Annabelle

Roll up,
Come in please,
Welcome to our museum of the occult,
We hold all manner of oddities,
Relics of the other side,
Like this here unsettling portrait,
Dark scrolls and dimensional mirrors,
And like this Raggedy Ann,

I didn’t hear any giggling,
No wooden footsteps either,
Are you sure?

Don’t mind the doll,
I don’t think she likes you,
But she’s well-behaved most of the time,
Well there was this one incident,
She roams about at times,
This is no typical plaything,
Possessed?
Oh maybe,

You feel breathing next to your ear?
Where’s the doll?
Her glass cabinet lies empty.

Onryo

In life,
She had been maltreated,
Abused and beaten,
Betrayed and scarred,
Cruelly slain for another by her husband,
A sakura petal singed by life,
But she came back,
Revenge being an ironclad anchor,

She walks the world again,
Animated by rancor,
Snow white skin,
Black hair like a frayed funeral veil,
Draped in ivory kimono,
That which began as hatred for a husband,
Is now hate for life itself,
She’s no longer finical on her victims,

She’s now a dark spirit,
They say she stops hearts,
She will find you,
Crawling from under the bed,
Bones cracking and rasping breaths,
Eyes wide with spite,
Her breathless stare shall be your last sight,
And her vengeance be done.

Ordinary Room

Welcome to my ordinary bedroom,
Such as it is,
It’s not much but it’s home,
It’s not frightful at all,
Ghosts and ghouls?
Never heard of them,
It’s just ordinary here,
Mundane,

Please make yourself comfy,
Don’t mind the red running down the wall,
The flies converging in that corner,
Those aren’t bats roosting on the ceiling,
Nor are those shadows moving on their own,
Pay no attention to that low chanting,
Or the scratching under the bed,
It’s like any other home,

Indeed it’s not much but it’s home,
Don’t you find it snug?
Just don’t look in the mirror,
She doesn’t like that,
And when the lights go low,
Don’t mind the figure,
The one at the foot of the bed,
It’s totally ordinary.

Reef

Beware that reef child,
It is a graveyard,
A hodgepodge of stony dragons teeth,
Full of great timber titans,
The sound of torn sails and creaking hulls,
And salt-wrapped spectres,

These wrecks are a diorama,
Skeletons still at their posts,
As if frozen in glass,
Awaiting orders that shall never come,
Sailors picked clean by the reef,
Feed for the crabs and fish,

It’s a morbid monument at sea,
Whorled in mist and deathly cries,
It harkens back to a past of seafaring,
Of piracy and exploration and glory,
A time now only whispered,
Upon dead men’s tongues.

Banshee

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?

The Wisp

The bog is woken up,
The murkiest waters even animate,
Murk becoming effulgent,
That fell flame hovering there,
The waters surface reflects it,
Phosphorescent in its disquiet,
Like a canvas painted by ghosts,
Some machination of the spirit realm,

That dread light,
It’s a foreboding lighthouse in the black,
Offering not salvation,
But a watery grave,
Is it a ghost?
Is it purely folklore?
Or is there a more cogent cause?
Science offering some motive.

Wind Wraith

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.

Confessions Of A Ghost

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.

Graveyard

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.

Flutes At Night

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.