***ANNOUNCEMENT***
Join dVerse at our LIVE session (video and audio) on Saturday, October 24th from 10 to 11 AM New York City time (EST). We always have attendees from around the globe! Read a poem of your own aloud OR come sit in to watch and listen. The more the merrier! A Google Meet link will be provided on the Thursday, October 22nd OLN prompt.

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Welcome to dVerse Poetics. Melissa from Mom With a Blog here, bringing you your poetic prompt, drinks, and snacks.

When looking around for spooky paintings, since it is spooky season, I came across this list of “reportedly haunted” works of art. I thought it might be fun to compose poems about them. Some of the paintings are just as creepy as the strange tales surrounding them.

Edvard Munch’s The Dead Mother, while perhaps not as famous as The Scream, is equally as disturbing. In this painting, viewers see a child covering their ears while a bedridden woman lay in the background. The artist created several versions of this painting (with different names), all illustrating what is thought to be an event from the artist’s own life, as his mother died from tuberculosis when Munch was aged five.

In each version, we see a distressed child standing in front of the mother on her deathbed. The child’s face is fraught with fear, concern, disbelief, varying negative emotions in each.

Viewers and previous owners of the painting have asserted several claims: that the child’s eyes in the painting have followed them, that they’ve heard rustling sounds (perhaps of the mother’s blankets) emanating from the painting, and that the child in the painting has disappeared from it entirely.

Painted by Ukrainian artist Svetlana Telets, Rain Woman illustrates a pale woman with elongated features, a long neck, and wearing a large black hat, standing in the rain. The artist claimed that for months leading up to her painting, she felt an invisible presence watching her constantly. She claims to have felt an invisible force guide her hand like a puppeteer while creating it.

Telets’ painting was displayed in a local art gallery in Ukraine, where it was purchased and returned multiple times by buyers who reported the painting caused them to experience insomnia, nightmares, and an eery sensation of being watched. Some even claimed that a shadowy figure followed them through their homes.

Juan Luna was a famous Filipino painter, who shot and killed his wife and mother-in-law and severely injured his brother-in-law. He was later acquitted as the crimes were considered to be “a crime of passion.”

While many believed the painting to depict his late wife, Paz, art historians assert that the physical features are that of Angela Duche, who was a favorite model of Luna’s.

According to legend, owners of the painting suffered misfortunes such as illness, bankruptcy, car crashes, and other tragedies. It is believed that at a showing of the artwork in the Metropolitan Museum of Manila in 1987, a spotlight bulb directly over the painting mysteriously exploded. The painting is currently housed at the National Museum of the Philippines.

Choose any of the three paintings and compose a poem of 31 lines or fewer. What misfortunes do the artworks stir in you, the viewer?

If you’re new, here is how to join us:

• Write a poem of 31 lines or fewer in response to the prompt.
• Enter your name and a link directly to the post containing your poem into Mr. Linky. Remember to check the box to accept use/privacy policy.
• Read other poets’ work as they enter their links into Mr. Linky. Check back as more will be added.
• Please link back to dVerse from your post.
• Have a wonderful time!

Mr. Linky will remain open until 3pm EST on Thursday, October 22, 2026.