From CHANCE OF A GHOST, Helicon Nine Editions
(www.heliconnine.com)

WHAT THE CHILDREN STILL BELIEVE

There's a ghost under the bed,
waiting to drain the blood
from the soles of your feet.
This is the reason you always
keep your feet covered.
There's another ghost in the closet,
but if you sleep facing the door
he can't get out.
Turning your face to the wall
would be fatal. Leaving a light on
will always foil ghosts, but if
you must be in the dark,
then look towards the door.

You never taught them these things.
Somehow they always know them.

There's a skeleton under the house,
buried a hundred years.
At night you can hear the bones
rattle and stir.
It has flames instead of eyes,
and a tongueless voice
that murmurs and sings:
"Here in the cellar we're waiting,
rags and clattery bones!
rags and clattery bones!
When we come out to dance
one night you will have to join us,
ready or not! ready or not!
Here in the damp we are waiting.

This is the song of the bones
you have not yet forgotten.

-GW

Only God Knows What
(Wish I could show Janet's Illustration)


By the evening of the sixth day
most creatures had been named;
yes, God was nearly finished,
save one moniker unclaimed,

one destined for an animal
that crawls along the ground,
that only comes out late at night
to make its dreadful sound.

It lives in drains and basements
and it forages like rats;
its teeth and talons are sharp enough
to scratch the eyes from cats.

It slinks and slides on stairways
as you awake in fright,
shivering to the floorboards
that are creaking in the night.

The windowpane stops rattling,
the house goes quiet and still;
and then you hear a furtive sound
inside your window sill,

and you cry out “There’s something there!”
and Mom soothes you; “There’s not!”
but you insist “There is! There is!”
And only God knows what.

There're probably not many George Jones/Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans.

"Riley's Blues"

[To the tune of George Jones’“Bartender’s Blues”]

Well, I date the Slayer, and mostly it’s good.
Yeah, her lovin’s what keeps me ali-i-ive.
But I feel like a loser, but I ain’t a boozer,
So,I come to this unholy di-i-ive.

And I need crosses of silver and stakes of wood, to keep all the demons at ba-a-ay,
And a honky tonk vampire to suck me good and help me feel e-vil all day-eee.

Well, once I was awesome, I was tough as they come,
Till they took the chip out’n my chayust.
Now I’m weak as a kitten, and although it ain’t fittin’,
This bar is whar I feels the bayusst

And I need crosses of silver and stakes of wood, to keep all the demons at ba-a-ay,
And a honky tonk vampire to suck me good and help me feel e-vil all day-eee.

Damn, the Slayer just caught me with my vampire ho,
And rurned what had been a fun da-a-ay.
And I got a feelin’, I soon will be reelin’,
She’ll be kickin' my ass till Sunda-a-ay

And I need crosses of silver and stakes of wood, to keep all the demons at ba-a-ay
And a honky tonk vampire to suck me good and help me feel e-vil all day-eee

Here's one that gave me chills when I first read it:

OLD CHRISTMAS MORNING (Roy Helton)

"Where are you coming from, Lomey Carter,
So early over the snow?
What's them pretties you got in your hand
And where are you aiming to go?"

"Step in, Honey -- Old Christmas morning
I ain't got nothing much,
Maybe a bite of sweetness and cornbread,
A little ham meat and such.

"But come in, Honey! Sally Ann Barton's
Hungering after your face.
Wait till I light my candle up.
Set down! There's your old place."

"Now where you been so early this morning?"
"Graveyard, Sally Ann.
Up by the trace in the salt lick meadows
Where Taulbe killed my man."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning...
I can't scratch up a light.
Dampness gets on the heads of the matches,
But I'll blow up the embers bright."

"Needn't trouble, I won't be stopping:
Going a long ways still."
"You didn't see nothing, Lomey Carter,
Up on the graveyard hill?"

"What should I see there, Sally Ann Barton?"

"Well, sperits do walk at night."

"There was an elder bush a-blooming
While the moon still gave some light."

"Yes, elder bushes, they bloom, Old Christmas,
And critters kneel down in their straw.
Anything else up in the graveyard?"
"One thing more I saw:

"I saw my man with his head all bleeding
Where Taulbe's shot went through."

"What did he say?" "He stooped and kissed me."
"What did he say to you ?"

"Said, Lord Jesus forgive your Taulbe;
But he told me another word;
He said it soft when he stooped and kissed me,
That were the last I heard."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning."
"I know that, Sally Ann.
For I killed him, coming down through the meadow,
Where Taulbe killed my man.

"I met him out on the meadow trace
When the moon was fading fast.
And I raised my dead man's rifle gun
And killed him as he come past."

"But I heard two shots."
"Twas his was second:
He shot me 'fore he died.
You'll find us at daybreak, Sally Ann Barton;
I'm laying there dead at his side."

With the holiday upon us, here's one more suitable poem - this one from Australia:

THE GRIESLY BRIDE

"Lie down, my newly married wife,
Lie easy as you can.
You're young and ill-accustomed yet
To sleeping with a man."

The snow was deep, the moon was full,
As it shone on the cabin floor.
His young bride rose without a word
And ran barefoot through the door.

He up and followed, fast and sure,
And an angry man was he,
But his young bride was not e'er in sight,
And only the moon shone clearly.

He followed her track through the new deep snow,
Calling out loud her name.
Only the dingoes in the hills
Howled back at him again.

Then the hair stood up along his neck,
And his angry mind was gone,
For where the two-foot track gave out,
A four-footed track went on.

Her nightgown lay upon the snow
As it might on a bed sheet,
And the tracks that led from where it lay
Were never of human feet.

He started in to walking becak
And then began to run,
And his quarry turned all in her track
And hunted him in turn.

An empty bed still waits for him
As he lies in a crimson tide.
Beware, beware, O trapper men,
Beware of a griesly bride.

The Knock

It’s Halloween, the fires are doused,
and all the hounds of hell unhoused
are prowling round your cabin door
as shadows flit across a floor
lit by a crimson light that wanes,
and filters through the rain-flecked panes.

The door is knocked, the latch is lifting
the clouds that once were slowly drifting
are billowing, darkening, deep and frightening
thunder roars and a flash of lightening;
a face lit up in the looking-glass.
A face ordained to come to pass.

Cheekbones, gaunt in high relief,
familiar, though the glimpse is brief,
and two hands joined in unholy praise
upon a head that's Astarte's,
all stay in your mind and the vision lingers.
You pray on the beads with bloodless fingers.

“Oh Mother Mary and your Son!”
you pray until time and tide are one.
And wait in fear of another knock
but time has stopped, you kneel and rock,
oh slowly. Your fate is clear.
You are one who will knock next year.



[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited November 02, 2006).]

As tomorrow is the great day, I think I'll bump up this thread! Enjoy.

Here’s one of Yeats’s Samhain poems to add to the mix:


The Hosting of the Sidhe

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.
The host is rushing 'twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away.

My vampiric version of Donne's "The Flea"
 

The Flea

Consider how the flea sucks first at you
then nuzzles in your crotch, skips to your wife
and makes her cry out like she does in sex,
softly, with just a hint of pain. As you
purple your nail, consider that the life
you crush for sucking at your thighs and necks
is but a fleshly bottling of blood,
like you. Now spilled. Consider how the vintage
staining your skin fermented in this flea,
joining your wife and you, two bloods. Why should
a flea live hungering? There’s no advantage
in that. Consider then a thing like me.
I’m like a flea that innocently feeds.
That’s right. Put down the cross. I have my needs.

LOVELORN WITCH

Forget your book of spells,
your signs, your potions and your ring,
you sought advantage over
others, thought black arts would bring
you power, hoped your way
through life would be a bigger laugh
if you could call on super-
natural tricks to smooth the path.

And now you sit and bawl,
black pointed hat with tip askew,
the desperate thumbing through
your spell book was no use to you.
So fold away your stocking,
cape and long black-fingered glove,
what good is sorcery
if you can’t have the one you love?