I woke to hear a tapping noise

and then a dreadful groan.

A dragging sound, creak of board

and then a wheezing moan.

All through the night, I lay in dread,

sure a specter I would see,

come through the wall beside my bed,

to scare and haunt poor me.

 

Next morning when the sun had sped

the shadows of the night away.

I asked the host about the ghost,

to hear what he would say.

G-ghost, said he, turning quite white;

I know of none, said he.

Then what that awful moaning sound

I heard that frightened me?

 

Perhaps a tapping of a tile,

a shrinking board, a lose stair tread,

the plumbing or the central heat;

maybe the cistern overhead.

But still he looked a trifle white,

while finding reasons for my dread

and I still knew an inner fright,

for ghostly sounds, I’d heard in bed.

 

And I am sure that he was right,

to have his gills turn pale.

For I could find another place,

while he lived with my tale.

 
 
David Garlick, England, Summer, 1986