I still taste you 
in every sip of liquor
O, how quickly
our past begins to replay
projected on the evening lawn
as the oil lamp burns 
ghostly, beside me

You said so little
like some men will
That stillness was a balm
to my life’s tumult
Your stoic way
and silent eyes
a recurring character
in my diary’s scribbled lines

I don’t do much
but work and walk
and play the records
y...

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Who wants to try to please
a ghost?
A ghost, long departed,
yet still lingering.
Haunting.
You reach out for affection,
But in your hands, just air.
You say "what do you think
of me now?"
But the ghost smiles.
"Why do you still care?"

by Marla Deaton 2019

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The ghosts of not repentant souls

Wander in the quiet woods at night.

Only chilling cries of owls

Cause the lightest fright.

Flying Dutchman frightens seamen,

Its sight is a portent of doom.

John Leyden told it

Sinful souls went to gloom.

Ghosts dwell in the hills.

Climbers know a ghost can kill.

To some, they help to cross the river,

But seeing...

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Watching the leaves fall

Standing so tall

Waiting at the window

I still wonder

It wasn't long ago

I can still see us

Haunting shadows in the dusk

Running, fighting, climbing

Making footprints in the snow

Your furry figure lingers at the edges of my mind

Gone but not forgotten

Your smile runs to hide

Sunny days fade away

As your ghost lies still

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There was a pretty, little flower girl

Many moons ago

She always found the brightest blooms

And sold them down The Row

The Row was full of scurrilous knaves 

Who thought her smile so priceless 

One day they took that smile away 

And left her cold & lifeless 

No man nor beast was ever caught

And flowers bloomed no-more

The Row fell grey with dank decay 

An...

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was the old woman a ghost too?

boys decided they

should report to the sheriff

that the old lady had died

they went to his office

and told him

how do you know she died

sheriff said

we rode our bikes by her house

and through her window saw

her dancing with a ghost

boys said

sheriff gave a quizzical look

said he would investigate

boys l...

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the old woman in the upstairs window

the old woman’s cottage

out in the woods

on a small dirt road

was a mystical place

for the boy and his friends

they were told by

other boys that a

ghost lived with her

they got a glimpse

of her once when she

went to the well

to draw a bucket

she wore a long black dress

and white hair down...

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If you can find your way back here
let’s meet
under the old whale bones
this place that we each love
Where we look out to sea
or back towards the sleeping town

One day, we’ll stand together
and unbeknownst to us
it will be
for the last time in our lives

Whichever of us, must go first
let’s make a promise to meet again
under the old whale bones
Hearts filled with feeling
and the b...

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From the eerie, cool night

She drifted in

With her coal-black eyes 

and pale white skin

From a shallow grave, inhaling sin

To the village she crawled, 

to feed within

As the moonlight shone

most soundly slept

Into the flesh of their minds, 

she wriggled & crept

To expose a secret 

they had quietly kept

And devour their souls,

'til nothing was lef...

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through a window I rewind my life

the words I never seemed to utter

dreams that turned to piles of dust

it's better to pull down the shutter

that's the woman I didn't marry, a

love affair left to wither and stutter

her tears fall like rain in the street

it's better to pull down the shutter

sins of youth that seemed so bland

echo down the hot concrete gutter

...

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the old woman  in the upstairs window

the old woman’s cottage

out in the woods

on a small dirt road

was a mystical place

for the boy and his friends

they were told by

other boys that a

ghost lived with her

they got a glimpse

of her once when she

went to the well

to draw a bucket

she wore a long black dress

and white hair down to her wai...

Read and leave comments (1)

Something comes creeping

Through the dark night

I look from my window

But it's just out of sight!

Something comes knocking

Knocking at my door

I turn the handle... slowly

But, it's there no more!

Something comes crawling

Crawling so slow

Shall I turn to look?

I no longer know!

Something is breathing

Under my bed!

I dare not look

'case it ...

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the future has ghosts too

queuing up just waiting

we give them substance

by living dying mating

sometimes you get hints

they call it premonitions

or that indefinable frisson

whatever the definitions

clairvoyant at the seaside

read my palm for sixpence

said I'd wed a gyspy, who

did have a second sense

lit me with superstitions

she could read my ...

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Have You Noticed?
after Mary Oliver

have you noticed how certain poems linger 
in the echoes of yesterday 

how certain triggers replay
a certain phrase

how hanging onto words
engulfs an empty room

how walking through fields
begets velvet moonlit nights listening to you

how spinning a record after dropping a needle
births a mountain of longing and sorrow 

have you ever notic...

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(Happy Halloween everyone!)

She rides upon a crimson horse

Its eyes as black as tar

Pray not to hear her whispered name

For she'll come to where you are

Her skin: as white as fresh-laid snow 

And twice as cold to touch

Her hair: as black as night itself

Hold your breath now, hush!

For if you hear the galloping hooves

Coming to your door

Run with all ...

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the voice comes to me 
as a phantom in a dream. 

as i write 
the voice channels 
from him to me. 

laughter vanishes 
to staring at the sea, 
to the house 
that no longer carries 
his childhood dreams. 

vacanies searching for occupation 
from passing through stations 
to platforms holding onto memories, 
all of it comes to me. 

in my internal screenplay, 
is he the playwright...

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I stayed put, you moved on

With not a backward glance,

Its cold and dark down here

Hearing your merry dance

I'm in limbo now, forgotten

My spirit unable to restart

Trapped and left for dead

In the cellars of your heart

This place has other ghosts

Chains clanking like mine

Brooding sadly about how

You must be doing so fine

We're so near yet so far ...

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Smiles, flowers, rainbows.

Dried tears. 

Your ghost is here,

alleviating fears. 

A good day, 

crushing brimstone, 

in this wild, 

parallel life. 

https://youtu.be/m2OFxeg4spU

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Ghostly creatures.
Distance, restriction,
Non existing life.
I miss deep kisses
And hands on my body.
I miss warm words
And expression.
Nature goes on,
Blossoming in competition,
Nurture me with sunny spells
On empty train stations. 
Spring in my heart, 
But not in other's hearts. 
I want to explode, 
So full of life. 
Blow all the ghosts away, 
Past shadows of the winter. 
Fearfu...

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You disappeared without a trace. 

For years I didn’t see your face.

I believed the lies,

that you died. 

Maybe you did,

on the inside.

Your essence never went away.

Behind me, beside me, within me

night and day. 

You haunt me.

That’s the way I want it to be. 

Love is a mystery. 

https://youtu.be/HvyCMgAajqk

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I’m a ghost in this house, 

Someone forgot to open the windows to let me out of here. 

I search for an exit every second I can. 

If someone could just help me, help me break out. 

I don’t get it, 

Why’d they leave me here.. 

These fucking rooms don’t hold my secrets anymore, 

They’re on the table for everyone to see when they come to visit this empty house, 

Your memor...

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Who will ever tell or know

the unheard silent echoes

from passing lives laid low:

those ghosts of chanted psalms

once melodious in their praise

lie buried beneath the turf

within walls they helped to raise;

and who can see the cowled monks

whose ghostly whispered prayers

whose canticle or hymn

whispers through the evening's airs -

through the great stone entrance a...

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Hide away 
if you must. 

I don't understand 
what prompts you 
to surface anyway. 

I will do like I always do,
show up on the page,
stumble through what 
I was put on earth to do,
share my truth.

I know even though you 
fly away again and again 
to do whatever muses do, 

you will come back, 
when I least expect
and light up my soul
with your beautiful words, 
like you alwa...

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Passion consumed 
eventually fades.

Passion capped 
pursues us 

beyond the grave.

This revelation 
helps me understand,

our encounter was 
never about us.

It was about our muses
intertwined in the 

world of words.

We were denied 
the lasting passion
we searched for

so we could write 
our soul songs

for seekers 
to see

the ectasy 
and despair

that accompan...

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I know you don't 
want to think of me.

I don't want to 
think of you either.

But the more I resist, 
the more your ghost 
persists. 

It makes no sense.

Hardly a day goes

by that you don’t  
cross my mind.

Some days 
it infuriates me
that someone who 
pushed me over the cliff 

of obscurity

has a choke hold 
on my soul.

Other days 
I accept
what I cannot 
compr...

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Twas the night before Christmas

When starless darkness held the night

With howling wind and sleet;

All through the house was ne'er a light

Dark, and a door that creaked

And despite the fire, twas cold as snow

Only the low fire flicker

Could lend the room a ghostly glow

And light the undecked tree.

I crept towards the bottom stair

Mouse-still and watching

A creak, a...

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A fiendish reminder that the past

is around and within us

A memory, a mood

a startled cry, a stifled laugh

worm their way into our weary hearts

and we fade into a history reborn

The ghosts dormant and still

awaken in that undefended moment.

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Above The Light Of The Morning Star

Pity the dark eyed man who chases sleep.

Yet, pity more, the man who finds that realm

and dances with his friends, long gone,

then wakes to find such loneliness in his heart.

A father’s hand laid gently on his shoulder

or a mothers kiss to say farewell on leaving.

These are the magic lanterns

of the ghosts that are their ghosts.

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They say we carry the dead with us,

And most are surprised by the weight.

We hoist them up on our shoulders,

And imagine our strength is adequate.

But invariably we fault and stumble.

We stagger and trip and fall

We can’t see a way out of this trouble

Each partition becomes a wailing wall

We drop them in the middle of our marriage.

We trip over them when we try...

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When I have gone

what waits this room

with its vacuum

                where I sat?

Does

my chair sits sightless

musing at my absence

midst space bereft

                   my music play on?

After I have left

ask my empty bed

all sheeted void

                about my dreams

Does

my mattress dent

minding my long night wraiths

maintain my ...

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In the grey cloudlight of a pre-dawn moon

something stayed my dream

a stray insistent noise heard through sleep

the uncertain call of the hunting owl:

I am knelt naked at the window -

beneath, the frosted grass glimmers in the pale creamglow

hazy through the early swirls of mist

but not a shade or waft disturbs the spectral scene

although my flesh seems chilled by some slig...

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This old farm cottage of mine

keeps all my years safe

for it knows my secret ways

and remembers

There are shadows in the shadows

but in some rooms

my sons have hidden smiles

to lead me in

There is more solitude indoors

but here and there

she has retained a past caress

to warm me

The old mirror we found at market

still retains her ghost

which...

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The Glowering Mists of Autumn

As I travel life's journey I'm often-times struck

By a vision both novel and possibly true; that serenity

In a dangerous world without luck,

Is impossible; but is there a temporal divinity?

Perhaps the root causes of wonder and joy

Really are in the sky, or on Dante's fine peak,

Or my fireside, where the dance won't annoy

In the compa...

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English summers, often damp, can invoke long stifling twilights

Nothing landbound needlessly moves

Contrails crayon across the sky

So many, this close to London’s hub

Distantly, the buzz of a low plane, pleasure rider reaching up

Into the realm of the starlings as they sussurate

A car comes past in the lane droning away round the curves

Here the runway cross remains

The old...

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Unknowing

ghost brother

ghost sister

twins

two years before

unable to fight anymore

they gave up their tiny breath

to history

she never spoke of them

in anything but love and memory

of what could have

should have been

never tripping

over regrets

at what came after

me

my brother

our family

they had names for th...

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Ghosts to
my left,
Ghosts to
my right.

Ghosts in front,
oh what
a fright.

Ghosts all around,
How did I
get in this
Ghostly town?

I look at
my hand,
What is this
what do
I see?

Oh My
I can
see right
through me.

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There’s always one isn’t there
Slopping beer all over his shoes
He’s jostling for position
Hand secure upon the barrier
But his shoulders aren’t quite through
Because a fangirl, already half cut
Is hogging space for two
Arms are sleeves of coloured ink
Hair is blonde and striped in pink
Boobs are large and cupped in lace…
He might try conversation
“I love your tats; the skull, the eagle
...

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The ghost that flitters through your sleepless night

may be fully alive in another’s  daytime sight,

for the dimensions where they appear as a wisp

may not be the same as that where they’re kissed…

Imagine if your mind is ready for this notion just yet

that the ghosts which you see are not dead for I bet,

what you see is merely a slim projection coming from

another di...

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In The Halls Of The Kingmaker

I touch the rough stone walls,
feeling the room whisper with history.
The open fires cast medieval glows,
while wood smoke threads the tapestries.
Floorboards shiver underfoot,
groaning softly in their dotage
as visitors step gently
in the footsteps of kings.

Up and around
the spiral staircase,
just wide enough
to fit a climbing guest
whose hands
bru...

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One thing I am proud of most:

I never believed in ghosts.

Because shadows are shadows,

Or worse, penumbras up close,

And smoke leads to smoldered embers,

Not the fire one might suppose.

Reputations are ruined

By what one may think they know.

When you listen to stories,

Remember, there are no ghosts.

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War Boys

“YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU”

We’re going to war boys,
we’re going to war,
Lord Kitchener asked us
so we formed a corps.
Joe and Jack from the factory,
Ted and Jim from the farm,
the recruiting sergeant assures us
that there’s little chance of harm.
We’re part of the great pals army
and we’ve fallen for his charm
as we march away to war.

We’re in the war boys,
we’re in the ...

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now those eidolic dread horses have scarred your slumber, passed 9, passed 10,  and even your furniture has silent, open mouthed, nightmares over the too soon dead, dead school friends who never ended their crossings and see, see, she stoops, in shroud  ghastly knelt as in prayer but you can’t see, see through the tricks  of light that scream “she is there”, your crumpling chest  boiling as the bo...

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photo credit: Kari Musil 

Like whiskey aged

Mellowed

Slowed down

Old school

Remembered for it’s bite

Some flavors are acquired taste

Between dark history

And magic fairies 

Is a legacy of ghosts

Who will not be stilled

By death or passage into

Other dimensions

Weeds are designated

By those with shallo...

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I ponder the etiquette of nursing a pint

and whether some might find it impolite

if I made it last just little while longer that I

might watch the rain that crawls on the steamed windows

making broken ghosts of every passer by

each of them eager to avoid

catching the eye of the living and I wonder

which one of them broke winter’s heart such as to make it

so bitter

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On Sandal’s Field Of Ghosts.

Mist hangs over fields -

ahead, the castle looms where

died the Duke Of York.

At the willows three

a chill permeates the air

and touches nerve ends.

Here fell the Yorkist

hope – body mutilated

and dragged through the mud.

Decapitated.

His head sent on to York to

top a traitors spike.

I...

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The August Blue Moon has been invited to the launch of Pressed by Unseen Feet, an anthology of poetry and short stories on the theme of the spectral unexpected. The evening is hosted by the Hotel du Vin in their courtyard with the sliding roof. Everyone is welcome. There is a small charge of £6 which includes a copy of the anthology and opportunity to hear Newcastle based singers, Skylark Song.

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It seems as though our visitors may have returned, or at least their feline portent


I saw a black cat
when a black cat
wasn’t ever there

I saw this black cat
who was comfortably sat
beneath my very chair

but that black cat
was not so sat,
because it wasn’t there

and I saw that cat
when it glared right back at
my own quizzical stare

though while I look...

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UNTITLED

Love is an illusion fuelled by hope

Hope is an illusion fuelled by love

The sky is full of ghosts each cloud

A spirit forever trapped in the blue.

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TRUE

Then… Airplane falling wreathed in fire, ruined

bonfire dragged down by gravity to a watery grave.

Broken machine resting on the seabed, silence

reigns in Deaths’ triumph.

Now… Test Pilot Feng Yi and five of his comrades flying

air tests on red China’s brand new J11 fighter.

Saw many old planes in formation, props and je...

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GHOST DANCERS

Ghost dancing through the night so haunting and so mystical,

ghosts are all around you if you know where to look.

Mysterious ghost ships sail on dark eternal seas forever and ever.

Ghostly figures prance through the dark slender trees on a Winters’

moonlit night.

Maybe one day we too will be ghosts if we die in the right way

but now we can n...

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