By Natasha Butler-Rahman
I have not seen the gigantic, shadowy form, clothed like the ghost in Hamlet,
withered like a flower
snapped upon the stalk.
The phantasm was seen at midnight,
lost beneath the shadow of castle walls; but soon
reached the moon’s gloom
cradled in fitful beams,
a skull-headed lady
in complete radiance
something very shocking and terrible
to advance slowly along the avenue.
“We will each write a ghost story,” was heard,
just when the creature
began to move like a reanimated corpse
with shut eyes, but acute mental vision— I thought and pondered—vainly.
images arose in my mind
I saw— the stiff shape of the pale traveller
I busied myself fashioning imagery
to manufacture the machinery of a story
infusing life into an inanimate conception of my mind.