Ghosts of Hampton Court Palace

The closed-circuit TV found
more fruit than flowers.

Gray mists above the floor
hidden rooms with spinning wheels

shadows in top hats. Ghost dogs.
Hands with glowing rings knocking on doors.

The video shows me standing in the entrance
one spectral hand on the knob

dumbstruck, ashen-faced. 
So much has changed.

Why should I leave?
Where would I go?

Life is so difficult.
Someone’s always tip-tapping

across the floor stones
looking for her head.

Salamanders of the Sun

i.
Lucky, aren’t we, tooling around reality?
A green, a blue reflective surface.

It has enlightenment, if you look deeply.
I am part of all this forgetting.

ii.
Happy you know me, fire.
Thank you for growing the Earth.
Who is the rabbit and who is the hawk?
Washed and reborn in the sun.
How strange what’s outside is inside.

iii.
Ibis and wood stork and egret and crane.
Mockingbird drinking water from a trough in the aloe leaf.

Sam Cherubin's poetry has been published in Perceptions, Neologism Poetry Journal, Packingtown Review and Wrath Bearing Tree. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a Futurist working in healthcare and explores the intersection of virtual reality and climate change.