Ghosts of What We Were

 —Poetry by Lynn White,
Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Medusa

THE EMPTY HOUSE

It fascinated us as children,
the empty house in the countryside
where we walked the neighbour’s dog.
Why was it empty?
Who had lived there?
We imagined secret passages
leading to priest holes,
walled up dead bodies
and buried treasure.
No one knew.
But we knew
that the dog was reluctant to go near
and we had heard that dogs were sensitive
to the spirit world.
So we knew
it was haunted.
That ghosts lived there,
spirits of the past.
We dared each other to enter
through the broken window.
Maybe we broke it first,
but I don’t remember that.
In the end we all went in,
leaving the dog outside.
But there was nothing.
Just a house.
Empty.
Ordinary.
Not spooky.
Just empty.
I passed it today,
all these years later.
There’s no entering now.
Police tapes surround it.
Maybe the dog knew
that the ghosts were of the future,
not the past.



(First published in Secret Passages, Pilcrow and Danger,
July 2018)

 

 

  

SPIRITING AWAY


All that is solid
melts away
in death
consumed by fire
or worms
transformed
decaying
into so much dust.

So only memories remain.

And the spirits,
of course,
the ghosts
of what we were
of what became us
and what we became.


(First published in Poets Online, Ghosts, May 2025)

 

 

 

 

HAUNTED


I am being haunted
by my ghost.
It must be my ghost,
it knows too much
to arise from someone else’s body.
It remembers my past.
Remembers my dreams,
the ones I forgot so quickly on wakening
and the ones I left behind later,
only to revisit in future dreaming.

It knows too much.
It remembers the past
I prefer to forget,
the mishaps,
the missed opportunities,
the opportunities grasped too soon,
too impetuously,
the people left behind, happily or not,
the feelings I felt.
It remembers it all
and stalks my present with its memories.

It must be my ghost.
It knows too much
to arise from someone else’s body.
No one came that close.
Not for so long,
a lifetime.
I made sure of that.
But how can it be my ghost?
I’m still living.
Still alive.
And ghosts belong to the dead,
to those with no future.
But it must belong to me,
this ghost of my present
living in my past.



(First published in ParABnormal Magazine,
Hiraeth Books, June 2020)

 

 

 

 

HOUSE


It was hardly a gingerbread house.
Only the roof was gingerbread colour.
We thought the old woman living there was a witch.
Later we didn’t believe in witches
and we knew she was no more a witch
than the raindrops
hanging from the trees
were really diamonds,
though she said that they were.
Now the house stands empty and derelict
and we know no one has lived there for centuries.
Only the raindrops remain
frozen in time
hard as diamonds
just as she said they were


(First published in parABnormal, September 2023)

 

 

 

 

AUNTIE AGGIE


It was a beautiful seventeenth-century farmhouse
in a picture-postcard English village,
the family home of Liz
who would drop me off there
on our way back home from college.
I would pick up the bus for the last fifteen miles.

That night was my first overnight stay.
Liz lived with her parents and granny
and inside it was as olde worlde as out
with creaky floor boards and beamed ceilings.

It was Saturday and her parents were out
so we played our music loud.
Granny was said to be a little deaf
and she didn’t complain about the music.
I could hear her as she crossed the room above
to open a drawer or cupboard and then return
to her favourite chair in the corner
but there was no angry banging on the floor,
just frequent sorties back and forth,
her footsteps sprightly and unremarkable.
I didn’t mention her to Liz,
it felt rude, somehow.

At about eleven we heard a car draw up
and turned our music down.
Liz’s parents came in
followed by Granny.

Confused, I asked about the footsteps above
and they all laughed.
“That’s Auntie Aggie,” said Liz,
“She lived here when the house was first built.
She always walks when someone new visits.
She likes to introduce herself.
She’ll stop now you’ve acknowledged her.”

And she did!



(First published in Dark Winter, November 13, 2023)

 

 

 

 

 THE HAUNTED SAUCEPAN

“You’ll be in the soup
if you go out in this”
she said,
“it’s a real pea-souper.”
I carried on stirring,
I wasn’t thinking of going out anyway.

I have to keep stirring
or I’ll be in the soup,
that’s what my saucepan says.
And I listen to her
as I peer through the fog
inside.
I know
what a sticky mess she can make
if I don’t obey her.

So I keep on stirring,
hoping that soon
she’ll let me eat.

I keep on stirring,
hoping that sometime
she’ll let me eat.


(First published in Brave and Reckless,
Monster She Wrote, October 2021)

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.

—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

__________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Lynn White for today’s fine, ghostly poetry. Ghosts aren't just for Halloween, ya know . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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