It’s been a while,
Since I lost my life again like last night,
It’s so ironic that I still type
The words which I never bespoke
To love I’ve never known.
Loneliness sets in,
It’s cold, empty like we’ve all felt
It’s empty but then why is it heavy?
When did nothing get it’s weigh
How did darkness started to feel home
Showers became longer,
Days shorter
And the quiet breaths of sleep
Rumble in my stomach
Barks on the street
Occasionally construction noise
All became my fellow companion
In words I brew,
Doodles I drew,
With the extra strong coffee I gulped.
Not long before it turned black,
Had vodka, the Irish knack.
I wonder what pain did Irish felt
That their breakfast held
This abomination.
But it was magic indeed,
My night filled with smoke
Were lonelier
But I didn’t sleep.
I could now sit to contemplate
Ramble these words as my eyes
Followed the mosquitoes closely.
Where do they disappear in the morning?
And why do they sing
In our ears,
When we don’t like them?
Isn’t it the fate of lovers to sing us to sleep
To kiss our cheek and leave
Us with marks
All over our body.
While they love somebody
And we’re nobody
In this neverland of feelings
With no escape, just killing
Of emotions, spur and urge
To live.
Ghosts engender all of us
and live in our civilization
—so read a book, watch a movie, recall a line or speech or historical event, look at a great skyscraper or jet airliner
—they are here in the light of day from the shadow of the past.
They were back there studying and experimenting, developing their talent, breaking down old forms and creating new ones, dreaming of the ideal form, celebrating their genius, sparkling with youthful energy, disdaining any limit on themselves, and assuming as do we their life and age to be quintessential. They composed, performed, wrote, painted, acted, designed, engineered, deliberated, legislated—creating civilization, our civilization.
(And we are here as their careless caretakers, redacting and revising their works, defiling the primary with the secondary, reinterpreting their dictums of truth, beauty and goodness with the hermeneutics of postmodernism, misinterpreting the flame of eternity for the flux of modernity, acting as corrosive as the acids of nature, listening to Glenn Gould play Bach and Al Pacino perform Shakespeare – defiling authenticity, our replicability.)
Ghosts also engender each of us
and live in our home
—stay up late, turn out the lights, drink a whiskey, watch an old movie, see live actors long dead, appear in the dark
—I watch a late-night movie with Fred Astaire dancing sweetly with Ginger Rogers, gliding across the black/white screen, brightening the drudgery of the thirties. And not alone—yes, my father and mother are here, from a long time past, in this moment of suspended disbelief. We sit on the couch and talk about the good times when dancing the jitterbug, singing the tunes of Broadway, listening to Jack Benny; also surviving the hard times of bankruptcies and strikes during the depression, the dust storms of the great plains, and rations during the war. My mother recalls working nights at a roadside café for 25¢ an hour, which was the price of a movie ticket, and there she met my father a truck driver. My father talks, too, about Model T cars and Clydesdale trucks, about FDR and Eisenhower. I offer cocktails, but the movie ends, and they rise from the couch. No, please stay, we have so much to talk about. But no use, the more I plead and attempt to hold them, the farther they drift away, phantoms fading in the late night air. Past and present tear apart, silently, leaving no trace of what once was.
Ghosts live in mid of night with me
when then and now occur as one.
At dawn of day they go away
to where I know I too will go.
Month of color,
Death disguised.
The earth’s turn,
Awkward, for
One’s eyetooth
Is candy now
And sugar is
Multicolored.
October is a hair
Dresser’s nightmare.
The witch warms up
To winter, bones her
Broom to bristle
Quick, stirs her pot
Of munchkins so
That it steams.
October is a fog
In your mirror
With a ghost’s eye.
Seems October will
Remind you of decay
Anyway, though you
Make fun of it. Put
A candle in your carved
Gourd, a spiderweb
On your doorstep. Who
Will walk in?
Who will open
Her bag of tricks?
And you will put
Something in. The kids
Will place their round
Faces at your door.
They will dress like
Monsters. Their
Parents will wait
In the dark just
In case. Because
The night is holding
A pumpkin over their
Heads. It follows them
From house to house.
You’ll see the witch
On her broom, hear
The doorbell and
A knock. Your decoration
Worked. The color of
Autumn has dawn
Crawling at night
To your door just
When you thought
To put out the light.
tonight becomes you
black as wine in the bottle
I don’t know what to say
I was thinking
I was a thinking knife set
do you remember little daughter
who broke both your hands for forming
your fingers into the fluttering
silhouette of a dove
I didn’t want to object because
I didn’t want to die of what anxiety
won’t somebody look in the drawer
where the darkest file grows
out of time surgery’s tight stitches
there’s only so much you can do
to kill a spider you can’t see
but the sated grey tick pulled
from the puppy’s neck
makes a satisfying black sacrificial stain
when crushed under your heel
we needed many interviews
to bring you up to speed
you told me to stop thinking deadly
you know I only think deadly
time doesn’t make things dirty
I have nothing to disguise you with
your tongue chunk and your bald spot
and your bag stab
only the large sarcasm database
who do you know with the go-to horns
that’s what they say in the business
we rob from the church
let’s go measure the churches
We visited the old stone house on a sunny day at the end of autumn. The weeds had grown long in what was left of the yard and my skirt swished through the stalks catching now and then on burrs and thistles. I was wearing an authentic skirt from 1905, fitting for the film we were about to shoot.
My daughter was about 14 months old. We were there to re-enact the story of the house.
From the highway, the house had looked beautiful and solid in the morning light but as we got closer it was apparent that all that was left was a shell. The door frames were rotted and peeling, the wooden floors thick with dirt and remnants of cobwebs hung from the rafters like lace. All of the windows were broken or missing. All except the windows on the south side. Those had all been filled in with stone, for good reason.
The story went that the house was once owned by a young family. They were new to the area and excited to put down roots. The kitchen window looked out over the train tracks. The woman liked to look at the train rushing by. Perhaps she dreamed of climbing aboard and going on an adventure. Her husband was only too happy to oblige her. They had a young daughter just over a year and a half old and life was good.
One day the young mother was rinsing linens in a washbasin just outside the back door. Her little daughter was contentedly trying to ‘help’ by shelling peas. A difficult task for tiny fingers. But she was determined. “I’ll be right back,” said the woman, and she went inside to leave the basket on the counter. She’d hang the linens to dry on the clothes horse when the little girl went down for her nap.
The woman felt the rumble of the train in the floorboards beneath her feet. She’d pick up the baby and go to wave at the engineer. Or if it was a passenger train, to all of the travellers on their way to the city. She was about to step back outside when something caught her eye. A flash of white. Likely a bird but she glanced out the window to be sure, hoping it wasn’t a deer or some other poor creature caught on the train tracks.
What she saw was a horror she would never forget. A jagged scream tore itself from her throat. The baby was on the tracks toddling in front of the rushing locomotive, her white dress standing out in the sun. She was smiling, unaware of the beast huffing behind her, bellowing steam and about to devour her whole. That was the last time the young mother saw her baby girl alive.
She couldn’t bear to look out the windows after that. ‘Never again,’ she told her husband. He covered the windows on that side of the house one stone at a time.
We were there to re-live those moments. The tracks were no longer in use. But as I stood in the derelict house in my antique skirt, pretending to hold a basket of linen and watched my baby girl totter down the tracks, I felt sick to my stomach. She was never in danger. Her father was right beside her, just outside camera range, but the story had become all too real. As soon as they had the shot I snatched my baby up and clung to her. Two mothers, two daughters, separated by time with only the love for our babies in common.
We went to a cemetery afterward to film the scene of the mother at her daughter’s grave. I wandered through the rows until I found a child’s headstone. I knelt in front of it and the tears flowed easily. I wondered if time had played one of her cruel tricks and if the tears I was crying were even my own or that of a young mother who never recovered.
I never saw the film. A copy was promised to me but never appeared. It’s just as well.
The house still stands, and where the light shone through, there is nothing but stones.
I have a few apples in my soul
That I forgot to eat the other day
Let’s make apple tarts with them
But maybe let’s eat them next time, when you’re not dead
Oh it’s not a temporary thing? Sorry
You led me down the only stone-paved street in the city
Trying to show me some history
When it was wet and I was pulling my luggage
Sorry don’t care much for your old haunts and ghoulish chatter
We’ve been walking thirteen minutes and I still can’t see the sign
Where does it say Ghost Town?
Oh it’s something you feel instead
You’re not being sarcastic are you
Then maybe shopping malls at dawn or bars in the early morn would be ideal
Yes I miss those places
How did you know?
By the way, that feast was great, the other day
When’s the next one, it’s Halloween isn’t it
What, they pretend to be us and then they eat all the treats for themselves?
Selfish brats.
It had been years since she’d been in the woods in midwinter. She arrived late one afternoon, long after any walkers had gone home. She moved as quietly as she could over the ground, placing her feet carefully so as not to disturb the stillness with the snap of twigs. Her toes were cold, close to numb. Her cropped dark hair melted into the shadows in between the trees, leaving her pale face stark against the backdrop.
The trees were short and not too tightly packed together. Their growth had been manipulated over centuries by the prevailing winds along the coast. Their limbs brushed against her as she diverted from the main path, moving deliberately through the oakwood.
At the burn, she stopped. The sound of the water was muffled, enclosed beneath a thin coating of ice. Bubbled air-locks created patterns across the frozen surface. A flicker at the corner of her eye made her turn her head, and she watched as a black and white wagtail hopped across the stones a few yards upstream.
Concentrate, she told herself firmly, picking a route across the water. She placed one foot onto the first stepping stone, which was covered in jagged pins of ice. Something glittered just out of reach, caught underneath in the middle of the burn. She hesitated on the edge of the bank for a moment, her fingers involuntarily moving, itching to pick at the ice and release its treasure. But this was a moment’s weakness, and it vanished as quickly as it came. She moved on, stepping lightly on the stones to cross the stream.
She rubbed her hand across her mouth, removing the last traces of red from her lips. Now that her hands were cold, she suddenly found herself missing the feel of another’s in her own. This was not the first time she’d admitted to feeling a little more for him than she first expected.
She thought she planned it all perfectly. It was never meant to be anything more than a trap, the perfect seduction.
A pink dusk was falling as she climbed upstream towards the old mining path. Here, the ground was well-trodden – folk must have passed by here only recently, she thought, as she placed her own feet into far larger boot prints. It was strangely satisfying to destroy the perfect imprints of boot soles with her own feet, pressing down the regular battlements of mud with each step. She slowed her pace as she rounded the next bend, holding her breath. Familiar though it all was, she wasn’t quite sure what she might find ahead of her after so many years of neglect.
When she first came here it was the height of summer. A thick, hazy afternoon, buzzing with insects and full of bird chatter and the rustle of small creatures. She remembered the feel of warm, soft grass between her toes as he urged her off the path, ducking under branches and pressing through the patches of ferns that had sprouted up in the forest clearings.
He seemed reluctant in his task, nudging her gently onward rather than pushing. She could turn on the charm, of course, she knew that. But it seemed pointless – it wasn’t like he could do her any real harm, not here.
The vibrant green of the forest was all-consuming; every shade, every shadow took on a deep green tinge, shimmering in a heat haze as though they were underwater. Sunlight broke through in places. She had hoped to stumble across a sunbathing adder – she knew he had a fear of snakes and it might have given her a chance to vanish into the woods she knew would protect her.
Instead, she turned to him and smiled.
Her attempt to disarm him failed, she saw that in an instant. There was simply no need to try and change his mind – he’d done that himself already. As he gazed at her with soft, pathetic eyes, a ripple of pleasure shot through her. The sheer satisfaction of being able to manipulate at will, the simple delight of seeing someone – male or female – reduced to putty in her hands. It gave her a thrill like no other.
She thought for a moment that she might offer herself to him – not in gratitude, of course, but rather to ensure he would never tell the truth when he returned. But something about his thick, hairy upper lip made her squeamish, and sweet though he was, she figured she’d caught enough of him in the net already – no need to subject herself to something unpleasant if there was no need.
In hindsight, she thought she played the innocent schoolgirl rather well. She handed him the wild rose she’d been twisting round her fingers as they walked, and placed a firm but sweet kiss on his neck. Then she turned and ran, a flash of yellow skirts disappearing into green, black hair melding with the shadows.
That was before. Before everything changed, and summer sunlight faded into memory. Now she wasn’t a day older, but she considered herself at least a little wiser.
Looking up, she stopped. The corner of the cottage had come into sight, nestled in the curve of the path. It was utterly derelict, chimney stacks pulled down to rubble under the weight of tangled ivy. The weak evening light played tricks on her, reducing what she could see to two-dimensions, a series of flat outlined images on paper. The trees, in silhouette, appeared cut from black card and stuck down on the surface of the sky, the house taken from the pages of an old book.
She stood, ever alert. Nothing moved.
Her toes ached with the cold. She replayed the events of the afternoon once more in her mind, fire and flame warming her, his skin against hers. As she walked up to the cottage doorway all their voices floated in on her memory, each one easily distinguished without her needing to see their faces. Dead for many years, yet still clinging to her return. They knew she was here. The broken slats on the front door were splintering in the elements. Her hand reached out, careful to push without hurting herself.
Among the fallen leaves, evergreen ivy, and wrought-iron bed frames, she found what she was looking for. Lifting it she was once again surprised at its weight. The glass was hazy, its frame pitted with rust marks, and a large diagonal crack ran across it from top to bottom. It didn’t matter—she couldn’t see herself in it, anyway. She carried it carefully across the room, stepping over gaps in the rotting floorboards to set it gently on its hook on the wall where it belonged.
Before she spoke, she took the lipstick from her cloak pocket and reapplied it. She fished out her comb and tugged it through her hair, smoothing out the curls that were stubbornly returning in the cold air.
He told her what she wanted to hear. Satisfied, she blew him a kiss before heading back out into the dark, revelling in the latest pleasure he had given her. Ready to begin again.
