Hauntings in Nevada and California

Places like people have memories,
cold memories of yesterday;
obsessions they daily play and replay.

A whisper heard in the canyon
where John Millian was hanged;
his soul forever proclaims his love for Julie Bulette;
his spirit eternally expresses his innocence.

Listen to the memories lonely corridors replay
on their endlessly looping cassettes
echoing yesterday.

A voice heard in the Bird Cage
singing a song from the past;
music, the laughter of revelers, gamblers, and the clicking of dice
accompanied by sights and sounds from the past:
a headless cowboy roaming
and the aromas of Havanas and cheroots.

Places retain memories
of the traumas of yesterday,
obsession that they continually play and replay.

Alcatraz a vortex of evil,
a rock cold as the heart of hell,
possessed with the crimes of its past;
obsessed by the memories of ghosts
replayed for paying tourists:
the wraith of a demolished lighthouse materializes out of the mist;
gunfire, phantom screams, a smoke that would choke the dead
and the chill in cell 14-D.