The Battling GhostsA Poem by David Lewis Paget‘You have to come up to the house,’ she said, ‘I hate to be there at night, I have two ghosts in the old bedposts And each of them wants to fight, They make their way to the kitchen there And clatter the pots and pans, The woman ghost is a Gretel, and The masculine ghost is Hans.’
I said, ‘You must be imagining, There’s not a ghost you can see,’ ‘Well, I’ve got two and I’m telling you I see, believe you me! The guy is a cranky, violent fool, He must have been bad in life, While she defends herself with a stool Each time that he beats his wife.’
The house was Gothic and Romanesque And leaned out over the street, It had an arch like a gothic church With an overhead retreat. And that’s where she kept the poster bed Where the ghosts, she said, reside, ‘They can’t come out in the light of day So they go in there to hide.’
We spent the evening playing cards To wait for the witching hour, Sat in our coats to await the ghosts And their ectoplasmic shower, ‘It often gets messy,’ Cassandra said, ‘At the point they first appear, They give out this vapour in the air, A bit like the froth on beer.’
It must have been eleven o’clock When Cassandra fell asleep, I thought I could see her nodding off Though her eyes began to peep, Each nostril gave out a pale white smoke And it formed on left and right, One was Gretel and one was Hans And it gave me quite a fright.
It didn’t take them a moment then, She screamed and he would bawl, He beat her with a broom handle and Then pinned her against the wall, She kicked him fair in the shins and ran Right out of the room in there, I watched him yell as he followed her Down by the kitchen stair.
And then there was a clatter of pans A noise like you’ve never heard, They threw them around the kitchen Until Gretel was calling ‘Merde!’ I tried to rouse Cassandra, who Was groggy, but still awake, I said, ‘You’ll have to be exorcised,’ And watched her begin to shake.
‘They may have been in the bedposts when You came, I’m sure that’s true, But maybe they found a better place For now they live in you.’ I told her the ectoplasm formed From her, and from whence it came, She covered her mouth and nose and said, ‘They’ll never get back again!’
When daylight dawned in that gothic house And the sun came shining in, The ghosts came back to the bedroom and They paid for their ghostly sin, Cassandra fended them off until They both were shouting, ‘Merde!’ Until the light had destroyed them with A scream that you should have heard.
There’s not been a ghost in that gothic house From then until this day, I’m visiting still with Cassandra and We’ve found a game to play, It has to do with that poster bed With its polished, wooden posts, But the one thing that we’re certain of, We’ll never be seen by ghosts.
David Lewis Paget © 2015 David Lewis PagetFeatured Review
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11 Reviews Added on July 6, 2015 Last Updated on July 6, 2015 Tags: bedposts, gothic, romanesque, ectoplasm Author
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