Like revenants
words
haunt me

Usually
unusual words
welcomed
for their novelty

Once
Pleonasm
shadowed my conversations
for most of a day
stopping my tongue
with its rude insinuation
that I say too much

Then there was that ghastly ghost
(Victorian, surely)
Solecism
hovering over my writing
whispering of dangling modifiers
and lapses of decorum

From the vault of the sky
Welkin
fell into my mind

Not always welcome
(Though I do rejoice
when that too solid spook
Spellcheck
fails to recognize
one of my more ephemeral phantoms)

Ah, sweet viridity
Plucky crwth
High flying hoise
Required retronyms

How I long for those innocent ghosts
daring me to let them breathe again

Now my thoughts revert
too often
to the more recently deceased

Get-together
Church
Restaurants
Date nights
Vacations
Invitations

Ah, I search for times lost
naught now but
remembrance of things past
and, mayhap,
(dare I hope)
future’s revenants?