Mother

You always called me

your little tsouris

I thought it was a term of endearment
Like a lost word,

[it comes] back unbidden *

with your memory

You said you knew

the dark spirits would follow me

because my name was uttered

in your eighth month
 You tried

to love me but

when you looked at me,

you saw the dybbuk

and recoiled

You accused me 

of trying to turn you into a ghost

when I named my doll after you

I didn't know

I was only ten

On your grave today

I placed a stone

I'm still trying, Mother.

* For Ella's prompt, we were instructed to include a line from a ghost poem. I chose "Unbidden" by Rae Armantrout

Poet's Notes: I've made mention of several Jewish words superstitions in this poem:

• tsouris = heartbreak, worry
• uttering baby's name during pregnancy will alert evil spirits
• dybbuk = an evil spirit that possesses the living
• naming a baby after someone still alive is akin to wishing them dead
• instead of flowers, Jews place a stone when visiting a grave

submitted for Magpie Tales, Mag 242
and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Play It Again, Toads #10, Hallows Edge

Ouija

source

When I was a child

The line between doubt and belief

was permeable

a meandering current in a stream

between reality and imagination

How I loved to cross that portal,

to lift the veil of certainty

that disguises the world of possibility

We had a ritual:

Winter was best

as dark came early,

before we had to go home for dinner

Sit in a circle

with the board in the middle,

each of our hands resting ever so lightly

on the indicator

Wait

At first we thought it a trick

But we pinky swore it was not

The spirit was speaking

We were the conduit

Soon, the game became unnecessary;

We just held a pencil

and it spoke to us

in smoky, graphite

Over time

amorphous scribbles became

differentiated

Scenes of destruction, fire, slaughter

emerged from our own hands

without our intent

Our feast of fun

became fear, force-fed

I made the decision

to sacrifice the board

and, along with it, the drawings

Sealed in a trash bag to be carried away

with the week's junk mail

and coffee grinds

Belief and doubt battle to this day

Childhood fantasy or

something wicked narrowly avoided

Belief usually wins out.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Get Listed for October
and It's Ma Thing

Little Ghost

image from Magpie Tales, Google images

She was the kind of girl

everyone talked about and

no one talked to

There were rumors 'bout 

what her daddy'd done

but no one really knew

In the mirrors at the Cut N Curl

the women clucked her name

said she was a pretty thing

it really was a shame

The menfolk of the town

they shook their heads and

mumbled low

through clouds of smoke 

with whiskey graveled breath

don't want to know

She had a haunted look about her

seemed to hurt to smile

she was just a little ghost

dying all the while

Then one day she was gone

in her place an empty chair

no one knew what happened to her

and no one seemed to care.

submitted for Magpie Tales, 91

Chains

images courtesy of Ella Wilson

This empty shell she called her home

She roams her hell after the gloam

Imprisoned within as a lover's possesion

"I am not free; my heart is chained

By jealousy, my love constrained."

By his hand she died after making confession.

submitted for Thursday Think Tank, #69, Haunted Houses, at Poets United

and In-form Poet: Tri-Coupled Sestet, at Poetic Bloomings