Written for dVerse Poet’s Pub – A Haunting.
Our host, Melissa, challenges us to choose one
of three paintings and write an inspired poem of
no more than 31 lines. This is also in response to
Day 3 of Sammi’s “13 Days of Samhain Challenge”
and the words “menacingly” and “mysterious”.
Svetlana Telets (1996)
She waits where the grey fields bleed into sky,
where the rain runs thin as a held-back cry;
her hat spreads wide like a raven’s wings,
black fur bristling with the wind that sings.
Her face is a moon that forgot to rise,
chalk-pale and lidded, she shutters her eyes,
not sleeping, not dreaming, but listening still
to the drip drip drip on the drowned windowsill.
Her neck is a column of ink and of pale;
it grows when you look, and is thin as a rail,
a collar of smoke wound once at the throat,
stitched up too tight like a nun’s overcoat.
One button gleams at the heart of the black,
a small, dull eye that is watching you back.
Mysterious mourner, what grief do you keep
in the folds of that cloak where the cold ones sleep?
Don’t call her name, though her lips seem to part;
she has no breath, and she has no heart.
Her mouth is a seam that was sewn up with care,
and still you can hear her, a hum in the air.
And when at last those pale lids unseal,
she’ll lean from the frame, menacingly real,
and the rain will stop. And this much is true:
the haunting will cease, but then so will you.
NAR©2026
Nancy’s Notes: Ukrainian artist Svetlana Telets claimed that for months leading up to her painting of Rain Woman, she felt an invisible presence watching her constantly. She claims to have felt an invisible force guide her hand like a puppeteer while creating it. Telets’ painting was displayed in a local art gallery in Ukraine where it was purchased and returned multiple times by buyers who reported that the painting caused them to experience insomnia, nightmares, and an eerie sensation of being watched. Some even claimed that a shadowy figure followed them through their homes.
This is ”Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All)” by Type O Negative
Everything on the elephant trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicate, and may not be used without permission. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.
