Ghosts

Images reflecting moments now gone;

Strangely, eerily lingering on;

Keeping such moments remembered;

Ghostly pale faces long since dead. 

Ghosts. Are they really there

In the same way that we are?

Or will they disappear in the glare

Of the headlights of a car?

Ghosts seem to be there all right;

Watching every move you make.

Not so much to give a fright,

But take when not awake.

Ghosts seem real enough,

But if we pay them heed

Are we the not the stuff

Of dreams? Ghosts that bleed?

That long ago place mist enshrouded with ice

When I turned and glimpsed for the last time

The old yestercentury life that was so nice

Before it slowly decomposed with burnt-lime

In my heart and soul, and, in a way, for real.

They are gone, even though you see their shade,

They have long belonged to the single low peal

Of the churchyard bell; the hole which is made

To steal them away. And do you feel

The ghost of Christmas past?

"I think I saw him for the first time," you said.

At least you saw him, I thought; though you are

Unaware that our friend is nonetheless dead.

Why do you stare? What do you see afar ... afar?

We again all meet on the eve of Christmas Past.

Hosts

Roasts

Toasts

Ghosts

..........

In part, we are,

In part, we always were

Phantoms from another time.

Time travellers. Ghosts.

Fading in. Now fading out.

Like spectral curls of mist

From time past to time present.

And back to whence we came.

..........

On the eve of Christmas Eve

In the long lost last century;

In dense fog we did leave
And set off for the sea.

Farewell toxic town
Now turned brown;
Goodbye half my life.
I take with me a wife.

But leave all else behind.

Heavy mist still kept us blind

When we reached the place

Where beach and sea laced

Our view until the next day

When all things special we did find.

One shade the more,

One companion the less;

A multitudinous mirror

Of reflected memory.

In perpetuity to store

One more face;

To recognise, to refer

In the album chronology.

A silent flitting shadow

Finds the darkened crack

In the mirror of the mind;

Stirring nostalgically.

Leaves disturbed anew

Fail to bring back

The light and sound

Atmospherically.

People once bound.

No longer found;

No longer around;

Confound.

A glance of shades;

Fading friends;

Greying grades

Of ignorance.

Ivy clinging stone

Informs the shade

The more alone

That there be laid:

In innocence;

In transience;

In abeyance;

In absence.

..........

Time to take a photo

Said our dear friend

Snapping with camera

Until the end

When it was time

To run her back

From whence the

Carriage brought and took

Her away again

To another time ...