Deep underground away from people or pleasure An old gnome discovered hidden treasure.
Silver, jewels, and gold in a heaping pile He would look it over and stay just a while.
Time whizzed by until at long last He decided to stay and forget his past.
Crouched down behind a giant rock Sitting in silence no need to talk.
Clinging to gold, not food or life Family left behind, even his wife.
Each day belonged to greed and strife. One hand on his riches, the other a knife.
Dying alone with no love, light, or sound His rotting remains became a burial mound.
II
A forbidding and ferocious troll Found a cave dark as coal.
His claws and eyes searched the space Rocks and rocks except for one place.
Against the wall was a glittering hoard He glared around for king or lord.
This sack was packed with gems and gold The power of riches had taken its hold.
Club grasped in claw he waited alone To smash any thief into a pile of bones.
Day after day his eyes fixed on the door Year upon year he became dust on the floor.
III
An old vampire climbed out of his casket In the corner sat gold and gems in a basket.
His teeth were sharp and he could turn into a bat He could have sucked blood and got real fat.
But the gold glittered and the gems shone He lost a lot of weight and looked like bone.
He kept it all hidden under his cloak He wasn’t watching when they staked him with oak.
He withered away to dust and decay And even his gold got taken away.
Drought
Bone dry white paint curls on the farmhouse. Clouds of horse flies swarm away; Parched manure.
My cornfield- a murder of crows beaks beating dried kernels.
The hell with them.
My scarecrow crucified on fence posts, collapsing.
I should cut him down.
“You don’t know when to give up,” my wife repeats. “Wait, the weather’s changing.” “You don’t get it,” she says. The kids ask, “Daddy, what’s wrong?” She says, “Enough.”
They’re gone.
My rusted tractor huddles in the red barn whispering “Is it safe to come out?”
I look out the driver’s side window. “No.”
I push the bills bound in a rubber band across the seat.
I’m gone too.
In the rear view mirror A white sign in red letters, stares County Auction Tomorrow.
I pull out the drive.
The air smells of asphalt and strip malls and loneliness.
I need nothing to feed on. I am full after years. All feelings in internal exile Housed in a tomb sentenced by the emotion executor:
Hopelessness Except, Fear
spared as the jailer repeating “Remember them, those people No one wants to hear from you. they’ll think you: a fool to laugh a weirdo to speak weak to cry a coward to agree wrong to act evil. Stay silent. Stay safe.”
My eyes shut, a fiendish filmstrip runs reminders of last nights.
A blue caveman father time faced figure with wisps of white hair wild beard yellow eyes pupils of black bullet holes. Clasping, a silver mattock. on a blue brick pathway, endlessly encircling a purple mountain.
“You’re just steps ahead, getting older, getting slower. The end will catch up.”
Waves of yellow sea crash. Tide hauling back gold fanged black fish deformed with tiny arms clawing at the orange sand.
“You’re trapped. Embrace complacency. There is no way out.”
Giant green worms shriveling up on scalding pink desert dunes under a blazing sky consuming pinker sun.
“Your strength is failing. Stop trying. Nothing to nourish your soul.”
Rancid rats staked to the bottom of a well. At the mouth, winged brown lizards perched sharpening talons.
“Your enemies await. Die in bound acceptance. It is inevitable.”
Stripped forest, impaled pines branches chopped off. Soil of smashed glass. An ashen spider hangs screeching.
“Your voice is ugly. No one cares. Help has turned back.”
Overhead, eternal eclipse below a surface of crystal ice containing the lake. Beneath entombed a colossal, purple serpent, with seething red eyes.
“You are trapped. Cold. Alone. All alone.”
Bedside window shade, snaps, coiling, illumination invades, a blitzkrieg against black.
My eyes crack open. The show subsides. I want to tell someone, but . . .
Some things are better kept to oneself.
You cannot always tell, if people are haunted, by looking at them.
I keep my secrets.
Sweet Revenge
Twenty years later, at 4:30 A.M. He paid the Sweet Shop owner back for the price of the free gumballs and lemon drops and the darkness done below in the basement.
Creator of confections satisfying a sweet tooth, quenching cravings. Sugar coated denials.
No one believes little boys.
This morning, plain justice dispensed with a blazing fireball. That face falling into melted sugar forever.
Still Life
In the beginning of a well-organized lecture, just about to elucidate a point, the impassioned voice sounded, "Georgia O'Keefe." Then dead silence.
Immediately, the classroom hastily evacuated. Was there danger? Who knew? One lingering student reached for the restart button but retreated, quickly exiting. No one was going to touch this.
Old Dr. Asimover would be pleased; he had often screamed it wouldn't work.
"Logging in with some facts, rubbish. Humanities minus the humans. This wasn't teaching. Bound to fail, bound to fail."
When his pager went off, Louie, the maintenance man knew what for. So, he had forgotten to recharge it. "The hell with it, no one is perfect." He disliked the robots anyway. "No hello, no weather, no how is it going."
Louie waited a damn long time to get there and plug it back into the wall generator.
Roast
The fire was under the tree A small one that you couldn’t see
The lightning had struck an old top hat It burst into flames and that was that
The cloth began to burn and burn Soon, the ashes would be ready for an urn
Plodding over came a portly pig His stubby leg tripped over a twig
Unconscious, there after his fall The fire consumed him in a ball.
His body made for juicy meat The local critters were in for a treat.
Instinct
The institute’s brick and bar
Fourteen and locked in here. Ten years. Manacles of meds, insulation of institute
Chain-link and wire Checks and levels
He was caged heeding the calls.
Lapping the window pane, drool dripping playing, panting. Throw him a bone.
His imagination ain’t broke.
Last staff directive in sequence, ignored, now taste the real meaning of confinement.
He is hauled off. Welcome to solitary respite.
No bike, no baseball, no nothing.
Spun in a coil, on the closet’s top shelf, hiding, hissing.
Gloved hands, clasping pulling pinning.
No-hide-n-go seek here.
Face often crinkled, covering ears, coaching self to exhaustion, defending against the voices. Sometimes, the voices were right. He knew.
On the courtyard pavement, the command was clear. He ripped up the lid, rolling the manhole cover away like a penny. Scurrying down the ladder. Maze luring, laughing. Chasing down the cheese.