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Pendragon
01-26-2008, 03:34 PM
The Ghosthunter: Second Night, Same Place

The lady on the stairs the night before showed clearly on my computer screen, hand on the rail.
Clearly this was evidence of a full-body apparition in a house with a reputation for being haunted.
But I was an old hand at this Ghost Hunting business, and I knew skeptics reputations for railing.
My digital recorder had caught the haunting footsteps I followed to the stairs as well before sighting the apparition.
I needed more proof, so by dark I was back inside the strange mansion, cameras and equipment set up.
I had a hunch my lady had vanished up those strange, twisting stairs, and decided to dare myself the upper floor.
There was a twisting in my stomach as I passed the place the ghost had stood, but I proof against fear now.
Then what I saw in the strange mottled moonlight of the upper bedroom floor almost flung me back down the stairs—forget proof!
She stood within the dappled moonlight from missing pieces of the roof beside the deathbed of a man,
And the patchy moonlight revealed others, (I counted six), four black men, two with their wives.
She held his hand to her cheek, and I realized then that she was elderly, though the same face last night revealed
She lay his arm back down and the four black men wrapped him in the blankets and followed by her and the wives
They bore their burden by me and down the stairs murmuring songs and prayers and sorrowful cries
I kept my camera rolling, praying myself that the tape would not run out nor the picture fail!
And I followed myself across the hilltop to the cemetery, and where one of the oldest great stones stood
A ghostly hole was now before us, to receive the burden the men carefully bore and lowered in.
The eldest of them took out a Bible and though I could not hear a single word or sound,
It seemed to comfort the lady of the house. The black ladies lead her home as the men shoveled.
I followed her, but she shook her head at me and pointed back to the graveyard and vanished.
The men were gone as well. But I could read the name on the headstone very clearly now.
I gathered my equipment and loaded it into my van, thinking really hard about what I’d seen.
My cameras gave out right after the men picked up their burden from off the deathbed.
Would have been a real burden except that everyone vanished and there was no bed in the last frames.
Then there was the name on the tombstone. I found the man and his wife’s pictures in an old book.
Guess who was on the stairs that night and in the deathbed scene? Told about his workers also.
One was a elderly black minister whom he had sworn would be the man to bury him…

Pendragon
1/26/08

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/Newest/IMG_0317.jpg

PrinceMyshkin
01-26-2008, 05:34 PM
Well, you maintain a strong element of the eerie & the gothic - but why on earth are you offering it here in the poetry forum rather than as a story? It suffers, I think, from the attempt to read any of the usual poetic conventions in it but would flow very nicely set up in prose.

Pendragon
01-26-2008, 06:30 PM
There is method to the setup of both poems, little tricks I use when doing prose poetry, but not everyone likes it, and it isn't my best cup of tea, I'll admit. I have a five verse unrhymed style that does far better that I use for most haunted story poems.

Yes, I suppose with my knowledge of both ghost hunter techniques and the major haunted places in this country and others, I could tell many a mean ghost story. The pictured house is finally undergoing renovations as a B&B. It is called the Octagon House and is in my hometown. I shot that picture last week. I thought I took all eight sides, but two had windows that were similar and I wound up taking two shots of the same side.

I can recall when the house was buried in thick vines for years. It was built in 1847 by Abajiah Thomas who called it "Mountain View". Him and his wife were kind and when their slaves were free, they worked for Mr. Thomas as hired hands. They were like his family.

He and his wife are buried in the graveyard over the hill. Of course, people told different tales of torture and whatnot. They started on the haunting of the house. I decided to make it something more along the lines of the truth.

Pen

PrinceMyshkin
01-26-2008, 07:17 PM
You can call them poems till you're blue in the face! I call it broccoli - and I won't eat it!

kiz_paws
01-26-2008, 10:20 PM
by PrinceM: You can call them poems till you're blue in the face! I call it broccoli - and I won't eat it!You WILL eat it if we tie you up!! ;)

Pen, I like the way that you have been approaching your 'haunted poetry' -- works for me. But anyhow, very cool tale, well told as always. Scary to picture that house buried in thick vines.... **shiver**. Thanks for the photo. Very good tale indeed. :thumbs_up