Shadows in the House of Lights

by Stanley M Noah
Illustration by Nico Grimm

can be seen if you believe they are
there. It’s the long traveled deep
wheeled road that got me here.  Near
darkness followed like a spell, and the
outlined view was found the old
house with yellow lit windows, flickering
from inside. In town it’s told a Civil
War General lived here.     But never

came back. A reclusive daughter lived
within for years then disappeared as
if she never really existed. The mother
died suddenly decades ago. Only her
name remains in the county clerk’s
ledger of deaths.     Family cemetery
lay a short walk behind the house as if a
breeze away.     I knocked on the door.

Climbed through a window.  Found my
way to the cellar of connected rooms,
connected doors. And then, a narrow
tunnel of red brick,clay walls and
downward  steps in the direction of
the cemetery.     I recoiled from the
unknown that laced a fear, some     ‘.
how foreseen, hidden inside like a

force of personal history         like a self
destructive sensation.    I drove back
to town.  Told what happened. They
asked,    “did I see shadows without
their bodies moving about?”  I replied,
“only my own.”  They all answered with
a voice like a distant echo, “return to the
house. You do not belong here. Hurry.”

I remembered  the house garden pond.
Now dried, leaving gold bones of fishes.
Leaving everything in a haze.

***

Stanley M Noah has a BGS degree from the University of Texas at Dallas, and has been published in the following: Wisconsin Review, Main Street Rag, Poetry Nottingham and many other publications in the U.S.A., Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

Nico Grimm is a musician by choice and visual artist by accident. He occasionally writes, too.