Ghosts

This is about my job working at a state mental hospital, where I worked in the early 80's

There is a haunted house
upon asylum hill
where souls of days gone past
waiting and watching wonder still
for their spirits to be free at last.

The creaking moan
of doors locked tight,
the blindness of bars
on the windows,
dark curtains to keep out the light
no watch to tell today from tomorrow.

Counting the rosary
on the links of their chains
they pray for their night to end
and with the sun, the spells undone
that they might live again.

Morning will come
and night naught but mind
sleepers will awaken,
but not for the ones
we have left behind,
their dreams remain
despite the day
the ghosts
that we have forsaken.