LindaAnn LoSchiavo
Abecedarian: Apparitions Beckon Cautiously, Determined
Apparently, apparitions can see clearly in daylight. They spied me
butterflied on the dusty tiled floor of the top floor’s bathroom.
Cautiously, I’d hidden after the haunted house tour, cupping lullaby silk in my palms,
determined to wander alone through this mysterious mansion, quietly
exploring each room alone, weighing my plans, high off uninhibitedness,
forensic equipment squirreled in my backpack,
gravel-boned ghost hunting gadgetry such as Geiger counters and
high-tech electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors.
Invisible presences must be made interesting to YouTube viewers even if it’s
just cheap window-dressing: clicking, ticking, flashing lights.
Kinetics, the effect of forces, bait an audience to keep watching and subscribing.
Less scientific methods are often used, too, to sharpen showmanship.
Money? Though meaningful, that’s the lowest priority. I am an old-fashioned
necromancer, a ghost whisperer, on a personal mission,
outlier and insider both, my ideas replenished by every risk that scaffolds them.
Pseudoscience attracts followers, funds junkets like this visit — to a phantom’s lair.
Questions become easier to answer, melt in my mouth when the camera is on me.
Reanimated now, pixelated pore-less spirits pulse with curiosity, too
shady to be relatable to humans, but I’m ready for this and
telepath my plans to the group, presences of absentees, sentient beings
undone by mortality. They demonstrate their approval by manifesting more fully.
Vitreous before, anticipation has coaxesd them into clearer visibility.
When? They telepath back to me. Like a sorceress, I produce my wand.
X-level excitement smudges their forms huddled near heavy drapery.
Yesteryear’s chains lighten and detach. Now? All of us? Palpable is their
zeal as I thread each one backwards through time’s needle — and release them.
_______________
Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, is a Pushcart Prize, Rhysling Award, and Dwarf Stars nominee, and a member of SFPA, The British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild. An Elgin Award winner, her work Messengers of the Macabre [Nat. 1, L.L.C., Fall 2022] and a tombstone-heavy collection in hardcover by Beacon Books are forthcoming. She has been leading a poetry critique group for two years. Her Texas Guinan film won “Best Feature Documentary” at N.Y. Women’s Film Fest (Dec. 2021).
Women Who Were Warned [U.K.: Cerasus, June 2022] ] is available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Women-Were-Warned-LindaAnn-LoSchiavo/dp/B0B28D58G8/ref=sr_1_1
Messengers of the Macabre: Halloween Poems by SFPA poets LindaAnn LoSchiavo & David Davies [USA: Nat 1 LLC, October 22, 2022] is available for pre-orders: https://www.amazon.com/Messengers-Macabre-Halloween-LindaAnn-LoSchiavo-ebook/dp/B0B3NK7QG6/ref=sr_1_1
― Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ―
https://linktr.ee/LindaAnn.LoSchiavo
https://paranormal-poetry.carrd.co/
Twitter: @Mae_Westside
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHm1NZIlTZybLTFA44wwdfg
Author’s Backstory and Comments: When SFPA member Joshua Gage reviewed my 2019 collection A Route Obscure and Lonely for Cemetery Dance Magazine, he mentioned he would have enjoyed more variety in my formal verse. Taking his good advice to heart, when creating a new manuscript devoted to death, Dark and Airy Spirits, I explored forms new to me: the Golden Shovel, the nonet, the glosa, the abecedarian, etc. This abecedarian playfully signals its alphabetical intent in the title, “Apparitions Beckon Cautiously, Determined.” My poem, as with other ghost poems in this ms, is a deliberate detour from the dreaded Dantean spectre of damnation or purgatorial angst after death.
Editor’s Notes and Image Credit: Abstract ghost image [cdn.hipwallpaper.com ] is combined with electronic signal [pngwing.com] that simulates EVP ghost-detecting equipment.
