PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

 [inspired by some poems of Pungus and Spinoza]

That house---that intimidating old farmhouse,

the centerpiece of abandoned acreage,

unproductive since before the territory had

even achieved its ceremonial statehood---

stands at the northern most corner of our township, and

that parcel's placement is contested by two

taxing authorities (both of whom declare it the

other's jurisdiction and responsibility).  The cemetery,

almost adjacent to it, has fallen into disrepair; the

headstones, most of them fallen or crumbled, are no

longer legible.  Legend suggests that even some of the

bones interred there are neither human nor animal, but

something humanoidly imitative, the way a

debauched sneer mocks and intrudes upon an intimate sigh.

No cars ever park at the side of that road, which

dead-ends a little distance that way if one is not sensible

enough to turn at the final cross-roads encountered.

Foreboding, and by often whispered recommendation,

forbidden, the site is never visited at all:  adolescent

lovers, like we were, do not offer each other wet kisses, or

intimate caresses within eyesight or earshot of it.

Even when we drove by, with the c.b.'s volume particularly---

deliberately---loud (and thereby, more comforting), you

suddenly lurched in the passenger seat; and plunged your

feet, sheathed in the fragrant softness of your socks (beneath the

frayed cuffs of your baggy, bell-bottom jeans), into your

shoes, unlaced on the floorboard; while also drawing closed the

hitherto opened flaps of your unbuttoned shirt, to cover, once

more, your provocatively bared and suddenly heaving torso.

Consistent with local gossip, that we, at that hour, dared to

put to a test, some kind of low cloud obscured the moon and

stars, although this sultry summer night had been clear and

unimpeded only moments before.  Yet, sometimes---so we had

been told---something that cannot be called light illumines the

view through the unglassed window frames, until an indistinct

figure, from within it, passes by and snuffs the strange glow out;

jealous, perhaps, of its silent solitude, protective of its haunting

privacy, and of the strange rituals it seeks to perform there.

Someone said that a skeptic once intruded into those dust-laden

rooms; and that he heard, behind him, the noise of sluggish,

clumsy footsteps sutrggling to ascend the stairs; and the

damply foul odor that only a graveyard can contribute.  Then,

before his eyes, distended in terror, appeared a rotted and

infuriated visage as two misshapen, clawlike hands closed

around his throat before his hysterical screams could emerge.

He still recites this tale, himself, and asserts its absolute verity,

during those rare moments of temporary lucidity

that interrupt the maniacal gibberish of his ravings, in the

padded room that confines him at the so-called sanitarium

situated across the twisted river that slices Blymouth County apart. 

Starward