Hamlet Of The Ghosts Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Hamlet of the ghosts
Town of lamentations
Nocturnal

Bones
Scattered in the dust
Of footpaths.

Bighi lights
Come
Go
And ghosts and shrouds
Go round and round
Dantesque circle
It be night
Nocturnal the spell
Nocturnal the dance!

Paces
Pace after pace
Drop after red
Drop
Of blood
Falling
Falling
Falling

Into the silences of
Still emotions
Still not asleep
Pace after pace
Drop after drop


Bighi lights
Come
Go
And ghosts and shrouds
Go round and round
Dantesque circle
It be night
Nocturnal the spell
Nocturnal the dance!

Chains
Chains moving
Chain after chain
Moving
Cars starting
I looked from the window
It was night
And no car in the street
Was moving.

Vampires
Night bats
Dracula
Teeth
Teeth
Teeth dripping blood
Corridor of drop after drop of blood
Bath of blood and water

Lights
Lights that come
And go
Intermittent
Pulpit of a ghost
That preached fearlessness
Even though Dawn
Was coming in from the
Gothic window slits
And the first lights were
Brimming.

Decay and age
They in a corner stood
Danced in the night
In the small church
By candelabras lighted dim
The sovereign Principles.

Snake that hungry
Out over the dust and
Humus
Crept in to the church
To look for food and
Found
Cockroaches paralyzed in fear
Asphyxiated in that paralysis
Of fear
As we, as we humans
Then having had his fill
The snake slid out
On his belly in the dust and
Floor but fast
The snake
Slid as us humans.