Excerpt from "The Hidden Chamber" by Neil Gaiman, "Fragile Things - Short Fictions & Wonders"
he wrote this poem in an almost empty house he was staying in. it's actually about ghosts, an "upsettling" poem, both "unsettling" and "upsetting".
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I may be grim, perhaps, but only just as grim
as many man who suffered such affairs. Misfortune,
carelessness or pain, what matters is the loss. You'll see
the heartbreak linger in my eyes, and dream
of making me forget what came before you walked
into the hallway of this house. Bringing a little summer
in your glance, and with your smile.
While you are here, of course, you will hear the ghosts, always
a room away,
and you may wake beside me in the night,
knowing that there's a space without a door,
knowing that there's a place that's locked but isn't there.
Hearing them scuffle, echo, thump and pound.
If you are wise you'll run into the night, fluttering away into
the cold,
wearing perhaps the laciest of shifts. The lane's hard flints
will cut your feet all bloody as you run,
so, if I wished, I could just follow you,
tasting the blood and oceans of your tears. I'll wait instead,
here in my private place, and soon I'll put
a candle
in the window, love, to light your way back home.
The world flutters like insects. I think this is how I shall
remember you,
my head between the white swell of your breasts,
listening to the chambers of your heart.
Labels: Literature

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