We all have “ghosts” in our lives – people, places, experiences, mistakes, regrets – metaphorical “apparitions” that haunt us. This week, face one of your “ghosts” and translate “it” into written language. For this poem, I’m not talking about ghostly apparitions or things that go bump in the night but, rather, realities that inhabit our hearts and refuse to let us forget. Dig deeply, think hard. Meet your ghost face-to-face. Invite your ghost to inhabit your poem. Give your ghost words and a form. Write a poem you’re afraid to write.
Possible Ghosts:
1. Deceased loved ones …
2. Former friends or family members …
3. People we’ve hurt or treated unfairly …
4. People who have hurt us ...
5. Something we should have done but didn’t …
6. Something we shouldn’t have done but did …
7. Lost loves ...
8. Wartime Experiences ...
9. Houses or special places …
10. Unwise decisions …
11. Words we’ve spoken …
12. Lies we’ve told, lies of omission, truths we’ve withheld …
Example Poems:
And an excerpt from the title poem of my book Chosen Ghosts:
Always in autumn, when the backyard thins
and the brittleness starts, I go back to my griefs.
I bury the last chrysanthemums and pray for my
sorrows, wishing it was still summer when
the sky traveled in a thousand directions at once
or years ago when every season was spring
with its risings and promise. But now, here
and now, in the whirl of this brief, sad season,
I call my ghosts home and gather them around me.
Like the flock of geese that sleeps in an open field
near the river, they rise in a rush of wings
that remembers the victory of flight.
