I’ve seen Will ‘o Wisps
and St. Elmo’s Fire,
mostly them in the Southlands
graveyards near bayous or swamps.
I once saw an entombed woman
come back to life
three days after her death,
I had just slipped the ring
off her finger pale and bony,
when she gasped and rose with a cry.
One summer I lived
in the catacombs beneath Paris
and for nigh on a month
never once saw the light of the sun,
only pale torchlight
cast across fields of bones,
wooden chests rotted to their hinges.
I have walked the hall of ashes
and seen the rotting face
of John the Baptist.
Once in Afghanistan,
I even spied a ghoul
prowling the trenches near dawn
picking the corpses
of both sides equally.
These are my qualifications,
such as they are;
few know as much about death
and the places of the dead
as grave robber,
so believe me when I tell you,
there is nothing beyond the grave,
but me.
No voices
or tunnel of light
just darkness, dust,
and these two dirty hands,
trying to make a living.
[Wooden Grave by Marker Majel G. Claflin c. 1937]