System Halt

these ghosts are all around me
but they're not in my machine
there's no space for ectoplasm
on a liquid-crystal screen

and my keyboard's not a Ouija
spelling phrases from beyond
and my browser doesn't access
the hereafter or the gone

on my desktop there's no message
that's handwritten by the dead
the hard drive has no sector
for a spectral tête-à-tête

search engines find no matches
for things that are unseen
these ghosts are all around me
but they're not in my machine

you think that it's an error
my imaging's at fault
you tell me death is final
and you say it's system-halt

that dead is dead, and spirits
don't linger where they've been
but ghosts are all around me
and they're not in my machine

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside