In the haunted house   
   Dead are living and living are not-quite-dead   
   And each day is a death of the soul.   
   In the haunted house   
   Air shatters against the lungs   
   And the water runs down into the basement   
   And dissolves all inside.   
   There is memory of the dead   
   And the death of the memory is desired   
   But desire is itself expropriated   
   And the knife cuts into the soul.   
   All day long the dead haunt the house   
   And the living   
   Aho should by any standard be dead   
   Forges on and delights all who live   
   With her beauty and tenderness and deliquescence.   
   Come to me haunting beauty   
   And let us haunt together the house   
   In which is imprisoned humanity   
   And all are made ghosts.   
   We that are seen as the shadow   
   Are most able to live with the shadows   
   And know their worlds.   
   Let us then lead the shadows   
   Out the cave   
   And into sunlight.   
   In the haunted house   
   Death and life merge into one   
   And intensity of the absolute   
   That is the ongoing battle of life and death   
   Startles all things into attained reality.   
   And when I discern   
   The haunted house   
   That is your mind   
   Where death and tragedy scream at you   
   In viciousness and deceit   
   And shadows play on the walls to confound you   
   But you remain life embodied   
   Giving, tender, warm, brilliant, principled, strong   
   And ethereally majestic,   
   I would rather be torn to pieces   
   And made a ghost   
   Than let the ghosts crowd you out of life.   
   So live my sweet, and the shadows will go their way   
   When you   
   As life's resplendent embodiment   
   Become transparent as diamond   
   And cast no shadow as you walk.   
      
   https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambatpoetry   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)