Ghost
You keep returning and I can’t say why.
I wake in the shrouded room and lie still for hours.
Sometimes you speak through the siding’s wind rattle,
in the rasping shingles or the gutter’s drain.
But who interprets these phrases?
No friend. No dictionary.
The dog barks at nothing and chases his tail
to exhaustion. Unlike sound,
light cannot penetrate these windows.
Perhaps the answer lies in the page’s hollow, between
words, or at the free end of a kite’s anchor,
wedged within clouds, echoing
like a cough in a decade’s breath
hammering down after a long illness.
I question afterlife, but dying continues.
This first appeared in Shadowtrain.
This is beautiful 🙂
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Thank you.
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Stunning. Absolutely stunning!
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Thank you, Crystal.
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Nice!
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Thank you, Nina.
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Excellent. Thought-provoking.
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You’re very kind. Thank you.
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Just beautiful. You seemed to have read my mood, the synchronicity is uncanny.. I am mourning the passage of Alan Rickman and have Truly, Madly, Deeply to view for this evenings entertainment/therapy. His best performance in my humble opinion, playing a ghost.
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Ah, synchronicity! I haven’t seen that film. Hmm…
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“like a cough in a decade’s breath…” The MacArthur Fellowship people should be calling you…
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Ha! But thank you.
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‘You keep returning and I can’t say why.’
I love this!
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Thanks very much.
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Reblogged this on Tam and Friends and commented:
Writing what the heart can’t even murmur.
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Thanks for reblogging this, Ron. Much appreciated.
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deep
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Thanks, Maureen.
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bravo, robert.
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Thanks, John.
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I’ve read this a few times now and it gets better with each reading.
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I’m so pleased you find it so. Thank you.
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The question is there life after death? – “doesn’t matter, I’m still dying.” lmao. Can philosophy really remedy this ache? It’s all about perspective, the mind is a trap for misconception.
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One of life’s certainties…
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Well, there’s a winner, Robert! Well, maybe we can’t beat death but you sure nail poetry.
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Thank you, Curtis.
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So much in this, it needs to be read a few times 🙂
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So pleased you find it so. Thank you.
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Reblogged this on .
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Thank you for reblogging.
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You’re welcome!
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Those nights, indeed!
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We can’t get away from them.
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Fortunately life and death still hold some mysteries. Thanks for another insightful, wonder-provoking creation.
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And these mysteries offer us much to ponder.
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…and the photo…
Thank you, inspiration received.
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Thank you. The photos are from morguefile.com.
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I like this! I’m perturbed by what looks like a spelling mistake in a dictionary though. Maybe phenomenia is a word.
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Thank you. Yes, that is a tad disturbing.
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I love the flow of your words – thank you sir! You made me smile today 😀
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Always pleased to make someone smile. Thank you.
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Is the afterlife made irrelevant by all the dying, or more likely because of it?
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I’m not anxious to discover which.
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My granda used to say, the moment you are born, your card is stamped. The one thing we are promised in life is death, and that we will live.
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The one certainty!
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WOW!
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I hope that’s a good “wow.” Thank you. 🙂
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I didn’t realize “wow” needed clarification…when I use it, it is “good”, as in “impressive”. Hope that helps.
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No clarification needed. I was just playing.
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The dialectical imagery is very aesthetic. Anand Bose from Kerala.
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Thank you, Anand.
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No dictionary no words 🙂 I love it
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Thank you!
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I think the poetry you wrote is wonderful and if you have time you can also give me some advice about my blog post~
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Have a nice day
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If you have specific questions, I’ll be glad to attempt to answer them.
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