The spirit world the negative of this one,
soft outlines of soft whites against soft darks,
someone crossing Broadway at Cathedral, walking
toward the god taking the picture, but now,
inside the camera, suddenly still. Or the spirit
world the detail through the window, manifest
if stared at long enough, the shapes of this
or that, the lights left on, the lights turned off,
the spirits under arcs of sycamores the gray-gold
mists of migratory birds and spotted leaves recognize.
......
Through shattered glass and sheeted furniture, chicken
wire and piled dishes, sheared-off doors stacked five to a
wall, you're walking like cripples. Toward a dirty window,
obstructed by stacks of chairs.
And once you move them, one by one, palm circles through
the grime and cup your hands round your faces, finally able
to see through—
Charged night. Sheet-flashes of green, threaded with sparks,
......
At first you didn't know me.
I was a shape moving rapidly, nervous
at the edge of your vision. A flat, high voice,
dark slash of hair across my cheekbone.
I made myself present, though never distinct.
Things I said that he repeated, a tone
you could hear, but never trace, in his voice.
......
This morning in an alleyway I was startled by a face
I seemed to recognize, in a dormer above a garage
and so slunk up to him, who was ranting quietly,
mauling the mind of some imagined ear out the pane
as if maligned, or high, like one
moony and almost witless in a poppy ditch,
or one waking ill and supine
in a wet bed of opening mullein:
"I have no desire to theorize language-
I was raised modestly and have sinned unspeakably.
......
I'm such a quiet little ghost,
Demure and inoffensive;
The other spirits say I'm most
Absurdly apprehensive.
Through all the merry hours of night
I'm uniformly cheerful;
I love the dark, but in the light,
I own, I'm rather fearful.
......
These are poems about shadows, poems about darkness, poems about shades in the form of ghosts and spirits...
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.
......
Old names break into pieces
Somewhere along the timeline
Like handmade pottery
Thrown at the ground
Or at the walls, or at the window
Or onto the ceiling, caught in the skylight
Thrown up
......
As I lay here at night, in the soft pale moonlight
I hear from outside the wall,
The gusts, rapid and swift
The sound of your phantom call.
I think, wondering, waiting-
Is it my mind mistaking
The cold whipping wind
Which upon ride your whispers to me
......
I am a ghost, a spirit of the ages,
A phantom figure that never fades,
A memory of the ones who came before,
A whisper of the past that lingers more.
I haunt the halls of ancient ruins,
And wander through abandoned tombs,
I'm the echo of a voice long gone,
The distant notes of a forgotten song.
......
I am a ghost, a whispering shade,
A fleeting memory that's never quite laid,
A wisp of smoke that dances in the night,
A gentle breeze that carries out of sight.
I haunt the halls of ancient castles,
My presence felt in eerie cackles,
I wander through the forest's mist,
A haunting presence you can't resist.
......