HAUNTED - House of the Dead
By Sarah Das Gupta
The empty house welcomes darkness.
The cold mist of an autumn evening
drifts through the broken casements,
the half-open, creaking doors.
Cobwebs hang from dusty chandeliers;
their shattered glass jingles crazily as
the wind whispers through cracks and crevices.
A single, severed hand, with bony fingers
plays at the old piano, the notes linger
and echo among the ancient rafters.
In the portrait on the parlour wall,
the soulful eyes of the young girl
range over the white-sheeted furniture.
A single tear rolls slowly down her
sallow, painted cheek.
In the armchair by the bare hearth,
a skeletal figure sits. Empty eye sockets
stare unseeing at a clock face which
which never moves from midday
or midnight in a house where time
itself has died.
Night has flooded the cold kitchen.
An old crone sits by a century of ash.
The black cat at her feet, frozen
in time, only its burning, amber eyes,
stare at the door at which loud footsteps
sound, but their owner never arrives.
On the floor above, the dead are
searching, searching for a bed,
for the rest they can never find.
Sarah Das Gupta is an 81 year young retired teacher from near Cambridge, UK who also taught in India and Tanzania. She started writing last October while bored by a long stay in hospital,following an accident. Her work has been published in 12 countries including- US, UK, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, Croatia and Romania. Writing has given her the drive and inspiration to learn to walk again.
