Let’s resurrect the Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas. On this episode of STRANGE & SCARY STORY TALK, I discuss the long history of this tradition and explain why the Victorians took a particular interest in the dead and their relationship with the living. I also talk about why Christmas is the perfect time to welcome ghosts to our holiday celebrations.
This week on STRANGE & SCARY STORY TALK I discuss E. Nesbit’s ghost story-or should I say corpse story-In the Dark. Nesbit is best known as a British writer of children’s fiction. She channeled her darkness into her lesser known stories for adults. In this episode we also explore Nesbit’s demons, the infantilizing power of fear and the importance of the ghost story in helping us grapple with what most terrorizes us.
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I believe that most artists have one question that drives their work. Through their craft they strive to find the answer or explanation to that singular uncertainty which haunts them.
Does God exist?
Does the devil?
Who is my father? My mother?
Am I a monster?
Are you?
What did happen that night?
What is wrong with me?
What is wrong with the world? What did he mean when he said___________?
What did she mean?
Was it all a mistake?
Did I do the wrong thing?
Did I live the wrong life?
For me, I write to find the answer to this question: Is it real?
Is it real? Is his love real? Is her love? Is this person my loved one claims to be real? Was it all real, all those beliefs and principles? Are your feelings, your affections, real? Are mine? Are you real? The person you assure me you are, are you real? Is everything my life is built upon real? Is all I hold dear real? Is the deer I just saw in my lawn real? Is that color of my lawn, the verdant green of the grass, real? Is that black speck I see out of the corner of my eye real? Is something really there? Those voices I hear as I lie in bed, are those real? That person that I see standing in my doorway as I drift off to sleep real, is she real?
Is it real? This is the most terrifying of questions because it is followed by-if it is real, what then? And, if it is not real, what was it?
Is it real? The answer to this question can be the most assuring or terrorizing of responses, but, more frightening than the answer itself is the uncertainty which drives the question. The uncertainty of what truly is. The terror lies in the not knowing.
I wrote Fade Into Another Place as I witnessed my mother succumb to the horrors of dementia-a disease that damns its victims to an eternity unknowns. An eternity of wondering, is it real?
Fade Into Another Place
Out of the corner of my eye
I spy
a flash.
It is black.
Perhaps a cat?
Not my cat.
He has long since departed.
But another,
I imagine,
who has found his way inside
this place where I reside.
Funny though.
Not too long ago,
I had a visit from a friend
who everyone tells me
has long been dead.
But oh so real
as we sat and had a cup of tea.
“Don’t you see?”
I asked.
“She is here,
as plain as can be.”
Is it something that haunts this place?
I contemplate
as I sit
and wait
for another friend to arrive.
But, I know.
I know.
This is an empty place,
and I must journey alone.
No friends to accompany me
as I make my way
past faceless strangers who talk and whisper.
I listen,
and I try to hear.
Will they confirm my deepest fear?
Their voices rise-
a cacophonous symphony
as they chatter
chatter
chatter
“Stop!”
Silence is what I need
to concentrate and discern
what is real
and what is make believe.
And so I go
and go
and go
until I fade away
into another place
where, perhaps,
I will be young again.
Two summers ago my daughter, who was almost nine years old at the time, and I visited Edith Wharton’s home, The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts. The house was beautiful and impressive, but my daughter was frightened not only in the house but outside as well, even as we walked through the magnificent gardens that Wharton herself designed. My daughter said the property felt haunted and asked if we could leave.
I later learned that The Mount is in fact rumored to be haunted. Surprisingly, Wharton had a deep fear of ghosts, despite having been a talented ghost story writer. Some of her most popular ghostly tales are Afterward, The Lady Maid’s Bell and The Triumph of Night.
It was our visit to The Mount that inspired this poem, which I originally posted in August 2018.
Melancholy, Like an Old Empty House
So, this is what it feels like
-melancholy.
Like an old, empty house
sitting atop a hill
on a hot summer day.
Inside, it is dead, silent, still.
Like a fever, the heat permeates the walls,
the film covered windows
the narrow stairwell-
meant for the unseen,
like sadness
hiding under smiles.
*
Melancholy, like an old, empty house
where the sun emanates a jaundiced glow
and the dust and ghosts
and memories
sit at the table awaiting tea
to be poured into cups
stained with past regrets.
*
But the time to drink is over
and the thirst that remains
is eternal.
If you want to learn more about Wharton, The Mount and her story Pomegranate Seed, please check out this episode of Strange & Scary Story Talk. Also, please note that while recoding I inadvertently say that The Mount is set upon a 13 acre property rather than 113 acres!
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Late Autumn Visit to An Old New England Home
The quaint New England village
in mid-October.
Antique shops, country stores.
White-steepled churches
set against the backdrop
of fall’s spectacular display
of crimson and gold foliage.
And the old New England home.
Her porch adorned with cornstalks and pumpkins.
Her flowerbeds full of yellow and rust-colored mums.
Arrogantly she stands.
She knows her admirers.
How they delight in her unassuming
beauty.
So simple.
Tasteful.
Smart.
She leaves them to wonder
whether she is listed in the registry
of historic homes.
No one
not even she
acknowledges that her charms will fade
with the dropping of the leaves.
*
Be patient.
Wait a bit.
Four weeks perhaps.
Then visit again.
This time
go on in.
Meet her.
Push open the door that doesn’t quite want to give.
She’s not easy, you know.
Hear the creak of the plank floor as you step inside.
Smell the mothballs
and the scent of doorknobs
touched too many times
by so many hands
that the odor
that’s permeated their surfaces
can never be removed.
Smell the faint aroma
of dried out pot roasts
from dinners that stole away days.
Feel the lifeless still
of 4:00
on a Sunday afternoon
in November.
Sit in the chair by the window
and see the world
from that filmy view.
The gray sky.
The skeleton trees.
Now, turn your gaze back inside
and watch the dust
dance
in the late autumn sun
that streaks tauntingly through the glass.
And watch
as a single particle
settles itself atop one of the many knickknacks
that sits lazily
upon the mantel.
Hear the clock.
Each tick
reminding you
of how very long
a day can be.
In the sickening stillness
feel the unbearable loneliness.
Catch your breath.
Breathe in deeply.
Push the air past
the knot
in your throat.
As you sit, feel the house.
The weight
of her past.
So close, really.
What’s 200 years?
Certainly not enough time
for the departed
to resign themselves
to their fate.
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When I was ten years old, my family moved to prison grounds because my father was a warden. There I learned that places have their own energy and, if too many bad things happen in a space, bad things will continue to happen.
On the night of October 22, 2015, nearly twenty-five years after I moved away from prison grounds, I had a dream about that place. When I awoke, I wrote this:
THE WARDEN”S HOUSE
The hill
Four houses
Forest behind
Fields ahead
A dead end
The horizon
A prison
That place
Autumn
Dead leaves
Bare trees
My mother
Speaking in tongues
Secrets and stories
Legends of the dead
Bones in the woods
Sounds in the night
An insomniac child
Wide awake
Midnight rapping on the door
Something crashing to the floor
The dog atop the stairs
Snarling
The house next door
Looming
Once inside
A cavernous red room
A feeling of doom
Something wrong
Innocence knows
A dry fountain in back
Some toads
Chirping of crickets
Honking of geese
The noisy silence of death
and demons
Peaking in windows
Smashing down gates
The song of that place
On the hill
Where the Warden’s house stood.
*
Just the other night
I visited that house
In my dream
The red room
The living room
The basement door
I saw it all
All that dwelled there then
All that dwells there now
In my dreams
Of that house
On that hill
In that place
Where dead leaves fall
in the eerie silence
of a haunted past
This poem was originally posted in October 2015.
In that house
remains my heart
as it was
so long ago,
and in my chest
I carry it,
that same heart,
as it is now-
worn and sad,
missing that part
that is there
in that place
which stands
inhabited by strangers
who have the audacity
to believe that house
is theirs.
Strangers
who live with my heart
beating still
for you.
*
Do they hear it
in the quiet hours
of the dark morning?
Do they feel you
who hold my heart
within your home?
Within those walls?
*
Are we there
still?
In the still of the night?
In the dark?
In the light
that chases ghosts away?
*
And if we are there still,
how can I be here
and you
so far away,
resting,
waiting for me to return
-home?
Quirk N Jive 