---
title: A dead past haunted
date: 2026-02-16
draft: false
slug: a-dead-past-haunted
lang: en
tags:
  - Poetry
  - Poem
  - Poems
  - Lyric poetry
  - Poesía
  - Poema
  - Memories
  - Home
  - Grief
author:
  name: "Denny K. Schuldt"
---

# A dead past haunted

How do you declare a place… dead?

***

I’m towns away but I can smell it,
dust on surfaces and mites just growing.
A place I no longer want to visit,
but memories alone are going.

Afternoons of tv and laughs,
faded to a foreign land.
The very space that once protected me,
deprived of the warmest hand.

A dead past haunted by the living,
an echo chamber of what it was.
The host for a new micro-universe,
the grieving scene for life’s law.

It will never be brought back to life,
a museum trapped on its own.
Handwritten notes left on the table,
extinguished fire on the stove.

***

Copyright © Denny K. Schuldt 2026