I am super excited about one of my stories from The Other Side of Despair being featured on the latest podcast episode of Random Transmissions. This podcast is super cool and you should go and check out all the episodes!
The cover of the first book I wrote (Intertwined in Limbo) had absolutely nothing to do with any story in the book. The firm that created the cover just used a picture that was “ghostly”. So I decided to write a poem that told her story.
The White Lady
Little Mason Morbid was a melancholy lad
While the other kids were playing, he sat brooding, looking sad
His cloths were black and gray and his heart was a hole
And the only thing ‘twas darker than his mind was his soul
On the thirteenth of the month he would adjourn unto a tomb
In an old forgotten graveyard under darkness of the gloom
He’d commence to crank the handle of a tiny music player
And then the strains of Moonlight Sonata would drift upon the air
Somewhere from the blackness an apparition would appear
A radiant diaphanous figure who was draped in gossamer
She would float about the graves as little Mason Morbid crooned
“White Lady, white lady, tell me of your doom.”
“It was in the dead of winter and the snow was falling down
Like little drops of clouds to form a blanket on the ground.
The people of the village were all huddled with each other
And the young Reverend Smithe had stopped by to pray for Mother.”
“He sat and read his Bible and then he joined us in our meal
Then he told my worried Father how his faith would help her heal.
He was smitten by my beauty and I was taken by his charm
Before I knew what happened, he had lured me to the barn.”
“The passions of the flesh overcame the strictures of the mind
The reverend’s Puritan values gave way to pleasures for a time.
I was left defiled and the guilt would take its toll
Darkness and depression were like weights upon my soul.”
“Consumed by misery and ashamed for being so beguiled
But the real scandal was when I found that I was with child.
And all about the gossip started that descended upon me
The Reverend Smithe could not be charged, it must be sorcery.”
“They drug me through the village with curses that were vile,
Accused me of witchcraft and held a mockery of a trial.
And so it was, betrayed, abused and blighted in the soul,
I was made to pay the reverend’s sin on the rope of the gallows’ pole.”
Little Mason Morbid heaved a heavy sigh of grief
The White Lady’s tragedy was sad beyond belief
He watched her go back to her grave then he mused aloud,
“Life is futile and so unfair, and we are wrapped within her shroud.”
Eyes that grope the haunted cowl
And strokes the strings of a thin lined scowl
Unruly jest made with gleeful mock
And howls the strain of a ticking clock
You slinking wraith that moans and sighs
And whispers laughs through hated cries
The clunking clank of weighted toils
The clotted filth of graveyard soils
Wincing faces of Time and Death
Marked in rasps and ticking breath
Till the final knell rings loud and clear
And the death rattle echoes with every tear
Oh sweet life that has burned so bright
And flickered long with ghostly light
What sad charm we recall to sight
The melancholy affair that conjures night
How shall I burden thee thou vacant shell?
Whose forlorn spirit can no longer in thee dwell
Abused, contused, such a shredded form
That shirks thy joy beyond the blighted norm
Confused, misused, rebuking clotted clay
Can no longer cower like the dogged prey
O’ how they used to dance upon thy skin
Tools of torture that cajoled blood within
A sanguine medley of raucous outpouring
Thy melodies took to air and then went soaring
That delightful voice so full of passion
That stirred emotions in a poignant fashion
Thy pleading crescendo that wrenched my heart
Hath sang its encore and fled the part
With nary a credit to the conductors skill
Without whose flair to thy struggling will
Would not have brought such fiery drive
To a tedious creature just barely alive
With distressing sorrow I bid adieux
For another apt instrument awaits my cue
Shades are shaping
And shapes are shifting
Through faint glowing mist
Ghosts are drifting
Their floating forms
Fills the air
Moaning laments
Of woe and despair
This Danse Macabre
That wends it way
To the Potter’s Field
Where Death holds sway
Forked tongue wizards
Spewing spells
They draw their venom
From necromantic wells
Lurid faced witches
Cavorting nude
Their laughter foul
And their dances lewd
Decaying features
Mottled skins
Rotted flesh
And skeletal grins
Ghastly ghouls
And gory beasts
Great horned monsters
Who’ve come to feast
The graveyard pageant
The writhing throng
Suddenly ceases
At the rumbling gong
The dead have risen
At their master’s calling
But to their knees
They now are falling
Amongst the dankest dark
A tolling fills the gloom
Every creature halts to hark
The approaching Lord of Doom
Clanging clong of iron bell
Precedes his stately tread
Everything that hears the knell
Bows to the King of the Dead
Oh how they cower in dark little places
Fear etches haunted looks on their faces
They scamper and scurry to avoid the light
Only come out to play under cover of night
Their eyes glow like candles flickering in wind
And the rustling of leaves is the sound of their skin
You cannot catch them for they’ve already fled
They cannot be killed for they’re already dead
You’ll hear them whisper from shadowy wood
As the Haunters of Autumn send chills through the blood
The airs of October carry their voices
Half-heard gigglings and other strange noises
A whisper behind you that drifts through the air
Tells you their presence is about you somewhere
What are these creatures that haunt the gloom
Mocking and stalking with portents of doom?
The woods are alive with their tittering taunts
You walk alone on one of your nightly jaunts
Hearing your shrieks over the darkening plane
As the Haunters of Autumn leave you cold and insane
Visions of the Dark 