My Ghosts

They have been with me since childhood,
piquant little ghosts that haunt me.

Their white bones long for words,
the flesh of their existence.

I call out to them in the dead of night
and, in a moonbeam of ecstasy,

words appear, freshly-baked poems
rouse me, their mille-feuille pastry crumbling

at the ferocity of my pen, a sweetness
that may turn sour if I savour it for too long.

Kim M. Russell, 25th June 2026

Image by Maryam Sicard on Unsplash

This Thursday at the dVerse Poets Pub, we are Meeting the Bar with Grace and revisiting ‘the venerable tradition of the Ars Poetica, Latin for “the art of poetry.” Traditionally, an Ars Poetica is a poem about poetry itself: why we write, what poems do, how language works upon us, and what we hope our words might accomplish. From Horace to Archibald MacLeish and countless contemporary poets, writers have used the form to explore their relationship with the craft. An Ars Poetica often becomes a personal manifesto, a meditation, or a declaration of faith in poetry itself.’

Grace has provided examples by Archibald MacLeish and William Butler Yeats to inspire us to write our own Ars Poetica that reveal our writing processes through imagery, symbolism, or personalization.

28 thoughts on “My Ghosts”

  2. Love the ghostly haunt of the poem. This part is my favorite:
    words appear, freshly-baked poems
    rouse me, their mille-feuille pastry crumbling

    Thank you Kim. Have a good summer break.

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  6. “crumbling – at the ferocity of my pen, a sweetness
    that may turn sour if I savour it for too long.”

    An intriguing ending, Kim. I like

    “Their white bones long for words,
    the flesh of their existence.”

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  7. Yes, that ferocity of penning a poem–the urgency we feel when we simply must put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard!). Rich imagery, Kim, and the reference to “mille-feuille” made my mouth water. ❤

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  11. at the ferocity of my pen, a sweetnessthat may turn sour if I savour it for too long.

    Great close Kim! The sweetness pursued it. Your intensity certainly did! It is satisfaction personified right from an early age. Hank very much enjoyed your write and had always been. Thanks Ma’am!

    Hank

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