Ghosts

©  2016 Steve King

All rights reserved

I can’t believe in ghosts—

at all.

Not me.

That sound I hear

is just the ancient clock

crying out cruel hours

and a cache of ruined days;

vagrant seconds spilling

on the threshold of that dark hallway.

I would say

I’ve never seen a ghost.

Strange fancies fall away

at will before my gaze—

as if undone by magic;

that is, if I believed in magic,

if it were allowable

beyond the issuance of dreams,

although each dream itself might seem as real.

I have never felt a ghost, nohow.

That breeze upon my neck

is from the unthought open window

beckoning strange airs

through all the attic maze,

up and down the shadowed stairs

and settling here, easy as can be,

close within this dusty window seat.

I have never held a ghost,

though I have tried:

the semblance of a memory,

husks of undone wishes,

rustling through all useful life,

endowing form to shades of other days.

But seldom in my ready moods

have spirits ever lingered to obey.

Yes, I have paused for many things

as they have come my way.

Most kinds of things, okay…

but never once an honest ghost.

Nope

Not me. 

Not ever nowadays.


A new poem for Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads
http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/