Whip the engine for more power
Fast winds, highway, hell song
Feel the fog in the black storm
Darkness, black walls, shadows
Can't see the light on the road
Alone in a haunted
concrete fondation
Abandonned and possessed
In a ghostly mansion
Desert, ghost town, bare land
Dark street, create a fear
Closed lamps, curfews
Dead leaves
The black cat awaits the witch
Don't stay in black city
Your soul will catch the spell
song performed by by Voivod
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Solemn night, Good night.
The day ends again once more.
We talked and chatted much.
So blissful like a happy folklore,
So simple and joyful an ending touch
True is that the stars sing.
The sun woken up and
The moon dance along
When you say good night.
May night be the most beautiful for you.
So that you may submerge in your slumber
When others come, you won't have a clue.
Only that sound sleep and my goodnight
you remember.
An unforgettable velvet sky in the night.
Never my night I thought so much until
in a solemn night, you say good night.
Sleep well. Good night My Dear.
poem by Felius Yuseli
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The Song Unknown
It was many a day and many a night
A windswept night ago
When over the tempest-tossed sea rose and swelled
A terrible cry of woe
And one maiden fair sat straight up in her bed
And wept for she knew her lover was dead
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago
It was many a day and many a night
A windtorn night ago
When over the balmy sea rose and swelled
A song of mourning low
And one maiden fair wept long and wept loud
For she knew it was her lover who was wrapped in that shroud
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago
It was many a day and many a night
A windswept night ago
When over the rolling sea rose and died
A song we shall never know
It is sung by the maiden fair and the stars shining brightly
And her lover who lies in the depths of the sea
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago.
poem by Rebecca Walker
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The Ballad of Dick Turpin
The daylight moon looked quietly down
Through the gathering dusk on London town
A smock-frocked yokel hobbled along
By Newgate, humming a country song.
Chewing a straw, he stood to stare
At the proclamation posted there:
“Three hundred guineas on Turpins head,
Trap him alive or shoot him dead;
And a hundred more for his mate, Tom King.”
He crouched like a tiger about to spring.
Then he looked up, and he looked down;
And chuckling low, like a country clown,
Dick Turpin painfully hobbled away
In quest of his inn – “The Load of Hay”...
Alone in her stall, his mare, Black Bess,
Lifted her head in mute distress;
For five strange men had entered the yard
And looked at her long, and looked at her hard.
They went out, muttering under their breath;
And then – the dusk grew still as death.
But the velvet ears of the listening mare
Lifted and twitched. They were there – still there;
Hidden and waiting; for whom? And why?
The clock struck four, a set drew nigh.
It was King! Dick Turpins’ mate.
The black mare whinnied. Too late! Too late!
They rose like shadows out of the ground
And grappled him there, without a sound.
“Throttle him – quietly – choke him dead!
Or we lose this hawk for a jay, they said.”
They wrestled and heaved, five men to one;
And a yokel entered the yard, alone;
A smock-frocked yokel, hobbling slow;
But a fight is physic as all men know.
His age dropped off, he stood upright.
He leapt like a tiger into the fight.
Hand to hand, they fought in the dark;
For none could fire at a twisting mark.
Where he that shot at a foe might send
His pistol ball through the skull of a friend.
But “Shoot Dick, Shoot” gasped out Tom King
“Shoot! Or damn it we both shall swing!
Shoot and chance it!” Dick leapt back.
He drew. He fired. At the pistols crack
The wrestlers whirled. They scattered apart
And the bullet drilled through Tom Kings heart...
Dick Turpin dropped his smoking gun.
They had trapped him five men to one.
A gun in the hand of the crouching five.
They could take Dick Turpin now alive;
Take him and bind him and tell their tale
As a pot house boast, when they drank their ale.
He whistled, soft as a bird might call
And a head rope snapped in his birds dark stall.
He whistled, soft as a nightingale
He heard the swish of her swinging tail.
There was no way out that the five could see
To heaven or hell, but the Tyburn tree;
No door but death; and yet once more
He whistled, as though at a sweethearts door.
The five men laughed at him, trapped alive;
And – the door crashed open behind the five!
Out of the stable, a wave of thunder,
Swept Black Bess, and the five went under.
He leapt to the saddle, a hoof turned stone,
Flashed blue fire, and their prize was gone.....
**
He rode for one impossible thing; that in the
morning light
The towers of York might waken him-
from London and last night.
He rode to prove himself another,
and leave himself behind.
And the hunted self was like a cloud;
but the hunter like the wind.
Neck and neck they rode together;
that, in the day’s first gleam,
each might prove that the other self
was but a mocking dream.
And the little sleeping villages, and the
breathless country side
Woke to the drum of the ghostly hooves,
but missed that ghostly ride.
The did not see, they did not hear as the ghostly
hooves drew nigh,
The dark magnificent thief in the night
that rode so subtly by.
They woke, they rushed to the way-side door,
They saw what the midnight showed,-
A mare that came like a crested wave,
Along the Great North Road.
A flying spark in the formless dark,
a flash from the hoof-spurned stone,
And the lifted face of a man –
that took the starlight and was gone.
The heard the sound of a pounding chase
three hundred yards away
There were fourteen men in a stream of sweat
and a plaster of Midland clay.
The starlight struck their pistol-butts as they
passed in the clattering crowd
But the hunting wraith was away like the wind
at the heels of the hunted cloud.
He rode by the walls of Nottingham,
and over him as he went
Like ghosts across the Great North Road,
the boughs of Sherwood bent.
By Bawtry, all the chase but one has dropped
a league behind,
Yet, one rider haunted him, invisibly, as the wind.
And northward, like a blacker night, he saw the moors up-loom
And Don and Derwent sang to him, like memory in the gloom.
And northward, northward as he rode, and sweeter than a prayer
The voices of those hidden streams,
the Trent, the Ouse and the Aire;
Streams that could never slake his thirst.
He heard them as he flowed
But one dumb shadow haunted him along the
Great North Road.
Till now, at dawn, the towers of York rose on
the reddening sky.
And Bess went down between his knees,
like a breaking wave to die.
He lay beside her in the ditch, he kissed her lovely head,
And a shadow passed him like the wind and left him with his dead.
He saw, but not that one as wakes, the city that he sought,
He had escaped from London town, but not from his own thought.
He strode up to the Mickle-gate, with none to say him nay.
And there he met his Other Self in the stranger light of day.
He strode up to the dreadful thing that in the gateway stood
And it stretched out a ghostly hand that the dawn had stained with blood.
It stood as in the gates of hell, with none to hear or see,
“Welcome,” it said, “Thou’st ridden well, and outstript all but me”.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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~! ! ~! ! ~! ! ~! ! ~! My City
Night rode pillion* in city
Where neighbours meet;
Only in seminars
Night rode pillion in city
Where mortar of fear
Hold bricks together
Night rode pillion in city
Where only sex can be
Legally traded for hunger
Night rode pillion in city
Whose beaches have to answer?
For their wet look
Night rode pillion in city
Where green n white hangs in shame
Rest brazenly flutter
Night rode pillion
Holy are the whores and
righteous are hounded
Night rode pillion in city
Where pillion riding is banned
Night rode pillion in city
Where I mooched sex
From my wife dressed in outage
Night rode pillion in city
Which gulped my love
Without a burp
Night rode pillion in city
Where mothers are kept collateral
To buy some text msgs and gas:
So that night may clandestinely
Ride pillion
* On of the commonest of Karachi’s sight and sounds is a motorbike. It would invariably have a young rider with his friend pillion riding. Pillion riding is a source of entertainment for majority of youth who prowl the city street overnight on their two-wheeler be it a religious, cultural or national occasion or an electrical outage. It is a most usual vehicle for street crimes like drive by shooting, cell phone/car snatching etc. Wrote this during outage when some thousand miles away someone’s “ceiling swam in shadows black when seen through hollow moisture laden eyes.
poem by Frank Lisa IndiRa Francesca Roger Platt Cornish Ma
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Wanderlust
As sure as the sun rises in the east
Another gunman will come seeking my defeat
Will he be as fast as me, are his nerves quiet and still
Will he fall like all the rest ending his days upon boothill
Im an outcast riding into town alone
I got wanderlust branded deeper than the bone
Im an outcast riding into town alone
I got a lust for wandering branded deeper than the bone
As I ride into the sunset to take another town
Thank you for the invite, but I just cant settle down
The dust that coats my hat is from a dozen towns
Dust from shooting down another dozen clowns
Im an outcast riding into town alone
I got wanderlust branded deeper than the bone
Im an outcast riding into town alone
I got a lust for wandering branded deeper than the bone
A drum beats for me, its louder every day
The cadence tells me that soon Ill meet my judgment day
Lifes an endless showdown never knowing when theyll come
I sleep with one eye open lying with my smoking gun
The game I play has caused a lot of grief
They were dying for fame, so I obliged them some relief
Im an outcast riding into town alone
I got wanderlust branded deeper than the bone
Im an outcast with lightning in my hand
I got wanderlust lost in no mans land
I got a lust for wandering lost in no mans land
I got wanderlust
song performed by by Megadeth
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Why East Wind Chills
Why east wind chills and south wind cools
Shall not be known till windwell dries
And west's no longer drowned
In winds that bring the fruit and rind
Of many a hundred falls;
Why silk is soft and the stone wounds
The child shall question all his days,
Why night-time rain and the breast's blood
Both quench his thirst he'll have a black reply.
When cometh Jack Frost? the children ask.
Shall they clasp a comet in their fists?
Not till, from high and low, their dust
Sprinkles in children's eyes a long-last sleep
And dusk is crowded with the children's ghosts,
Shall a white answer echo from the rooftops.
All things are known: the stars' advice
Calls some content to travel with the winds,
Though what the stars ask as they round
Time upon time the towers of the skies
Is heard but little till the stars go out.
I hear content, and 'Be Content'
Ring like a handbell through the corridors,
And 'Know no answer,' and I know
No answer to the children's cry
Of echo's answer and the man of frost
And ghostly comets over the raised fists.
poem by Dylan Thomas
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Riding
IF I should live again,
O God, let me be young,
Quick of sinew and vein
With the honeycomb on my tongue,
All in a moment flung
With the dawn on a flowing plain,
Riding, riding, riding, riding
Between the sun and the rain.
If I, having been, must be,
O God, let it be so,
Swift and supple and free
With a long journey to go,
And the clink of the curb and the blow
Of hooves, and the wind at my knee,
Riding, riding, riding, riding
Between the hills and the sea.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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