Ghosts - Tony Gardner

They played the concert in the Parish church
And walls resounded with the songs they sung
And while the music moved, affected all
I felt the ghosts who mingled there among
The listeners young and old, and those whose kin
Have lived here oh, so many hundred years
The incomers who may or likely not may not stay
So if they go will not cause many tears

I stand at my great-great-grandfather's grave
And feel him near while walking fields he trod
I wonder how rich folk think they can own
Land owned not by their money but by God.

Tony Gardner

Haunted House - Hugo Furst

I climb the stair to go to bed.
The staircase bends. The light is dim.
I see the cat. It stands quite still.
I freeze. That cat is six months dead.
He stares at me. I stare at him.
The air grows cold. I feel a chill
as it abruptly turns and flees
around the stair-head, taking flight,
quick, slick as an assassin’s knife.
I cannot breathe. My heart will seize
if, when I switch my bedroom light,
the cat awaits, returned to life.

Hugo Furst

Imelda - Ian Duquemin

It once was told a house was built upon a silent hill, and stood there in the shadows now for many, many years
It's true to say that many often passed the door that filled them with an inner dread that preyed upon their deepest, darkest fears
But long ago this very place was home to sweet Imelda, who would run around its structure through the dark and empty halls
It's said she had a gift, and she would see them as they freely moved around the house, then disappear behind the solid walls
No one ever visited, and as the seasons hurried by, a lonely woman lived within this dark and damp abode
And with the passing years, the cracks and peeling paint were of an age in which this shadowed home of hers was miserably showed
When passers by came close they'd hear the sobbing of Imelda, that would break the heart of any living thing that came to care
But all would keep their distance, as the fear was overwhelming... Imelda had her demons who were locked away in there
The voices that were heard were incoherent in a whisper, like the wind that sent a frozen finger running down a spine
The sun would never shine upon the broken tiled rooftop, and the passers by would see this as a supernatural sign
So poor Imelda passed away and no one mourned her sorry soul, but still her sobs are heard as though she never really died
And to this day not one has ever had the nerve to turn the handle of the creaking door of hers and visit her inside

Ian Duquemin

The Phantom Bikes of Grandes Rocques - Tony Bradley

It's just after dawn, I'm on the beach again
and something so really strange occurred
I saw it, or did I fantasize . . . ?
(I'm quite capable, . . . I'm a bit of a nerd .)

Two bikes raced along the road, beyond the dunes
but my still sleepy eyes and brain detected
in an eery moment, that made me shiver
there were actually no humans connected.

I paused, half-asleep, to consider the event
I probably appeared cool, quite laconic
I reasoned, that if there had been riders aboard
they were obviously invisible, and at that speed, bionic .

I was suddenly startled again, whilst still assimilating the facts
another bunch, three this time, in the opposite direction
I know it wasn't the Valkyrie, or headless horsemen
but I don't view that beach now, with the same affection.

Tony Bradley