A walk down a darkened path

"Phantasma" graphic art by Donald Harbour

A path across stone laid ground
Is the shortest path to home.
Where plastic flowers strewn about
There only haunted spirits roam.

In late October as a frosty chill
Lays dead leaves upon the ground,
Sycamores standing bony branched
In deathly silence do abound.

One must have a brave stout heart,
To travel through this damned place,
The graveyard of coffined corpses
Laid where life lost its final race.

It is known as it has always been
Some spirits are wont to never leave,
Their lot to wander twixt heaven and hell,
Moaning in desperation they grieve.

Mortals may never see them reach
Nor be touched by their icy grip.
But, there are those that do return
When upon the portal of death they trip.

Have you walked the path of which I speak
Feeling, that you are accompanied there?
Wisps of mist catch your furtive glance
And imagined rags dance in the cold night air.

In the distance a bell tower chimes,
The beginning of All Hallows Ween,
When things one has never noticed
Become real and thus are seen.

You feel a tightness around your spine,
The beating heart pounds in your ears.
And though you try hard not to believe,
Your quickened step belies your fears.

It is then you are the most vulnerable,
When you cannot catch your breath.
That dark place in our distant past
Shouts you are in a place of death.

Listen, are those your footsteps?
Hear them echo in the dark behind?
Or is it just imagination lurking,
A symptom of your frightened mind?

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour

The Watchers

When you are alone,
there are often those times
that the silence is pierced,
a heaviness in the air,
an oh, so slight pressure
upon the senses, the nerves, the mind.
A movement across the ceiling,
Trembling in the darken corners.
A calling, an awakening
In some forgotten part of psyche.
Hidden in the primitive recesses
of the distant ancestral past
it sleeps, waiting to be summoned.
Once again you are huddled around
a blazing fire the spirits dancing
upon the cavern walls, and you fear.
The neck becomes tight, painful,
the scalp prickly with anticipation.
You are now so very close to them.
All the past, all the lives lived,
can be held in a grain of sand,
the prism of a rain drop,
the gentle whisper of a breeze,
darkness of night, a shadow.
No god, no talisman, no shaman
can hold back the knowledge
the feeling in your bile filled gut,
that you are being watched.
Are we really alone?

Copyright: 2008, Donald Harbour