The Ghost Girl
One sunny May, I ran to play,
When I was twelve years old,
Upon the hill. I miss her still—
A girl with curls of gold
In ribbon ties, big sky-blue eyes,
And waving, dark-red dress
Soon ran my way and asked to play—
How could I not say yes?
“I’m Beth,” she said. “My mother’s dead;
I’m hiding from her ghost.”
I thought, “A shame, her gruesome game,”
But soon I was engrossed.
We laughed and played along the grade,
Cavorted up the hill,
And soon rolled down, clothes turning brown,
Collapsed, and then lay still.
Then Beth and I stared toward the sky,
Then wrestled, then caressed,
And very soon that afternoon,
Our love began the rest.
We hoped our playing would one day
Give rise to married bliss.
I gazed into her pools of blue;
We leaned in for the kiss.
A woman’s ghost gave off the most
Horrendous, ghastly chill.
We stood upright in cold and fright;
Her ghost-hand reaped the kill.
I saw Beth die. Her ghost stood high
And quickly shed its shell.
Her ribbons fastened to the grass
As down her body fell.
Both, hand in hand, flew off the land.
Beth’s ghost was forced to go
Away from me like Annabel Lee,
But where, I’ll never know.
Then Beth up high bid me goodbye;
She waved as she looked back.
The two ghosts flew into the blue,
And everything went black.
I felt Mom shake me wide awake;
She’d found me on the hill.
“Are you all right?” She yelled in fright.
I sat up feeling ill.
I told her of my one-day love
And how she met her death.
My mother deemed it all a dream
And said there was no Beth.
So I believed I’d been deceived
And never met the lass,
Until I found, upon the ground,
Her ribbon coiled on grass.
The ghost who took her didn’t look
And left it unawares.
I picked the band up in my hand
And three blonde, curly hairs.
Let There Be Light
A friend put forward that I write
Of light that flashes at conception,
Of fireworks when genes unite
In the woman’s body, out of sight,
And God decrees, “Let there be light!”
And greets His child with great reception,
And the zygote’s surface flashes white
In space that’s darker far than night.
My friend turned out not to be right,
Fell victim to a science deception.
Yet still, God sets each soul alight
And in all His children takes delight.
Two Empty Chairs
“We did the NFP [natural family planning] bit for awhile [sic]... and have felt revulsion over it ever since. During that time we might have had at least two more children.” Letter to the editor, Seattle Catholic, 2002
Two empty chairs, each in its place—
The kitchen table’s vacant space,
Where our six children see the chill
Of unworn seats, both standing still
Like Tiny Tim’s by the fireplace.
We timed the marital embrace
To procreate at slower pace.
That empty phrase means none shall fill
Two empty chairs.
Our family planning did erase
Two precious souls we can’t replace;
We chose ourselves above God’s will.
Their nonexistence buys each frill,
And never shall their presence grace
Two empty chairs.
No Extra Lives
While all his friends were learning skills
To gain them wives or pay their bills,
John fought with monsters on a screen,
Got knighted by a game world’s queen,
Amassing troves of digi-treasure
That bought eight bits of gaming pleasure.
But as the habit lasted longer,
John’s dungeon shackles grew much stronger.
His friends moved on and all gained wives
While he sat gaining extra lives—
One-upped by men just half his age
Who’d put in time and earned life’s wage.
One day, much older, John awoke
And felt his electronic yoke:
No friends, no wife, and children none,
His life still stalled at World 1-1.
No princess wishes to be saved
By a gaming hero thus enslaved.
John’s game-themed room now seemed a waste,
An emblem of his time misplaced.
No dragon’s hoard of jewels and gold
Could buy back time and youth he’d sold
For shiny bits of program code—
He wept beside perdition’s road.
But, leaving home and breaking free,
He had no guide for strategy.
The social world seemed too complex
To a man who lived in pixel specks,
And so he ran back home to game,
Never quitting, to his shame.
The moral of this tale in rhyme?
Work while you’re young, don’t waste your time.
Don’t put your life goals off till later;
Shoot down your schedule’s space-invaders,
Or, like our captured gamer guy,
You’ll find your life has passed you by.
If You Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter
If solidified oil with chemical clutter
That helps it look yellow and tasty to eat
Makes you think there’s no need to believe it’s not butter,
You believe in modernity’s biggest deceit.
If you think things can just be replaced with a model
And the ghost of what’s good is on par with the best,
If chemical mixtures that go in a bottle
Can replace Mother’s milk and the warmth of her breast,
If changing appearance is all that is needed
To match the real thing if you only pretend,
If killing a game villain means you’ve succeeded
And a shadow of colour onscreen is a friend,
If pretend’s just as good and you’re happy to settle
For text in a chat thread instead of a life,
If androids are people with hearts made of metal
And pixels of flesh are as good as a wife,
If any religion’s the same as another
And feelings and fiction are equal to fact,
If a pet parent’s just like a father or mother
And a fatherless family’s as good as intact,
If you still think this fake bubble life doesn’t make you
As homeless as beggars who sleep in the street,
If this insect-hive world of today doesn’t shake you,
You believe in modernity’s biggest deceit.
“Let There Be Light” was first published in New English Review, and the others were first published in The Society of Classical Poets.
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