Out of book-filled basement and attic dens
Clans of joking, sharing, joy-sorrow friends
Packing cheese and chocolate and hefting
Books of lyrics, covers leathern, musty,
Creep out of town-sight, each Walpurgis Night,
To stalk cemeteries, churchyards, crossroads –
Laughing, life-flaunting, death-taunting, running,
Sky-pointing, poem-chaunting, wondering,
Huddling against wind, sitting on headstones,
Watching, waiting, scanning, straining... hoping
For some shadow-scream to pierce nearby; some
Odd-bodied thing to wing past the moon; some
Strange shape to lurch against the zon-hori –
For some thing spectral, some voice sepulchral
To whisper words dire, dark, stark, awful – Yet
Cheer-greeting dawn aft each Walpurgisnacht,
When "The veil between worlds is drawn thin, and
Things may pass through," though no things ever do.
