
A raven visits me, like Poe.
Continue readingThe old man speaks of phantoms. He lay on his death-bed, and his face is ashen and sickly.
“Our home,” he says, “it’s haunted. Haunted by my sins. Haunted by my father’s sins, and his father’s sins.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Continue readingHalloween is perhaps my favorite holiday. Really, I love all the fall and winter holidays. But Halloween? What’s not to like?! Horror movies, marathon readings of Edgar Allan Poe, perhaps a little Lovecraft.
I compiled a shortlist of my favorite creepy books that are perfect for this time of year. Some of them fall within the umbrella term of “weird fiction.” Others are classic ghost stories that I highly suggest you check out if you haven’t read already. And yeah, they’re all old books – like, really old.
Here’s my list:
Continue readingThere are ghosts in my family –
I realize this as my mother tells tales
of a biological grandfather I never knew
who blew smoke in my face
when I was two
of years my father spent in jail
of anxiety that permeates
the family tree, which is
diseased & hollowed
about to crumple & topple
into grayish dirt
There’s been trauma in this house
we thought it’d be our forever home
instead, ghosts lurk here
ghosts of murders, suicides
they followed us long after we
left cob-webbed hallways –
the trauma here makes us see things
hallucinations, delusions of despair
we can’t escape it.
(Photo by Stefan Ringler on Unsplash)
Paw prints in snow point the way to the snow leopard
she hides in plain sight, her camouflage makes her a ghost
on these rocky mountain trails – we track her, to no avail
we only want a glimpse of this mythic creature
catch her on film + show her to the world in all her feline glory –
the stories of locals add to her legend
we walk for miles over many months
when we finally see her, we witness an apparition,
only to fade into the wilderness + white peaks of Chinese terrain.
(Photo source: © Mohammad Osama / WWF-Pakistan)
Note: This poem was inspired by a nature documentary Rachel and I recently watched on Netflix called Ghost of the Mountains. A team of filmmakers track the snow leopard in the mountains of China in the documentary, enduring brutal weather and high altitudes in an attempt to capture the creature on film. We highly recommend the movie!
Down the winding path, you go deep into the forest –
the dense birch trees make it so dark that only
a faint light breaks through and illuminates
the leave-strewn path.
You were told to avoid this place – a place
where corpses dangle from branches and
lay twisted on the forest floor, their faces
stuck in a final moment of eagerness to
kill a lifetime of sorrow.
Continue readingThis picture was taken by Rachel (who’s an amazing photographer, by the way) during a trip we took to Sleepy Hollow, New York. That was an incredible trip. We took tons of pictures, but my favorites were from the old cemetery, where we spent at least an hour or so wandering around.
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