terça-feira, 3 de março de 2026

Limehouse Laughter(Shadows on the Thames. circa 1820)

 The docks were deserted
One hour after midnight
All there was, was lamplight
Stirring drunkyard beneath cratewood

I pushed my cart over jarring cobblestone
Toward the ship's plank was I sensing a ghost?
No, just first mate snoring against the mast post
Rats scurried by as my wheel hit the slat

One rat turned it's eyes questioning
It's motion back toward the mischief slow and unafraid
What did it know of the wee hours that gossip forbade
From the shadows a man surfaced in a stovepipe hat

I could hear laughing from all around me
The man's face was obscured in the pitch 
Up my spine, goosebumps and a strange itch
As the lamp light slowly exposed

There a pale unshaven face, I froze
He jumped right over me landing on board
A menacing shape dressed as a lord
First mate jumped up startled

The man in the hat turned to me as he produced a Dirk
Horrific grin, visions of a clock face sharp and mean
Whites of his eyes looking into me a sinister sheen
The iris in green and blue somehow tarnished

First mate screamed, in a trice the man had vanished
I pushed the cart aboard and comforted first mate
Terrorfied he asked me what was that ghastly wraith
I could only answer - a soul troubled and doomed

Then a lantern came on in the wardroom
And a voice crept out the door just in range
-Tese ol' docks have seen much thangs strange

T'is not your mind blurred and eccentric
T'is the Limehouse specter playing tricks"


 “throwing his inexpressibles indignantly,” and “absorbed in those chaste connubial endearments” but altogether a sad sorry tale of  ghostly manic laughing.

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