Wednesday, October 25, 2017

AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOSTS

If it were really
so easy, don't you think

a child could
annihilate
every last trace

of their tormented woe—and
supernatural angst

with a single,
unhaunted
look on its face—

decontaminating
the whole place,

not with a ray gun,
but with a simple,
piteous gaze?

You wouldn't need
to call the police

or one of those
crackpot ghost hunters
to come racing out

to haphazardly abolish
the calamities
of the goddamned

and reinstate
a clean iteration of the landscape.

But as it stands,
it's not as straightforward—or as
cinematic as that.

There are rules.
For instance:

1) nothing
which didn't happen
can ever happen

genuinely again. And—
2) no one can

make an everlasting decision
alone. It's only
all of those now living

together—who can
do that; and

more importantly,
2A) it's actually
all of us

now living
together—who have to.