Revised in the dark style of Poe
In Elmira's clutch where the valley bends,
And fog descends like ancient sins,
The wind bears low, funereal moans -
A dirge for marrow under stones.
On Lincoln Street, I once did dwell -
But not all left that house… as well.
The snow there tastes of coal and sleep,
Its flakes fall slow, as if they weep.
Each one a whisper, pale and thin,
That melts but never cleanses skin.
The porch still groans a graveyard hymn -
And steps descend that are not him.
The attic brims with breathless hush,
A muffled sound, a vermin rush -
But not of rats. No scratch or squeal,
Just suctioned steps, too slow, too real.
A smell like wax and blistered skin
Seeps through the floorboards, creeping in.
My mother’s mirror once turned black -
Not cracked, not fogged, but pulled things back.
It drank the light and gave no face,
Just shadows gathering in place.
And once -I swear - a hand, too long,
Tapped soft in time to nursery song.
They say it’s just the winter’s way,
The mountain sighing through the gray.
But those who lived there long have gone,
And left no names to build upon.
The deed was burned. The church disbanded.
The soil condemned. The roots left stranded.
And now I haunt a newer place -
Southern Boulevard, a safer face.
At Kenwood Street the lights burn white,
But even they can’t drown the night.
For every wall here knows the sound
Of hollow things that move underground.
Sometimes beneath the floor I feel
A breathing deep, uncoiled and real -
Not dream, not draft, not faulty pipe,
But something older, thick and ripe.
The walls sweat cold. The drains give sighs.
My sleep is watched by slitted eyes.
I sense it now behind drywall,
The lurching hush that mocks my call.
It’s patient, vast, and tightly wound -
A hunger fed by buried sound.
And when I sleep, it dreams with me,
In rhythms wet and serpentine.
It whispered once from Lincoln Street,
And followed silent on my feet.
It wore my childhood like a skin,
And waits to crawl back out again.
It has no name, but wants my breath -
Not just my life… but something less.
So when you walk through snow or rain,
And catch a scent like rust and pain -
Don’t turn around. Don’t speak. Don’t cry.
It hears. It knows. It will reply.
And when it comes, it comes to stay -
It never truly moved away.
GBS
2003
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