Be careful roving in the pitch black,
You may not be alone,
There are things otherworldly within it,
Shadow given life,
The darklings,
Sunless imitations of men and women,
Never in focus,
But always staring,
Through intermittent ivory fireflies,
Hiding from your gas lamp,
They may mean no harm,
Be they ghosts or demons or fiction,
But when you can’t perceive their presence,
Their approach,
Would you take the chance?
Within my domicile crypt,
I like to rest in peace,
Undisturbed like a cursed corpse,
Coated in cobwebs and empty cans,
Corpseflies and last nights supper,
Most of my day is spent prone,
Procrastinating in oblivion,
Dreaming the day away in ghostly tropes,
A revenant in woolly sheets,
Dead to the world,
But I’m not a vengeful spirit,
I am content in my repose,
My gravestone of a door,
It reads do not disturb.
Before a vital spark can be buried deep,
It must be cleansed,
A soul given its best chance in the hereafter,
So call forth the sin-eater,
This soul worker will consume each lick of evil,
A feast at a funeral,
An ivory plate placed upon the husk,
Bread and grapes and coins pressed into cheese,
A glass of wine to wash down the sins,
The ritual cleanses the dead with knife and fork,
With each bite the deceased soul feels purer,
A spirit growing lighter,
Sanitised,
Absolved,
Saved.
On this night of nights,
Something releases a scream amongst screams,
Did you hear it?
That horror of the night,
That shriek of a feminine guise,
That ear splitting cry,
It came from that thing,
That spectral visage over yonder,
With it the eve grows foreboding,
A woman perhaps,
Beautiful yet horrific,
A monster perhaps,
Enticing yet bloodcurdling,
This season attracts such apparitions,
It comes with the territory,
Spectres abound after all,
So I must ask again,
Did you hear it?
On this night of nights,
The breeze is your only companion,
And it doesn’t mean well,
The aether hereabouts has a will of its own,
You feel a presence I’m sure,
A whisper on the wind,
Seething at the company of living souls,
You’re an unwelcome draught,
An intrusion into the night,
It rides about on the air cackling,
It’s a ghost,
A revenant,
A wraith,
It regards you with gelid eyes,
It moves in a gusty rave of enmity,
A hatred demonstrated on the raised pressure,
Its claws are the chills upon your shoulder,
And this spectre seeks to blow you away,
And it will.
Do not quake fleshlings,
When I wail,
When I shriek,
I do not wish terror upon you,
I yearn only to confess my sins,
I don’t have many guests,
I once lived,
I once loved,
Travelled many malms,
Thrust blades betwixt ribs,
I too suffered through loss and heartache,
I was a sinful man like any other,
I daresay much like you,
So don’t be afraid of my ectoplasmic visage,
Just lead your best life,
You’ll end up like me regardless,
A spectre,
Screeching your sins into the night.
That tenuous line between cognizance and sleep,
It’s a dangerous time for me,
When the sun no longer has my back,
And no valiant comrade can aid me,
The ghouls in my head stir,
Buried there by my own hand,
Silence is the loudest sound,
When the skeletons start to rise,
Dead hopes,
Spectral memories,
Wailing for my attention,
My skull becomes an echo chamber of a cemetery,
It becomes a deafening clarion call,
A deathknell for my peace,
A choir of revenants begin their concert,
Every historical ill laid bare at bellowing audacity,
Clawing at this mausoleum of my head,
Prelude to the nightmares to come.
I am dragged from my sleeping nirvana,
To a bedroom suddenly unfamiliar,
An unseen force holds me in place,
Diabolic manacles upon each limb,
The bed becomes a gaol,
The infinite weight of sleep paralysis,
I feel ominous eyes upon me,
Two corpselights in the corner,
Limpid apertures flaunting hells own fires,
Fixated upon me like an eagle spying prey,
There’s a malice behind them,
A demonic spite,
Ice-cold dread burning as the eyes approach,
Twin lasers cutting into my very bones,
As the eyes draw close,
Enough to feel the abominable heat,
Swelter emanating from them as if breathing,
They simply stare in ghoulish hate,
Holding inches away with their malicious effusion,
Feasting upon my soul in its throes of terror,
Until the morning comes with banishing sun.
From my silken casket,
I am dragged to cognizance,
By painful aural hooks,
The night pierced by an unseen cacophony,
An orchestral banshee wail on the lawn,
Illuminated by a crescent in emerald hues,
Moonlight through a lens of wisps,
From my dusty window I spy a dread throng,
An assembly of ghouls,
Skeletons of the closet,
Bony fingers clasped on to instruments of every kind,
Shrieking stagnant air into flutes from lungs long rotten,
Guided by a softly groaning conductor,
Hollow cavities reading from songsheets comprised of past mistakes,
Their mournful tune sings dead memories into my mind,
And I can’t help but well up,
Their revenant of a chrous is anathema to my balance,
Brass and woodwind accuse in shrill tones,
Violins pinching at my arms with raucous timbre,
A melody that shan’t allow me to rest guiltless again,
And the flutes parade ever on.
A car savaged me,
Its radiator like sharks teeth,
It took my leg unapologetically,
Churned it right up,
Red mist and bone fragments,
Gnashing going gone,
Late at night,
When the memory of that car returns,
Like a hunter in the periphery,
Laying in my abode,
The pangs return,
With no method to sate them,
My leg is now a ghost,
A screaming phantom,
Naught but a flaccid stump,
With but a memory of flesh,
It shrieks into the night,
With syllables of itching agony,
My limb is a disaster zone,
Laid to waste by a steel tornado,
A constant reminder of that beast,
A grave site,
With an epitaph,
Etched in constant painful emptiness.
WorldofHarley 