Poem: "A Haunting of Walls"
This poem came out of the October 5, 2011 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from technomage, natasiakith, and Dreamwidth user Whatawaytoburn. It was sponsored by technomage. The image of a ghost in the walls -- usually someone bricked up to die there -- is very old. This ghost is haunting walls of a different kind for a different reason.
A Haunting of Walls
The 18th century architect
haunted the last house he built
until it burned down.
For a time he drifted aimlessly,
until one day he noticed
strange lines of light
drawing themselves in midair.
Intrigued, the architect
examined the firewalls
and discovered
how to slip through them.
The nature of the space they enclosed
seemed queer to him, and yet
there were still walls and doors and windows.
There were even mice,
though they looked nothing like the ones
his white cat used to leave on the bath mat of a morning.
The architect learned
how to ghost through the machines,
how to inhabit their walls and windows.
He learned what could be done with the mice
and with the blueprints that were no longer blue
but still explained how to build things.
Then he built himself a new house
on the same old hill,
bigger and finer than the one before,
all firewalls and CAD blueprints
and windows frosted with moonlight.
Sometimes, bypassers thought
that they saw a house on the hill,
but when they went for a closer look
they could not find it
and when they asked about it
they were told
that no such house had ever been built
and to shut up about it.