PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

". . . it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house,

embodying a few features . . ."

---Henry James, The Turn Of The Screw

Haunts are attracted to that house at Bly:

that much of it has been locally known.

Haunts of hatreds, held with ferocity,

and lusts immersed in foulest perfidy

infest that staid, bucolic property:

that which, though dead, does not in this life die,

entirely, but remains like stench, and lingers

to yank scabs from old wounds with spectral fingers

that yearn to probe and pull, and twist, and pry.

Before this land was purchased by the wealth

that built the house and landscaped the estate,

it was the site of martyrs' agony:

those who abjured Queen Mary's chosen Church.

Here, Bloody Mary's thugs were sent to take

those Anglican lives---with relentless stealth:

some martyrs burned in pairs bound to a stake;

some were dismembered, some of them were hung

by necknooses from several of Bly's trees;

barefoot teenaged girls, and small  infants  flung

into the water of this placid lake

(each body tied, by rope, to some large stone);

sometimes at dawn, or high noon, or nights' late

hours; quite unhurried, in no rush.

Thus, Mary Tudor sought hoped to fullycrush

those falsely charged with heinous heresies

and those stubborn who did not bend their knees

to her Divine Right and its majesties.

And thus, of course, we learn from History's

candor the depth of the excessive stain

that such shrill prejudice cast on her reign.

Those martyrs' souls, so precious to our God,

and who, for His Name's sake, were gladly slain,

have gone to His Kingdom.  But on Bly's sod

the horrors that soaked into it remain;

and, unrepented, never will be gone.

To this, other wickednesses are drawn;

for this will nourish them, and will sustain

their antics.  In such dismal atmosphere,

the ghosts of Bly keep frighteningly near

to those of us who seem to be bound here,

without hope of extraction from this lurch.

Starward