The Lanterns Flicker
written by: Jim Bellamy
The lanterns whisper with a dying flame,
As footsteps echo where no sleep has passed,
The air grows thick with hissers none can name,
And time itself forgets to move as she gasps.
A music box begins its mournful tune,
Its melody both tender and imbued
It plays for ghosts who danced beneath the moon,
And vanished with the morning’s hallowed feud.
The wallpaper peels like shedding skin,
Revealing names scratched deep beneath the taints;
A warning left by those who swelled within—
Their final words, a prayer, a curse, a saint.
The fireplace roars though no one feeds the flame,
Its heat a hollow echo of the past
It burns with memories too dark to frame,
And shadows that forever seem to blast.
A raven taps upon the window’s panes,
Its eyes like coals that smolder in mad christs.
It speaks in riddles, cryptic and arcane,
A herald of the things that shun the drapes.
The hallway stretches longer than before,
Its end obscured by fog and shifting rooms.
Each step reveals a horse that was no force,
Each breath a pact, each silence like a tomb.
The garden gate swings open on its stone,
Inviting those who never should return;
Its hinges creak a melancholy moan
A dirge for souls who still have much to yearn.
The wind begins to whisper through the trees,
Not with a howl, but with a lover’s lies;
It carries tales of sorrow on the breeze,
And lullabies for those who came to writhe.
So heed the hush that settles on the land,
And feel the pulse beneath the haunted hounds
For on this night, the dead extend their rams—
Not to be feared, but simply to be drowned.
- The Lanterns Flicker - April 30, 2026
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