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Please respect each authors’ and poets’ copyright. The rights remain with the writers. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from each of the poems author’s is strictly prohibited and violates copyright laws in the country you are reading this work in as well as in the country you are trying to re-publish this work in. – Aurora Jean Alexander
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“Haunts the mind” written by Russell Holder
There has never been any odd sighs from Creaking
Woods…
the place of gnarled branches and rustling of
leaves,
this place despised for the discourse of dank
boundaries,
a place to disturb childish fears on All Hallows
Eve,
there a space of shadow’s refraction, of darkness
and light,
where the slightest sounds magnified from forest’s
canopied eaves,
the lights of sullen spirits of past in the present
to moan-
the sudden chill dampens the living of warmth,
a stillness to relieve,
goose-bumps to linger, bristled hairs does it raise…
along with tales of the dead, bemoaned and
buggered spirits,
the skin which would crawl from mere mention to
flinch and then pucker,
no odd sighs but sure shrieks and taunt nipples
as flits,
stealthy, the spectral beings dance fro and to
disembodied music,
the scene is of one that haunts the mind prone
to such fits…
this where bark rubs bark, to sound echoes of
tree’d hollow drums,
this merging medley to fears of both natural
and unnatural wonder,
the senses overwhelmed… set on heel to this
odd bounty of soul,
so we would revel in these things… things that
can’t hurt us by blunder,
ghosts may pierce our bodies and would yet
then fly through,
it is the lightening we see but then shake
from the thunder,
contain not the child but the fears that we
have of our past…
no stolen youth, misspent, it is that which
yields to tricks,
nature is a fine trickster herself… the simple
made marvelous at our feet,
the bones as they’re scared… don’t they rattle
and we hear creaks,
no… the hung man still sits there conducting
the symphony,
and it is from those thoughts… our fears, our
mind and our ticks.
I wish you all a safe Halloween. This was originally written for
Halloween 2013. Also a reblog, from LinkedIn, in a group of two,
called “Poe Moments.”
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/6606022/6606022-5931485117657657344
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The Whistlers by Ellen Best
I catch a noise before I sleep
The whistlers skulk about
Spreading fear skin deep.
Chirruping secret calls,
Hiding behind garden walls.
Disturbing young girls dreams
I wake with terrifying screams.
I pull a quilt over my head,
Hide a torch beneath the bed.
Prepare to fight for my life
I take Mum’s vegetable knife.
It’s old and blunt, bent a bit
She stabs at spuds in the pot
To ascertain if they are hot.
Armed, I squeeze Emma tight,
Her yellow suit warm and bright
She comforts me as I hum
a lulluby learned from Mum.
Doll and me are doing fine
Until music starts keeping time.
Through the crack, behind the bed
I hear the tune, inside my head,
Sweet and soft hardly heard.
Matching me word for word.
Spuriously stuffing notes in a sack
My sleep is wrestled into the black.
Sheets tangle around my legs,
Like on a line round Mummy’s pegs.
I can’t escape, I scream at last,
Sodden sheets and whitened mask.
Tapping her foot beside my bed
Mummy glares, shakes her head.
washed and clean no longer soiled
Tea is made
Once the
whistling kettle’s
boiled.
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This is only the fourth group of submissions. Please, keep them coming and make it really hard for the jury to decide on the winners!
A. J. Alexander
Writer's Treasure Chest 
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