Our Dandelion Scribes Halloween Holiday Special is inspired by Frances Denise’s “This Tired Bench.” Beginning with the lines, Here I am again on this tired bench / Sitting with the ghosts of old stories—the poem invites us to imagine the ghosts that haunt us as stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
We asked poets near & far to tell their own ghost stories: to consider the spirits that seem to sit with us through grief & fear, that challenge our understanding, that bring chaos as well as comfort, that enhance clarity, that reinforce contradiction. The result is a collection of complicated hauntings—both welcome and not—reaching a whole range of emotional experiences and inviting our pasts to speak in the present.
Some of the ghostly poems published below pay homage to our ancestors, honoring & remembering those who came before. Some reveal the darkness that lives within our own souls. Some offer a retelling of folkloric tales, drawing inspiration from literature & mythology. Some connect with the collective while others are deeply personal. Some seek to recount lessons learned. Some sink further into the depths of despair. However, whether real or imagined, each haunting carries truth, and each poem provides a glimpse into the spiritual nature of our shared humanity. Our stories live with us and within us, shaping our lives, asking us to commune & converse with ghosts.
— Table of Contents —
Chapter 1: Ghosts by Olivia Gilreath
Chapter 2: Shadow Person by Kristen Reid
Chapter 3: Daddy by Kate Lawder
Chapter 4: Stories That Carry My Voice by Puanani Lalakea
Chapter 5: Excursion by George Fillingham
Chapter 6: Sick Bed by Cora Dean
Chapter 7: Moonlight Ghost by Brandy Warren
Chapter 8: Poltergeist & Other Poems by Cameron Lyric Cox
Chapter 9: My Ghosts by Elizabeth Cornett
Chapter 10: The Cackle of Crows by KB Ballentine
Chapter 11: The Light Falls Away by Susan W. Bues
Chapter 12: In the Empty Room by Tanner Cooper-Risser
Chapter 13: Forged in Fog: Revisited by Bobbie Jean
Chapter 14: Beneath the Shadowed Moon by Olivia Croley
Chapter 15: Our Spirits Shall Sorrow No More by Kory Wells
Chapter 16: Travels Down Strawberry Rd. by Anton L. Miller
Chapter 17: The Dark by Amethyst Drake
Chapter 18: Gathering Gray by Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
Chapter 19: A Country of Ghosts by Peyton Coonfield
Chapter 20: Bestie and the Ghost by Jolene Rice
Chapter 21: The In-Between by Christian Olson
Chapter 22: Old Haunts by the Sonnet Sisters
Chapter 23: The Sky & The World by Dane Osborne
Chapter 24: Maple Spirit by Mackenzie Laird
Chapter 25: Stitched from Fog & Sorrow by Sheena Fry King
Chapter 26: Apocalyptic Prophecies by Brandon Thorpe
Chapter 27: a ghost that lives by the dithyrambler
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 1:
Ghosts
by Olivia Gilreath
GHOSTS
Beneath the moon, when shadows grow,
The silent ghosts begin to flow.
They wander softly through the night,
Like faded stars without their light.
A whisper trembles through the hall,
A cold hand brushes on the wall.
They carry stories, lost and old,
Of whispered names and secrets told.
But ghosts are not all there to fright—
Some simply miss the warmth of light.
So when the midnight wind has passed,
Remember: nothing living lasts.
And if you hear a gentle sigh
Or footsteps where no feet walk by,
Perhaps a lonely soul has come
To say goodbye… or just stay home.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 2:
Shadow Person
by Kristen Reid
SHADOW PERSON
You haunt me—
like a specter of hopelessness—
a thing without flesh—
that nevertheless
knows where to linger inside me.
You remind me
of the slow undoing of my mind—
of the clock devouring itself, clicking its time—
each second another small death
of the person I once was.
What I once was…
What I once knew…
What I once believed I would be and do…
You stand in the corner of my room
where you blot out the light—
a shadow wearing my face.
You do not speak.
You do not have to.
You only taunt everything I could have been.
You haunt me with this truth.
I have lost my talent,
or perhaps I have buried it so deep
that I no longer remember where it exists.
Even now,
as I pull these words from my mouth,
I feel the absence of something sacred.
The passion is gone.
The depth has thinned.
The soul I once poured
into every sentence
has become a corpse of rotting potential within.
You crawl beneath my skin—
possessing my marrow—
placing pain where creation used to live.
And the cruelest part…
I am you.
I am the shadow person in the room.
I am the shadow of who
I could have been.
There is no salt
to draw a circle around me,
nor sage to smoke me from the corners,
nor prayer that knows my name.
So, I accept the haunting—
your presence in that corner—
watching,
waiting,
reminding me of the me before death.
But I will haunt you, too.
I will become the thing that cannot be buried.
You may haunt me.
You may whisper what I have lost.
You may show my corpse upon the bed of loss.
But despite your presence,
and the ruin.
I continue.
I will live.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 3:
Daddy
by Kate Lawder
DADDY
last night, I dreamed of you again
I can’t recall the plot,
just the smell of old leather
motor oil & newport 100s
and a man like you
but different
same scent, same authority
on a new body
when I rose I tasted salt
to know I never knew you
only your costume
wranglers boots bolos
pearl snap plaids
a child, still grieving the ghost
you created
before you died
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 4:
Stories That Carry My Voice
by Puanani Lalakea
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
GHOST STORIES ON THE BEACH
I once had a coach who had the team run
wind sprints on the beach
after every practice.
I remember wishing that practice wouldn’t end,
that’s how much I loathed running
wind sprints on the beach
Every time I tried to take a step,
the sand swallowed my feet,
mocking my desire for speed,
each stride an argument.
The sand saying, “not so fast.”
My body screaming, “let me fly!”
A bitter battle
that young me wanted desperately to win,
but the sand kept swallowing my feet
and I kept wishing practice wouldn’t end.
Almost fifty years have passed since my wind sprint days.
The sand still swallows my feet,
except now it feels like an embrace,
an invitation into sacred story.
A cacophony of memories clamor for my attention;
each grain of sand has a unique story to share
about a million years ago
when they used to be coral.
When they lived in the womb of creation.
One tells of traveling all the way from Australia.
Another explains he wanted to stay close to home, so he chose to land here because he used to be a polyp,
“just over there”
on the reef that protects this beach.
This one babbles about the busyness that was the ocean
when the ocean was the home to the whole of Creation.
The one kissing the arch of my right foot
shares a story of growing up watching the sun swim light deep into the sea.
Almost fifty years have passed since my wind sprint days.
We no longer argue, the sand and I.
I snuggle my feet a little deeper.
“Not so fast,” I whisper,
and the sand laughs,
“Look, you’re flying!”
⚘
PLAYING WITH G.H.O.S.T.s
Golden halos on
sunbathed toddlers
grace humanity.
Offering soul truths.
Good happens often.
See the
glimmers.
Hugging ordinary sanctity.
Touch
grateful hearts.
Open sacred
treasures.
Gather holy offerings.
Silence tumult.
⚘
GHOSTS STORIES
Ghosts with old stories
frolic in my brain
They create a cobweb clutter
sticky threads stretched tight
silencing stories too scary to tell
Today, I confront my ghosts.
They don’t understand
They have spent a lifetime protecting me
“We kept you safe,” they soothe
“When no one else would.”
“You did,” I reply.
“But now, you haunt me.”
They speak
my mother’s voice
and gasp at my words
“I have a new story,”
I pause,
“Or maybe it’s an old story?
A story that carries
my voice.
A story I was born to live.”
“Oh, sweetie,” they quiet,
“You’re just nervous.”
They steal the voice of the ocean
rhythmically whispering
“Shh. Shh. Shh.”
They know this always brings comfort
They settle into a smirk
Confident
they will be allowed
to keep the old stories
The stories that keep me small.
Today, I feast on their confidence.
“There are new stories!” I stomp.
“Baby stories hidden in the cobwebs.
I see them.
MY stories!
Stories that carry my voice.
Stories that offer courage.
Stories that expand the soul.”
“Please,” I continue, taking a deep breath,
“sweep out the old stories.
We don’t need them anymore.”
“We need room
for the stories crying to live.
I need you,
your strength,
your tenacity,
your help.”
My ghosts nod,
Solemnly, they raise their right hands
and speak as one voice
and I realize, with a start,
they are speaking my voice,
a chrism to anoint,
their vow to protect
the once silenced stories
I smile.
I love my ghosts.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 5:
Excursion
by George Fillingham
EXCURSION
“How can I start over?
How can I truly start clean?”
–Frances Denise
If you’re going down
there’s no stopping.
The stagnant water smell
permeates the place
where you crash.
A strong blood stench
reminds you of wars.
Brutal fights continue.
Yet nothing stirs.
Then you hear
the stagnant water swirl.
You realize your
true nightmare.
You have no one
to guide you. You
were caught red handed.
You will never be tried.
Everything you’ve done
is shouted back at you.
Tears are useless.
Fear is now your joy.
All you’ll know is suffering.
You watch your hopes recede.
You finally know your breed.
That is, if you’re going down.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 6:
Sick Bed
by Cora Dean
SICK BED
Our bed sits in a plague room.
Coughs break the silence.
It radiates off of you like decaying flesh
with each and every goodnight kiss.
You hold me like rigor mortis has set in.
Sometimes you assure me that we aren’t sick
As the satin sheets slice my skin.
Most of the time you keep your distance
As if I’m the one who brought this death in.
It takes everything that I have left
To find courage and speak for myself.
I’m reminded that you know me
Better than any words I could express.
Too weak to elaborate, I just exist.
And here I lay on this empty bed
Haunted by the ghost of what we had.
I remember the words of grandma death
And the time you’d told me miracles must exist.
That was before the consumption reached your chest.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 7:
Moonlight Ghost
by Brandy Warren
MOONLIGHT GHOST
Wood smoke bears a ghost,
haunting with its acrid float
from cast-iron door,
its latching click a tell of warmth
come into night's crawling cold.
Ghost of lover's flame,
its smoke rising up.
From sated embers gold sparks
floating into purpling, cold sky.
Hazy, fluffy flume fast away,
sex ghost in it.
Wood smoke ghost, insate, invisible
filters into moonlight, billows,
searching, moaning lovely lust.
Settles, wraps its warming gift
to raptures sought.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 8:
Poltergeist & Other Poems
by Cameron Lyric Cox
POLTERGEIST
You come in with your crystals and sage
looking to exorcise the ghost.
Its wailing rage keeps you up at night
and you can’t stand the rattling pots and pans
You hold your silver cross keeping the blessing close
and keep away the spirit that haunts you
Crying out in pain that you can’t look in the face
Fear is easier than empathy.
There’s no need to find out why it’s here
Why would you care to spare a thought,
let alone a deeper look?
Your comfort, after all, must be preserved
So cast out the restless spirit in an early grave
and look away from the injustice
so your own peace can be saved.
⚘
KILL THE BOYS
We need to kill the boys
Because a child is a child
Regardless of their genitals, but
Boys will be boys
And girls mature faster
Because boys are allowed to be boys
But girls can never raise their voices.
It's not ladylike.
And boys will be boys
But girls can't get messy or track in mud;
Somebody is going to have to clean that up,
So go get the broom and mop.
And boys will be boys, but
Girls have to consider others first, every time.
Don't wear those shorts when your uncle comes to visit
Because boys will be boys
And no girl has ever been given the grace of
“That's just how he is"
And no girl has the luxury of
Not knowing how to read a room
A girl is precise and intentional
Whether she knows it or not.
Nothing is allowed to be an accident when you're a girl.
Because boys will be boys and girls mature faster
So kill the concept of boyhood
And let all kids be girls
With the same standards and expectations
Some girls will grow into women
And some into men.
I cannot fathom a world in which a man
Who has been taught since birth
To never put himself first
And to always anticipate the needs of others
Wouldn't be a better kind of man.
⚘
CERREN ERED
I wake up to the buzz of electricity,
And stare at the cold light coming from the screen
Hunched over my desk
Back aching from the weight of modernity
Glancing at the calendar, my heart leaps
The full moon tonight will take me there
A place so distant, and yet so close
Timeless and everlasting
With dirt paths and a fire that never stops burning
To dance to the beat of a thousand drums
The past is etched into the ancient trees
The future found in flickering flame
Water flows carrying whispers of eternity
Cool wind carrying the voices of the present
My soul longs for those sacred grounds
Where the spirits sing out
Welcome Home
⚘
QUIET
I always have some music on,
A podcast playing,
Or the TV in the background.
I've never liked the quiet
When the sound of electricity becomes deafening
The buzz of fluorescent lights
The hum of cooling units for
Computers and refrigerators
It's all I can hear and it unsettles me
So I drown out the sound of quiet
With more noise.
I can't even sleep without it
But, when the power goes out,
all goes dark, and the electricity is cut off
And all I hear is the rustle of leaves
Chirping of birds, clicking of insect wings
The subtle sound of the wind in the trees
The quiet doesn't bother me.
I feel at peace.
⚘
BLOODY FLOWERS
The youth yearn for revolution,
And I'll admit, so do I,
But the revolution that I yearn for
Is slow.
The youth, impatient and convinced of their own immortality
The privileged, protected by their race or sex,
Or living in sanctuary cities, insulated from
The true scope of evil in this land
They would see a bloody violent revolution
They fantasize about uprising
Fighting
Without a thought in their empty heads of what that truly means.
There is no Mockingjay, no Chosen One, no Boy who Lived.
The only girls on fire
Will be screaming as the napalm burns their skin down to the bone
The revolution wished for by the privileged
Would see those they claim to want to fight for
Fertilizing the soil with their corpses
Growing flowers watered in blood.
Through patience, perseverance, and incremental change
I know we could see a revolution
A loving revolution
A revolution of hearts and minds coming together
To say no to hatred
Let us fight with our voices and our wallets
And not seek the bloody flowers
Growing atop a mass grave.
⚘
IS THIS PROGRESS?
From concrete soil, a jungle springs
Of carbon fiber, glass, and steel beams
Work to keep your children fed
Hope you see them before you’re dead
Strain your eyes to fluorescent lights
Forget whether it’s day or night
You can never stop, no time to rest,
There is no end to this quest
If you’re hurt just take a pill
If you can’t work, someone else will
So don’t entertain a thought of quitting
We are all slaves to the electricity
Mother Nature cries for those She cannot save
But we’ll return to her comfort, in the grave.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 9:
My Ghosts
by Elizabeth Cornett
MY GHOSTS
Sitting with ghosts you say?
Well, I dance with them every day.
Ghosts of the way things used to be,
Before getting bogged down in pain, fear, hatred, idolatry, misogyny…
The list could go on but I need a break.
There is only so much a soul can take.
It’s no wonder they linger in my ear;
A whisper, a moan.
Their injustices buried and reduced, just another video on another phone.
Is that all we can be good for?
If so, we’ll have many ghosts more.
Crying out to the desensitized living to be heard,
But with the way we all speak over one another, will we even hear a word?
It’s come to the point that I do not fear the dead, but the living.
So careless and conditional with their giving.
Therefore, here I am to dance with the ghosts.
The poor souls ignored when they needed love the most.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 10:
The Cackle of Crows
by KB Ballentine
NOT QUITE A GHOST
Caught in the reverie
of mountains, sunset
gilding each ridge,
contours sharp and stark,
I am surprised
by a whisper of air.
A chorus of starlings
skims past – brushing
the sky, wings severing
dusk’s hush.
Now the cackle of crows
haunts the hickories,
breaks the twilight glow,
reminder of the last time
you loved me – sometimes
I think maybe you still do.
But goodbye lives
in my mind, loneliness
inching in with this winter
night’s chill.
In the hollow of your words
I hear your heart.
⚘
YEAR OF FIRSTS
Today, a year ago, is the last day
you will be alive. 364 days we’ve lived
without you. I thought about every holiday,
your birthday, but I forgot to count this.
This last day. Rain and fog shroud everything
this morning, but this time last year frost
crazed and crackled the windows, the yard.
Splinters of ice when Mom woke me,
no echo of breath on the mirror she held.
We have dredged every shadow seeking
glimmers, lightning to spark our hearts –
only a faint buzz in our darkness. Do we draw
flowers, splash color across these dull days
– only the glory of your days, your life to light
our way? Each of us a flash that will turn
to clay, to ash, to stardust.
⚘
THESE DAYS
This gray and pearly day
wants me to linger
in the warmth of your embrace.
Your breath on my neck,
I snuggle into your chest
and, even sleeping,
you reach out to hold me.
How can I make a standing stone
of this moment? How much
more can I savor your love?
Sweet lover, most tender of hearts –
let these words caress you
like my lips on your skin.
Remember us like this.
⚘
SESTINA FOR SAMHAIN
Mornings stretch slowly out of shadow
then a brisk nudge of clouds across the moon,
and the day blossoms into amber and russet leaves.
Past bleached bones of limestone, the river drifts with early mist,
woods screaming with blue jays and tangled with ghosts.
Scraps of sun scuffle through cedars like flickering candles.
Cider and hot chocolate, a catastrophe of candles
will deepen winter’s claim, shadows
of wings erasing the sky. A murder of crows ghosts
limbs that scrabble and scurry clouds, moon
flaunting herself, sparking the stars. Mist
will chill and frost every edge like icing – leaves
shifting shade even as we watch. Leaves
the color of blood and beak and candle-
flame. The last thread of joy as shadows
knit with smoke. Campfire, hearth fire, shadowed
and charred, pebble into coal under a moon
trimmed to a crescent. Harvests rubbled with ghosts
of past Octobers, of summers gone. Ghosts
that seed the season with melancholy and leave
us wanting. We know the milk and honey moons
are months away when mock-orange and candle-
glow of magnolias will sweeten shadows.
Screech owls, black-crowned night herons now grasp the mist.
River rises, steams with thin and hungry mist.
It hovers over the valley, its ghostly
haze clouding, erasing an egret’s shadow
as it broods along the bank then stretches its wings to leave,
not even a ripple in the stars but a soaring candle
rending the fog, vanishing where the moon
curves, sickles the sky as it blues. No moon
shares her secrets when she crouches with mist.
Each of these days diminishes by leaf and blossom, candle-
bats crowding every lamp and porch light. Ghost
aromas of pears and apples tinge the air, leave
cinnamon, clove, and ginger spicing the shadows.
Hickories and oaks scratch the moon, branches creaking, ghost
arms in the mist on this last day of fairies and goblins. No more vivid leaves
to ruffle the shadows. Only a pumpkin and a smoldering candle.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 11:
The Light Falls Away
by Susan W. Bues
A LATE AUTUMN EVENING ON SHADOW CHURCH LANE
The sun lowers herself slowly
into the dark a little earlier
as we creep toward the solstice,
as if needing to hide from the oncoming gloom.
The light falls away too soon.
The scent of dry leaves and the last few apples
from the orchard across the way
are carried on a thin breeze.
A rustling in the grass hints of a scurrying animal
intent on safe harbor before nightfall.
Overhead a southbound vee of geese
noisily settle into their evening roost;
their plaintive cries assure one another
as each is accounted for on the pond;
they are ready for this night’s rest.
As if to ward off a little chill, instinctively
tugging the collar of my coat up,
I feel my shoulders rise, even though
the evening is still quite mild.
There is nothing to fear.
⚘
UNDER THE PINK MOON
Scampering and skittering gleefully along,
beneath the toadstools and over the damp moss,
rolling and slipping through the night-grass,
intent on their malevolent handiwork, the faeries
are outside to play under the full pink moon.
Lured by the balmy spring evening the townspeople
are blissfully unaware, vulnerable to the mischief
of the night denizens. Intent on a hole punched in a tire here,
a drop of poison dripped there, a snatched lamb or chick,
the sprites scurry toward their malicious nocturnal sport.
“Ah! The old witch has caught our scent! Away through
the wood and let us hide in this old oak’s cavity!”
“Nay, she’s after us still – off through the bog! But
beware the old bullfrog – he’ll gobble ye for spite!” as
they turn and leap from fern to trillium across the forest floor.
The brilliant round night-sky goddess surveys the unfolding
devilry below and refuses to be dimmed by cloud.
Veteran of many a battle with goblins and their familiars,
the good witch has near daylight vision under the orb’s light
as she chases the unwelcome visitors from her village.
Hearing a satisfied deep gulp and croak from the wily bullfrog,
she smiles and skips back to her cottage. Duty bound to protect
her people in exchange for peace and a blind eye to her craft,
she resumes her incantations, ever vigilant on this wide moon
night that would be rife with menace if no one were watching.
⚘
VISION IN THE MIST
Elusive spirit hiding
Reveal yourself to me
Come out, come out
Are you in the mist
coming through the open window
Or in the pale moonlight
Breathe into my body
We’ll be one
We’ll be together again
Now and forever
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 12:
In the Empty Room
by Tanner Cooper-Risser
GHOST
I
Sit
Alone
On a bench
When I hear a sneeze.
Hello? I look around to see
I am still alone. My skin begins to feel so cold.
I remember past loved ones and ones I ran from and then another sneeze with a breeze.
My arms arise with goosebumps when I hear the gentle whisper “goodbye” and then I know, somehow, I am alone again with only my thoughts…
⚘
HAUNTED MANSION
Out the window light,
I see you standing up there,
In the empty room.
The abandoned house
With one light filled attic room
Sits the little girl.
She gazes at me
When I peer up at the house
Beckoning me in.
I could never go,
But yet I feel her presence
Little ghost she is.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 13:
Forged in Fog: Revisited
by Bobbie Jean
FORGED IN FOG: REVISITED
I remember sitting in that forest
The stench of mold and death laid heavy in my lungs
Still does, even if that night seems
So far in the past
I finally found a way out of there
Not the forest,
the building I was left in when they found me
But the forest is my next stop
.
.
.
I hear the whispers of the ghosts—
The exact same voices, too
Maybe they’re back to haunt me for what I’ve done
I don’t regret anything I did that night
I don’t regret cursing them
I don’t regret taunting them
I don’t regret morphing into them
I was scared, yes, but it didn’t deter my own nature
Now they’re more aggressive;
Winds running wild, twigs forever snapping
The banshee still screams
Only louder this time around
Do they believe I care?
I don’t believe they are real
anyways.
Maybe they’re upset at the fact I played like them;
Perfected the role to a point where the spirits couldn’t confirm if
I was a real person
I know I am a real person.
I know I am a real person.
I am real .
I m a person…
am
I a real person?
no .
Do you hear that?
They are already trying to get back at me;
Telling everybody my business.
Excuse my laughter, it’s just that
nobody will believe them anyways!
The outsiders still think I’m dead.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 14:
Beneath the Shadowed Moon
by Olivia Croley
THE WEIGHT OF UNSPENT CRAYONS
I folded my youth into a small prayer,
its edges frayed, left gasping for air.
The earth took him, and with it, the girl,
who danced in shadows, her hair a swirl.
What does a heart do, robbed of its spring?
It writes its sadness into everything.
His hands now gone, the sky feels too vast,
a mirror clinging to pieces of the past.
I buried my laughter with the garden stones,
its echo caught in the silence of bones.
Even the moon seems heavier tonight,
as if it, too, must mourn the light.
But grief walks slow—its weight is divine,
it taught me stillness, one breath at a time.
⚘
THE SPECTER OF ALMOST
I met it beneath the shadowed moon,
A whisper woven from life’s old ruin,
Its breath was damp, a chilled monsoon,
A hymnless ghost, neither late nor soon.
It carried my face in a fragile guise,
Eyes like mirrors, twin wells of skies,
Each stare a ledger of silent lies,
Grief-laden rivers where hope unties.
“Do you recall the songs unsung?"
It asked, its voice like a broken lung,
Words clung to my tongue, tightly strung,
The weight of could-have-been far-flung.
It reached for my hand—cold soot to fire,
A fusion of dread and quiet desire,
Its form dissolved, a wraith to expire,
Yet left behind its ash-stained lyre.
I wake now, haunted by threads once sewn,
An echo lingering, a loss unknown,
My heart a sepulcher, overthrown,
By the ghost of lives I’ve never known.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 15:
Our Spirits Shall Sorrow No More
by Kory Wells
OUR SPIRITS SHALL SORROW NO MORE
after Sanford F. Bennett, “In the Sweet By and By”
*Publication Note: This poem was originally published in Deep South Magazine. Listen to Kory perform this poem with her daughter Kelsey playing the banjo on Spotify or SoundCloud.
In the sweet
moments, I forget you’re gone.
I picture you in your red-checkered kitchen,
skillet popping grease, peas and pearl onions
in the pot, morsel to your mouth. Needs more salt.
Then we’re on the porch, between us a TV tray,
all the implements for a manicure.
Even now I relax, thinking how gently
you’d file and buff my fingernails,
like you had all the time in the world
to pamper a little girl. But there was always
supper to cook, clothes to wash,
beds to make, errands to run, until
by and by
the news came late one night.
I was washing clothes for my own family,
pressed for time to reply to your last letter,
and you were suddenly gone.
A little bird flew by my car window
all the way to your funeral. A sudden breeze
whipped through the clapboard church
when we sang “In the Garden.” These were signs
we shall meet
again, of this I am certain.
You spoke often of the time you stepped back
from your ironing into the ghost of your daddy.
You knew things for reasons you couldn’t explain:
when the phone was going to ring, when a visitor
was due, when you were going to die. So I must ask:
with all your great connections to the other side, why
have you not come to see me, except in my dreams?
Except for the occasional whiff of gardenia perfume
I catch when no one else is around?
Maybe you’d say you’re worried I’d be spooked,
but I don’t think that’s it. I think somewhere
on that beautiful shore
you’re having too much fun.
I can hear you now, laughing and singing duets
with Conway – at least until Loretta comes,
eating fresh peaches and crispy fried chicken
as good as if you’d cooked it,
and sitting on the porch of an evening
with your mama and daddy and sisters,
retelling your favorite stories
of spirits and ghosts.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 16:
Travels Down Strawberry Rd.
by Anton L. Miller
TRAVELS DOWN STRAWBERRY RD
This life has led me down many roads
Some made me follow the sweet fragrance of the Goldenrods
Like a sailor blindly following a sirens song
While others led me towards the desolation of burned out trailers
And left me asphyxiating like I had chain-smoked a carton of Cowboy killers
The first lulled me into a sense of safety as though life would always be serene and made me want to stay still
While the other almost left me too scared and scarred to ever want to think about taking another step forward
But as the years slowly sauntered on and I kept stomping forward
I realized that both of these roads were necessary for my journey
So as I spray paint my own Yellow Brick Road moving forward
I can never forget about those old gravel roads that led me here
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 17:
The Dark
by Amethyst Drake
THE DARK
I tried to see in the dark
I the cold, abiding dark!
Searching
For something like a path forward
but there are things in the dark
in the blackened, hellish dark!
Twisted, broken things
that hide from the sun
Am I one of them?
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 18:
Gathering Gray
by Joshua Walker, The Last Bard
GHOST OF THE GLASS
The bathroom mirror has a crack
through the place my mouth should be.
I keep meaning to replace it.
Some nights I pull up a chair
and sit with the man on the other side.
He wears the shirt I sleep in,
my father’s gathering gray.
I used to search his face
for someone I could bring back—
the boy before he learned
to check a room before he laughed.
Tonight I leave the questions alone.
The pipes knock inside the wall.
Someone upstairs runs a bath.
He looks tired.
I have spent years mistaking that
for something wrong with him.
When I lean close enough
to rest my forehead against his,
the glass is cold.
We stay until it isn’t.
⚘
ODE TO THE GHOSTER
Your profile said you loved to laugh.
I took this as an opening,
not a request for references.
We had one drink.
You said we should do this again.
Apparently, you meant separately.
Now I sit with your ghost
on the couch, checking my phone.
You’re remarkably easy to host.
No dietary restrictions.
No opinions about what we watch.
Occasionally, you appear
in the little row of people
who have seen my story.
For someone without a body,
you get around.
I could delete our conversation,
but then I’d lose the evidence
that for eleven messages
we both liked the same terrible movie.
I scroll back.
You were wrong about the ending.
I almost tell you.
⚘
THE GHOST I HAUNT
The boy in my old bedroom
has asked me to stop coming back.
He has homework spread across the carpet,
a song he wants to hear
without knowing why I’ll remember it.
I sit on the edge of his bed.
He keeps working.
Everything I touch becomes evidence:
the dent in the door,
the shoes lined up for a quick departure,
the window painted shut.
He asks whether I came
to tell him something good.
I tell him we get out.
He waits for the rest.
Downstairs, someone calls him to dinner.
He walks straight through me.
I want to follow,
to tell him which voices he will miss.
But he has left his homework open,
and I have made him late enough.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 19:
A Country of Ghosts
by Peyton Coonfield
A COUNTRY OF GHOSTS
She smells it in the Earth whenever it rains—
petrichor
mixed with the tears of lost souls
who once walked this soil.
The ground curdles between her toes.
Bare feet—
barren—
pressing into a grave.
Each step desecrates someone she loved.
Friends.
Family.
Lovers.
This was once a beautiful country.
She tilts her head toward the sky,
closes her eyes,
lets the rain reach for her face—
but it turns to ash.
Dusty confetti falls from the heavens.
A small child sticks out their tongue
to savor the blessing.
Angels must live up there.
Cover your mouth.
Why?
A wrist is grabbed.
Pulled.
Hard.
Feet stumble—
too small, too slow—
the child cries
and cries
for release.
Snot and tears smear down their shirt.
Breath breaks.
The mother stops.
Kneels.
Wipes agony from the child’s face.
Kisses their forehead.
We are going on vacation.
We have to hurry.
Do not delay.
Sirens sing—
a haunting melody
that swallows the sky.
Running.
Running.
Running—
then—
black.
Weightless.
Cold.
The rain settles.
The ghosts loosen their grip.
She stands before a collapsed building—
concrete folded inward,
rebar blooming like broken ribs.
Something pale sleeps beneath it.
Her mouth fills with rust.
Bitter water gathers under her tongue.
She bends, hands braced on shaking knees,
breathing through a body
that wants to empty itself
onto the dead.
The earth smells wrong here—
too sweet,
too wet.
This was home.
She presses her bare feet deeper into the mud,
into names the ground still remembers,
and the rain keeps falling—
as if it doesn’t know
what it’s washing over.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 20:
Bestie and the Ghost
by Jolene Rice
BESTIE AND THE GHOST
When my best friend passed away, it ripped my heart out. We knew it was coming. Even so, nothing prepares you for that life-changing pain. My bestie was closer to me than my family. So much so that many of her family members adopted me as their own.
She left different people gifts in her will. Jewelry to her sister. Her sister-in-law, a painting. Her brother, the family Bible. I got a dishwasher. You may be thinking, ‘what a strange gift?’ I asked for practical gifts when questioned. Such as tools, a rechargeable flash light or a golf umbrella. We had talked for years. Weighing the pros and cons of getting a dishwasher. Now it was go time. I wasn’t going to get rid of the gift my bestie left me.
Every day, when I come home from work, my dog meets me at the door with a toy. One day he didn’t meet me. I found him in the kitchen staring at the dishwasher. It wasn’t till I patted him on the head that he finally noticed me.
A couple nights later, I woke to discover he wasn’t in the bed with me. He had taken all his toys and piled them up in front of the dishwasher. He was curled up asleep.
One of the things we did, my bestie, her husband and me; almost every night we ate dinner together. Now, I cook most of the stuff she fixed. It never tastes as good as when she made it. But it’s a little piece of having her with me.
We ate. Cleaned up the kitchen. Then went for a walk. Imagine my surprise when I came home and found a plate, fork, and a half-drunk pop on the table. When I take Chico out, I never lock my house. Our walks are around the yard. Was it possible that someone snuck in, ate and left? Just to be on the safe side, I searched every inch of my house.
One evening I made fried pies. They sat out to cool. Upon returning to the kitchen, I saw a pile of crumbs on the table. As if someone had stood there eating a couple of the small pies. That mess wasn’t there when I left, was it? I cleaned the table off. Right? I shrugged my shoulders.
Was I loosing my mind?
This started happening more and more. I would find half-empty cans of pop, tea or coffee cups. Empty popcorn bags. It was strange enough that half-empty pop cans were on the kitchen table but what made it even weirder; they were a brand I didn’t drink. And the tea, I used tea bags; there were tea pods in the coffee pot.
If someone is breaking into my house, eating then leaving; this person is beyond quiet and for the most part neat.
There is never anything of great value missing, just food. One day as I sat on the couch I screamed, “Idiot! You have security cameras.” No one ever has appeared on the footage. So no one is breaking into my house. And I know Chico isn’t setting the table, eating with a fork and enjoying a cup. If he is, I’m going to be rich and he’s going to be famous.
I found a question mark written out in the icing on a confetti cake. However, a large hunk of a marble cake was gone. A batch of soft chewy oatmeal raisin cookies had been arranged in the shape of a sad face on the plate. The peanut butter cookies were all gone. Chico distracted me and they baked a little too long, for my taste.
There was a night that I caught Chico begging. Standing by the dishwasher on his hind legs. He ate something. I never saw a hand or the food. Just his actions.
I took great comfort in the knowledge that my bestie was coming to visit me. When I fixed something I knew she liked, I sat an extra place for dinner.
One sunny day, we were able to get together and reminisce. I was reminded of a story she told often about living in an apartment with a food ghost. Suddenly it all made sense.
Now, I’m married. He has witnessed the little things that have happened and accepts that they give me comfort. He even shares in my joy when he knows that we are fixing a meal that my bestie would like. He says I seem happier when I know my bestie is coming to dinner.
God has ways of making life’s painful moments not hurt so much.
The End
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 21:
The In-Between
by Christian Olson
DISCONNECT
Your love a ghost
Silent, creeping down the hall
Wakes me in the night
Breathing heavily beside me…
Staring into the darkness, you are past sight,
These fingertips reach but never touch.
Always close but too far away
From what was and is no more.
I pull my blankets up, wrapped around
Closed fists, tucked beneath my chin,
Press my eyelids together tightly –
Dream in the ocean between us.
Hoping it all goes away…
I wake to find you
Blood and bone
Flesh and spirit
Dead alive.
⚘
I write line upon line of poetry
in my mind, speak them to the sky,
or maybe God.
Tumbling like blocks to stack or play –
build walls, only to knock them down.
Sooth my inner child
Appease the feral teen
Interpret the present
Stop the ghosts; haunting my eyes
Peering dead behind fake smiles.
I write exhales of pain
Inhale and reframe, a new name.
Each letter. Of every word. Scribed under
Layers of skin, sinew and bone.
⚘
You come to me naked
Always naked, insecure, bleeding all over,
Clinging for reassurance, validation – yawn.
My body slinks down, unable to move, staying still until I have to…
Carry this thick limbed body,
And your languid limbs dragging behind me.
Sometimes I wonder if you’d crawl inside me,
Wear me like a skin suit if you could.
And I shudder.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 22:
Old Haunts
by the Sonnet Sisters
(warbling treefrog & the dithyrambler)
*Publication Note: This pair of poems was originally published in Old Haunts on The Sonnet Sisters.
The memory of you came through a haze:
saw hyacinths in cemetery plots
whose brightness matched your eyes — I held your gaze,
you pulled me from the grave, then foggy thoughts
turned ghost, past contours coiled from dawn’s mist.
October’s bending oaks mirrored your reach,
a fixed but questing dream; no name left lips
but haunting came as grey waves find cold beach.
Some stars are ghouls from ancient galaxies,
bright souls long gone, who linger in night’s dark.
I map the skies, seek faith in fallacy
that fire is sustained in every spark.
Your trace was in spring flowers, in fall oak,
and carnal might be conjured, so you spoke.
–warbling treefrog
⚘
The girl I was is now a ghost—old haunts
made new. I travel round the strangest town
I’ve ever known: my own. And she who wants
forgot herself, forever looking down
with eyes that trace the stones along the path
to count the pieces of the past and lead
the spirit through a realm where basic math
does not add up and all the numbers bleed
from heaven showing patterns that emerge
in neon signs and license plates and cars,
all driving to the place where worlds converge
and Earth still turns between Venus and Mars.
I died for Love when women lost the war.
Men built a wall—my shape became the door.
–the dithyrambler
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 23:
The Sky & The World
by Dane Osborne
THE WAY OF THE SKY
When crazy wild children finally learn
There is a spirit in the sky, that is a miracle
Of telepathic frequency.
The sky and the world are two different places.
The way of the world is all about
What you can do with your hands
In order to
Make other people happy with you.
People live and kill and die
Just to keep this wheel spinning.
They know not what they do.
All the saints try to warn everybody but why of course nobody ever listens.
The ways of the world are designed to prevent you from seeing the world is not real.
The way of the sky is the intelligence of the spirit.
The way of the sky be the origin of a child's laughter
and the innocent secret language of pure white doves.
The way of the sky will teach you how to cry
At any sight of righteous tender mercy......
when a hard heart becomes soft again, again.
The sky above
will show you real love.
I promise.
⚘
THE ASTRAL MAIDEN’S TEARS
“Rust is the creation of time"
the astral maiden cries.
A whisper in the the dark has the ability
To destroy an illusion and this
Will either create a new day
or shatter an old belief:
The inevitability of Hope and Trauma
both come with either one.
The astral maiden’s tears
Continue with ceaseless abandon
Into the sultry night
And I remind her of dandelions in the sunlight.
⚘
WITHIN A SYSTEM
When disaster strikes with unintended humor,
There is irony to be found.
When there is no humor,
It is what it is: Disaster.
Irony is a form of coincidence.
Synchronicity is when coincidence has meaning.
I withdraw from such meaning because
I refuse to be a slave to meaning.
Meaning implies a system.
Either I will kill the system or else
The system will kill me.
Such is my destiny written by the stars.
Peace and love cannot survive within a system.
Peace And Love Cannot Survive Within A System.
⚘
COMMODITY
My throat is sore
and my wrists ache.
The robots ignore
my complaints
and go on conversing
in code on their
plot to sell vengeance.
⚘
WHEN VENGEANCE MEETS HUMIDITY
Bat-Man takes no shit
While the summer heat kills all
The mystery dead.
⚘
THE SATURNINE FACES ON THE STREET
All around I see
Pale, saturnine faces with heartsick glares
We be born of the delirious age
And our hymns and chants are
But frenzied pleas for the rebirth of passion
And the return
Of the eternal starchild
And her promises
Of cleansing and soothfast mirth.
Oh, let not the celebration of chaotic love
Be a half forgotten dream whilst
We ache and moan under an indifferent sun
With all the rage of Mars.
Oh, let us not become oblivious of
Our starborn flesh.
Night and her Iron hand
Conquer the day.
The saturnine faces move on.
⚘
DREAM-FACE
Her dream-face shone faintly
in the scarce glow of summer night.
Her lips shattered silence.
“Look for me at the edge of night
and we will be cleansed by
the rain” is all she would
say.
She walked away and
the silence returned.
For once, the beast did
not stare.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 24:
Maple Spirit
by Mackenzie Laird
MAPLE SPIRIT
Another chest falls flat
A maple leaf that dropped
Red enough to look alive
Somewhere on a keychain
A rabbit’s foot twitches
Wind chimes stir piles
Of skeleton leaves
The tumble weed travels
Farther and farther
Away from the tree
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 25:
Stitched from Fog & Sorrow
by Sheena Fry King
THE BRIDE OF CUMBERLAND FALLS
Mist rises like a vow never finished,
white lace of water stitching night to stone.
The moon bows low to Cumberland Falls,
holding its breath where the river breaks its bones.
She came in silk and summer laughter,
new rings bright as river stars,
but the path was slick with whispered moss,
and love slipped faster than the hand could grasp.
Over the edge,
a cry swallowed by thunder,
a veil unraveling into foam.
The falls remembered her first.
He followed without thinking,
heart louder than the water’s roar,
a man who chose the plunge
over a life that would echo without her.
Now she waits above the cliffs,
where the wind learns her name.
A pale figure stitched from fog and sorrow,
wandering the railings of Dupont Lodge.
Park lights flicker. Footsteps pause.
Employees hear a woman crying
where no living woman stands,
grief repeating itself like the river below.
Along the shadowed paths,
things move that never leave tracks.
Antlered shapes, low breathing,
eyes that vanish when called.
The forest keeps its own counsel.
The falls keep their dead.
And some nights, if the mist is heavy enough,
love still weeps where it learned how to fall.
⚘
GHOSTS OF APPALACHIA
Where coal seams bleed and the black winds moan,
The ghosts of Appalachia still lay claim to their own.
Through laurel-choked hollers and ridges of stone,
They wander the mountains that outlast flesh and bone.
Granddaddy’s specter rocks slow on the porch,
His eyes sunk like coals, his grin cold as a torch.
“Come sit a spell, young’un. The night’s mighty deep.”
Then he laughs, “Ain’t no use. You’ll be mine come daybreak.”
The headless old miner still begs for a light,
His boots dragging shale through the dead of the night.
He lost his own head in a cave-in one fall,
But he’s still got the good sense to blame the company and all.
Granny’s ghost stirs her pot by the flame,
Calling each passing stranger by their Christian name.
“Come taste my stew, dear. There’s plenty to do.”
It’s seasoned with hemlock. She’s saving a finger for you.
The preacher’s pale spirit comes down from the ridge,
His Bible gone black, his mouth stitched at the bridge.
He preaches of mercy, of judgment, and sin,
Then charges the dead for the privilege of getting in.
The widow drifts past where the creek bends tight,
Her black veil tangled in the briars at night.
“I forgive you, my darling,” she whispers, serene,
Then sharpens the blade she kept under her ring.
Till death did them part, or so the vows said;
She’s waited ten years to collect what he owed her instead.
At dusk, when the whippoorwill cries through the pines,
And fog crawls the holler like something malign,
Don’t whistle, don’t wander, don’t answer your name.
The mountains keep grudges. The dead do the same.
You can laugh at old stories, call superstition a lie,
Till a coal-black handprint appears on your pane.
Then you’ll wish you’d shown the old warnings respect,
When something outside says, “Well, look who’s come back.”
So pray to your Maker. Keep salt by the door.
Don’t count every footstep you hear on the floor.
These hills hold their secrets, their sorrow, their bones—
The dead know these mountains, hon. You’re just passing through.
⚘
WHERE THE HOLLOWS KEEP THEIR DEAD
When dusk spills blue-black over the mountains,
and the last red coal of daylight dies,
Appalachia draws her shawl of shadow
over a thousand watching eyes.
Fog unravels from the laurel thickets,
white fingers crawling through the pines,
curling around the broken fences
where the dead once walked in straighter lines.
The mountains have a memory older than scripture,
older than gravestones, older than grief.
They keep their secrets beneath the hemlocks,
in hollowed trunks and the roots of the trees.
And when the wind comes down from the ridges,
it carries the names of those who never left,
men swallowed whole by the coal-black earth,
women who buried their sorrow and drew their last breath.
So, when the whippoorwill cries three times at midnight,
when the creek runs black beneath a bloodless moon,
when something behind you steps where you have stepped
and stops when you stop, just a heartbeat too soon,
Do not turn around.
Let the dead have their darkness.
Let the old hills keep what the old hills are owed.
Walk home by the light of your own trembling lantern,
and do not look back at the bend in the road.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 26:
Apocalyptic Prophecies
by Brandon Thorpe
DRIVING DEAD
The state highway is cluttered with memorials
for crash victims.
Some wreaths are replaced regularly and stay
bright, while others degrade into chunks
of foam and rusty wire
No one has the heart to take them away
while they rot on the roadside
until only the plastic stems remain
dulling from dark green to rocky grey.
It would mean whoever first felt moved
to place the memorial managed to
move on in their heart, or became so
absorbed by grief they couldn’t go back,
but there's one on highway
80
I've seen them replacing.
It stays vivid and new.
It looks like there's something
written below, I would stop
to read, but it's such a dangerous
road, I’m content to not know.
⚘
CRYING IN CHURCH
1993
It was little more than a dingy conference room
repurposed as a place of worship, but in dreams
it’s bigger than the pictures remember.
A short dropped ceiling,
panels stained orange with rusty water
loud troffer fluorescent light fixtures
vibrating at competing frequencies.
Hung on cheap wood panel walls
were degraded b&w
aerial photos of a temple being built
in Jerusalem, and they were referenced
with the assurance that we would all be dead
and in heaven before it was finished.
The greater church formed around
a singular charismatic leader
who received apocalyptic prophecies
and cosmic permission
for the excesses of wealth and fame
and said good fortune and God’s grace
were the same damn thing
and got away with it for decades
before it blew up in his face
and every fragment from the fracture swore
they were the one true church.
And as much as I want to hone the edge
of having grown up in a technical cult
I can’t tell what makes it any different
from other churches in these parts.
They all pretend to have foggy
visions of the world ending
and dip their hands in the collection plate
offer salvation
from our fates.
And that was what the church members
would say, not that it was okay,
just that other churches
were doing the same thing
“I don’t feel weird about it at all
I think we’re all equally wrong.”
And the Devil takes special interest
in men who have important
missions. That we’re all victims of the
flesh
and that’s why Jesus came,
we couldn’t save ourselves.
One of the last times I went
I remember a sweaty guy walking the rows
with a corded mic.
He was getting in people’s faces, he
looked me in the eyes
“can’t you feel it” he yelled
“something’s happening”
I froze. They threw their hands on me
with an eager face and said
“let it out, boy”
and started to pray. I cried, not because I felt
anything inside
because people were fucking yelling at me
and expecting me to do something
so I fell down and sobbed.
A smirk of satisfaction graced his face.
We weren't allowed to celebrate Christmas
because of its pagan origins,
No Halloween, or Easter
We had to follow the old Hebrew law
Can't eat pork, fish without scales
Animals with cloven hooves.
I was at a birthday party
At Finley's Roller Rink
And they brought out a giant pepperoni pizza,
pepperoni made of pork,
mom told me, fuck it, eat as much as you want,
and we stopped going to church.
⚘
PEOPLE EATER
This whole place is shaking, the lights are flickering out
inside people are screaming and clawing
their faces
Under the weight of it all, down go the walls.
This must be the end, again.
Religious signs remind us we’ll die.
Embers float into the sky.
A brown fox grinds prey in its zipper tight teeth
locked together like chain links
Billions of miles away, in deep space, a star explodes.
A tornado grows and growls its way across town
eating up roofs and trees, killing pets and people
A barn falls,
a fire starts.
All the way down in your bones rusty little molecules
have an idea of how long you’ll live
and keep it a secret between themselves and your
cells.
People die in London.
When the tornado came mom lost 19 neighbors
At Levi Jackson park you could find “junk bugs”
lacewing larvae that look like walking lint or moss,
they’d walk across picnic tables. I wonder if any survived
a force strong enough to throw millstones for miles.
They rebuilt mom’s house on the same foundation
but changed the layout to make it easier
for a wheelchair to get around
but now she has to watch her health.
Granny’s sick, the doctors quit working on her,
said she wouldn't survive the surgery
and will last longer this way,
now she's waiting in uncertainty.
I keep a dog skull in the pickup truck
to remind myself we’ll die one day,
but I think I would have remembered anyway.
Shattered glass is pressed into the pavement
by passing cars, one starts breaking down,
pulls over and stops
The driver drags out to look, but
doesn't have a clue
he pops his hood
and waits for someone who does know
what to do.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Chapter 27:
a ghost that lives
by the dithyrambler
there is a ghost that lives in me; she hides
within my memories—and makes them dark
so i can’t look, like pages in a locked-up
book. the truth can bruise
& ruin lives—(that’s why
you killed all of your wives!)
another ghost—she sees, she knows
what’s buried down beneath your toes—
what picture waits
within the ground—
unconscious mind
where dreams are found.
more ghosts arrive
& ask my head
if they may rest,
where is the bed?
the nightmare looms
over the hill—i try to move;
my limbs are still—
a scream gone quiet,
paralyzed.
no vision here: keep shut your eyes!
from somewhere else
my spirit sends
a messenger
whose will
can bend
& puppets pull
on hidden strings—forbidding
my remembering.
⚘
DEATH IS A WELL WORN DRUM
*Publication Note: This poem was originally published in Death, Devils, and Dice on The Sonnet Sisters.
Death is a well worn drum resounding from
dead center: beating, pulsing hands command
the heart and all the violence of the sum—
each strike inflicts upon a promised land.
O holy skin of goat! O woven strand—
that holds the sound within a rounded frame
responding in real time to death’s demand
that all expands, contracts—our fate the same.
But circles do not end; they come to claim
infinity—beginning breath anew
and every whisper opens, shapes the name
and offers up its mouth to taste the true.
Death is a well worn drum whose rhythms rhyme
and spiral through the sky as spirits climb.
⚘
RABBIT HOLES
*Publication Note: This poem was originally published in Field Notes & Rabbit Holes on The Sonnet Sisters.
The night the basket beamed from sphere to sphere
Three couples round the table in the house
You spoke in certain tones of yellow room
The haunting—like a joke and we all laughed
As if I hadn’t walked across the bridge
The boards are full of holes, he said, Look out!
Where thirteen years had passed and down I fell
And time had many questions left to ask
The baby in the womb would soon be born
Some cycles come in sevens—this I’m told
The oldest story I had ever heard
Was gold dug up from holes where rabbits hide
The final line was written with the words
You said never to tell; I said, Like hell.
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
With endless love & gratitude,
the Dandelion Scribes
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