Now in the dead of night The spectre steps through from one world to the next In this borderland of ramparts and stone The watchers quail as it turns their way They see its face and know The dead king walks The king’s son, grief-laden Summoned by the watchers Waits in fearful anticipation And then,…
Will o’ wisp dances in forest dark and deep Follow, weary traveller, to where you can find sleep I will lead you surely, just watch my guiding light Just a little further, keep my flame in sight. Don’t regard the mud that now is underneath your feet A cosy bed awaits you, soft and warm…
The ghosts of writers past haunt me They speak in my mind They flow through my fingers Shakespeare wrote a new sonnet last night Though he objected to the keyboard And demanded pen and paper I don’t think they really understand I can’t go out and say Well, I was speaking to Steinbeck the other…
Every night I see him Standing by the road Always at the same spot As I drive on by Tall and stiff and still And watching me It’s 5am, I’m going home from work There are few cars on the road And no walkers But there he is again Same place, same stance Tall and…
A motley ghost A stitched together spectre Pieces of lives from long ago Walking the hallways Wailing down the staircases Clank a chain or two in the cellar Is it man or woman Wronged wife, murdered child Head of the house slain in battle Prisoner starved to death It is all of these Shreds of…
What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber. These words begin “The Devil’s Backbone”. Written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro, this…
Shirley Jackson’s “The Haunting of Hill House” is considered a classic of horror fiction. I will admit immediately that I didn’t find it particularly scary. The 1963 film adaptation, which kept fairly close to the book, may be partially responsible for that, in that I knew what was going to happen and how it would…
How could we touch you Child of the twilight Skipping through the liminal spaces Slipping through the unreal places Between realities Ghost child Fey child Your unseen hands stroke softly Over our spirits Leaving goosebumps and shivers As if someone walked over our graves What are you Whence came you What do you want But…
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop...the Twilight Zone. — Rod Serling Continuing my appreciation of this wonderful old series, the following are my favourites from Season 3, first aired 1961-1962. “The…
I do like a ghost story, and I am also a fan of director Guillermo Del Toro, so I was interested to see “Crimson Peak”. Starring Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain, it’s a gothic horror in the old style used by Hammer horror films of the fifties, sixties and seventies. A young American…
Eclectic Assemblage 