Those that pass through walls, the
halls, courts unseen
That raise the terrified from their
sleep
The rustling papers, the forms of dead
In screens, smiling, seductive, that
lurk
The fridge, dark shadows, the laundry machine
That haunt the story high fonts of our
streets.
Do you dress in my mind of them?
Do you believe in them?
Ghosts.
Do you wake, dress and wash at ghost's
behest
You, of solid flesh, by
borders bound
And steel word of law. They pass
through walls.
Your desk they pace and press the circled clock
Between your blades, to find a spine
Pushing honey up the twine,
String lines to marionettes.
Putting money in your pocket.
Do you buy old rope from ghosts?
Do you sacrifice
The pennies, hours, sensibilities and
principal
For the invisible
Look your brother in the eye and lie
Steal, turn people from the door
Over to the law for the undead unseen
For the rustling papers
Would you operate ovens
For ghosts?
Crates and paper travel like the
poltergeists are puppeteers
The chill hand inhuman
A morality of Gyges, picking the
pumphouse lock
Come by, and whistles. The crook.
The dead with unfinished business
Some functionary faked the paper for a
cheque
Fiddled while the world burnt. Banal
concerns.
The furniture is gone, the railroad and
pipes
The miracles of yestyear's endeavour
In flames devoured. They gather
In a semi-circle and rub their hands
Stretch their formless palms towards
the flames
Solid flesh blisters, yet ghosts cannot
get warm.
Uniformed armies at their beck
Daily ford the river, daily scale walls
Battle blind and raging at their foe
Soldiers cannot see the war
Yet blood let, pillage and enfief their fellow ape
The corn we tend, the nightingale. What if from far, far off
With a bottle top taken as a token to a
wraith
You choked the albatross.
Do you believe in ghosts?
