The sun is setting, the sky is red,
and each grave mutely marks the dead.
Dead leaves on the dead grass lie.
Through the wind, you’ll hear a cry,
“As you are now, we were before.
We once lived, who live no more.”
The moon arises, smeared with clouds,
The dead arise, wrapped in shrouds.
Above each grave, where each was laid
A ghost hovers, a baleful shade.
To us the living, they do implore:
“We once lived, who live no more.”
All Hallow’s Eve, the dead arise.
From mouths long dead come voiceless cries.
Beneath the moon they walk the land.
Forever cursed, forever damned.
They hover just outside your door,
They who lived, but live no more.
What they lost in life they seek
With baleful eye and bloodless cheek.
Tormented souls, of hope denied,
Mutely haunting where they died.
They haunt the night, cold and hoar,
They who lived, and live no more.
No requiem aeternam given,
Never saved and never shriven.
They walk the night and haunt our dreams,
Crying out with voiceless screams.
Hope and peace they all forswore
They who lived, and live no more.
The dead will wait another year
To walk the earth and wander near.
Returning to their earthen graves
These tortured and despairing slaves
With dying cries their fate abhor
“We once lived, who live no more.”
–Stephen P. Smith
Wow, all you needed was a creepy narrator and some Halloween screams and this would be a perfect reading.
WC
Yeah, I’m just a little ray of sunshine, ain’t I?
Very nice, Mr. Smith.
I’m with WC, this should have been an audio post read by Boris Karloff. Very dark, very sad.
~m
Thank you. Looks like neither of us is going to make it in the “Little ray of sunshine club”.
that gave me the shivers! in a good way if that’s possible for shivers
impressive…
Thank you! As a lover of music with, alas, no musical talent, poetry is the closest I can come to creating something lyrical. I’m always glad when someone tells me they enjoy my poetry.