The Haunted Woman

 

 

By Jean Bush

Her hair is wild, her eyes are bright,

She holds him fast within her sight,

But demons take him in the night,

From the Lady of Alvarez.

 

Within the mists of dreams she’s weeping.

Through restless toss and turns of sleeping;

And in the night she rises shrieking,

Sad Lady of Alvarez.

 

What has torn him from her side?

She cries as vultures flap the sky.

But round her only shadows sigh

For the Lady of Alvarez.

 

Though without her heart grows fonder,

Deep inside her mind does wander;

With half-closed eyes she nods and ponders,

The Mad Lady of Alvarez.

 

With the dark there, something beckons,

She knows not what she’ll have to reckon.

And though with doom her soul is threatened,

Walks the Lady of Alvarez.

 

She steps into the coiling gloom

Beneath the chilled and shrouded moon.

She’ll find a way to join him soon.

Farewell, Lady of Alvarez.

 

 



Kiss of Death

 

 

By Jean Bush

 

She comes on sunset colors

Rocking in his head.

A dark and shimmering shadow

Like lace across his bed.

 

Beside the narrow window

The night takes up her form.

She takes his hand and beckons him

To ride the coming storm.

 

Frosty fingers touch his arm;

Her words a woman’s lies.

He looks into her smiling face

And knows he’s going to die.

 

She steps back through the window,

The stars their courses stopped.

His fate is fixed, she calls his name.

He leaps and drops the fatal drop.

 

The gathered crowd made judgment fast,

As sun poured light across the sky.

They saw love’s smile upon his lips

But called it suicide.



THE CURSE

 

 

By Jean Bush

 

At the sound of the knock, he opened the door,

And there on the porch stood his friend LeBours.

“I came at your call as fast as I dare.”

“You’re here at last, that’s all I care.”

 

He paused to clear this throat and said:

“I think tonight I shall be dead.”

“I think what you need to clear your mind

Is a smoke and a drink of your finest wine.”

 

With that, his friend stepped through the door,

And what could he do but follow LeBours.

“The curse of my family is burned in the wall.

Read it, please, it will tell you all.”

 

“It’s really quite a simple verse.”

They slid back the panel and read the curse:

 

 

An ancient crime that reeks with mettle.

An ancient score too late to settle.

A friend had helped the life that flew

So now who dies is one and two.

 

“The point, I fear, I cannot see….”

“It means there’s death for you and me!”

“I asked you here so we can fight

And keep a watch throughout the night.”

 

“Dear Mac,” said Le Bours, “I’m not afraid of your ghost.

Bring us a drink and we’ll have a toast.”

So saying, he settled himself in a chair

And watched the shadows that gathered there.

 

Mac backed slowly from the room

And disappeared in the musty gloom.

He carried the drinks back through the door

And couldn’t believe what he saw on the floor:

 

He downed a drink to clear his head for across the room, LeBours lay dead.

The tray of drinks crashed to the floor, Mac was needed in his role no more.

Now the room lay still and dim

For late last night, it had gotten him.

 

 

 

 



The Deadly Lover

 

By Jean Bush

Come to me, my pretty thing,

For killed I was and dead I’ve been.

The flowers strewn about my grave

I bring to you this lovely day.

Draw not back, my little lass.

Soon all your fears will leave and pass.

Your love I seek to give me life;

I’ve come to take you for my wife.

The coffin, Dear, is a lonely place,

And no one there can know my face.

The rattling bones of those I see

Are not a dead man’s company.

You turn away, you turn to go,

My beat less heart has sunken low.

My casket calls me with a sigh…

I’ll have to wait until you die.



THE CELEBRATION

By Jean Bush

It was shifting night of eyes and things;

Of smoky fires and spells to sing.

Where witches dance and fairies prance

And night takes flight upon its wings.

 

October wind, chilled too soon,

Blows beneath the misty moon.

Drifting clouds like ragged shrouds

Enhance the coming gloom.

 

Within the woods a cat-like tread;

A hung-still moment of nameless dread.

A flash of light then blackest night,

And there stood they, the walking dead.

 

A crackling fire they quick surround

And dance a dance of leaps and bounds.

Black hair flying, voices crying,

The dancers from the graveyard mounds.

 

The moon casts forth a deathlike sheen

On these creatures from a madman’s dream.

But to childhood’s ghosts they drink a toast,

And celebrate this Halloween.

 



 

 

 

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The Courtly Ghost

 

By Jean Bush

A spirit came on a moonlit night

To seek a maid to be his wife,

And there he saw her passing fair

As she was going up the stair.

 

“Pardon, Miss, I’d like a kiss,

Please turn your eyes to me;

For you look sweet and we could sleep

Through all eternity.”

 

The lady paused and looked around

And seemed to be alone,

But a midnight wind had gotten in

And chilled her to the bone.

 

The days passed by, the neighbors came

And bring her back they tried.

Though she lay in the gloom of that cold, cold room,

She had left to become a bride.



SPACE WALK

By Jean Bush

Slipping free, I step toward the stars;

All around I see the endless rush of eternity.

Wobbly and ungainly, I turn toward that bluest

Of marbles.  Home, swathed in creamy clouds;

Swirling above the lashing seas.

My foot steps on nothingness, but feels like the crunching soil

My shielded eyes gaze upon blackness, but

I see the rolling green of earth.

I breath in air canned and sold in tubes

But smell the flowered air of Spring.

I had longed to be freed from the nagging pull

Of the ground beneath my feet.

And now I float in the dark and silent realm

Unknown to all but me and wish it more.

I yearn, unknowing and unknown,

To find that flashing beginning,

To touch the hand that touched us all.

I pull and tug, unmindful of the frightened chatter in my ear,

The siren songs of safety and return.

Now I float unbound, swirling away from the drifting edifice

Of metallic love.   Surely I see the stars and

Flickering sun beckoning me toward themselves

As they rush to embrace my bold approach.

Dimming now, I gasp for breath no longer there.

I see before my eyes flashing red and black,

Coloring, not the reach of space but painted in my mind.

Knowing now the tales told by those who

Flew in silvered arrows across the night of space

And thought they had it all.

But they had it not, it is I who now reach out

And touch the face of God………



THE EYES & THE FALL OF MAN

 

 

By Jean Bush

He,

Floating on a sea of green.

Drowning in delight;

A maelstrom full of promises

And death.

She,

Drifting through an endless black.

Smothered in a warm, velvet night;

A dark tunnel of desire

And doom.

Down,

Down,

Down, they fell;

Down past clowns with swords

To cut and slash the innocent.  Down past hope and dreams,

Until they reached the bottom, where they lay still,
 

Pierced on  the sharp rocks of disappointment.

 

And the Imps of Impulse came forth with chains

And bound them together.

And the eyes of them, the green and the black,

Filled with tears,

And they called it love.



 

 

 

Night Rider

By Jean Bush

Upon the haunted, magic air

A sound is heard in the dark somewhere;

A creak of wood, as gears are churned,

A carousel begins to turn.

 

A siren song that calls a child

To find these horses running wild,

Whose painted mouths say: Join our game!

He leaps the one he wants to tame.

 

The laughing boy holds tight the pole

And hugs the wooden horse of old.

Watching the dark town flashing by

He takes the forbidden midnight ride.

 

The painted eyes begin to gleam

And shadows flicker close like dreams.

Front hooves rise in a sudden rear

As the boy now clings to flesh and fear.

 

He turns and looks for one last time

As the leave the carousel behind.

The maddened horse in nightmare flight

Rides the boy into the night.

They leap the earth in an endless rush

And hopes of childhood turn to dust.

The dark night turns to seek the dawn

But against the stars the boy is gone.

 

 

 

 



My Lady

 

 

By Jean Bush

 

Oft I’ve come upon her

And caught her unaware:

Bare limbs flashing in the light,

And saw a rosebud blush

Upon her snowy cheek.

 

But cold she turns

And wastes me

With her Arctic chill.

Ye knowing I’ll stay and stay

To see her blush again.

 

Deep within the icy night,

As surely as the seasons turn,

Does she to me.

I dare to touch…

And find it warm.

 

I know beneath her frosty gaze

I have not long to wait

Before I hold her rich embrace,

For her warmest smiles tell me

My Lady Spring is in the air.

 



Last Look

 

By Jean Bush

 

Starving little beggar cat,

 So thin and full of woe,

Sitting with your tail wrapped feet

Not flinching from your blows.

 

You sit there so patiently

Waiting for some food,

At last I sigh and just give in

So you won’t think I’m rude.

 

Do not assume you’ve gotten me

As I pat your scrawny head,

Do not think you’re gonna sleep

With your fleas upon my bed.

 

Your belly’s full, your ears were scratched

Yet somehow I think you know,

The door is cracked… you stop…look back

Then on your way you go.