Haunted House Poem by Ilya Shambat

In the haunted house
Dead are living and living are not-quite-dead
And each day is a death of the soul.
In the haunted house
Air shatters against the lungs
And the water runs down into the basement
And dissolves all inside.
There is memory of the dead
And the death of the memory is desired
But desire is itself expropriated
And the knife cuts into the soul.
All day long the dead haunt the house
And the living
Aho should by any standard be dead
Forges on and delights all who live
With her beauty and tenderness and deliquescence.
Come to me haunting beauty
And let us haunt together the house
In which is imprisoned humanity
And all are made ghosts.
We that are seen as the shadow
Are most able to live with the shadows
And know their worlds.
Let us then lead the shadows
Out the cave
And into sunlight.
In the haunted house
Death and life merge into one
And intensity of the absolute
That is the ongoing battle of life and death
Startles all things into attained reality.
And when I discern
The haunted house
That is your mind
Where death and tragedy scream at you
In viciousness and deceit
And shadows play on the walls to confound you
But you remain life embodied
Giving, tender, warm, brilliant, principled, strong
And ethereally majestic,
I would rather be torn to pieces
And made a ghost
Than let the ghosts crowd you out of life.
So live my sweet, and the shadows will go their way
When you
As life's resplendent embodiment
Become transparent as diamond
And cast no shadow as you walk.