Creakers

What’s that sound
down the hall?
Round and round,
through the wall.

Creakers creak
near your door.
Hear them sneak
on the floor?

Be afraid,
child abed,
till they fade
and their tread.

Here they come!
Hear them crawl!
They’re not dumb.
Soft footfall.

Through the dark
they creep near.
Hark, child, hark!
Dare you peer?

Creak, creak, creak,
through some vent.
Sneak, sneak, sneak,
circumvent.

Silent now.
Have they gone?
Heavy brow.
You then yawn.

Go to sleep…
Drift and dream…
Hear them creep!
Hear them scheme!

Rouse yourself!
Over there!
Near the shelf!
Oh, beware!

Close at hand,
‘neath the bed,
the nightstand,
overhead.

Hide, child, hide,
under sheet,
tuck each side
and your feet.

They will stay
through the night,
till the day
brings some light.

Until then,
keep your head
covered when
in your bed.

If you see,
they will too,
do not flee,
they’ll catch you.

Hold your breath,
do not shake,
shibboleth
for your sake.

Night will end,
day will bloom,
just pretend
that your room

is a place
full of mice
in a race
or suffice

to believe
your house groans
eave to eave,
settling bones.

That’s the lie
parents say.
They deny
and they pray.

But they hear
Creakers creak
and they fear
what such seek,

as they did
in times gone
when Man hid
till the dawn

in caves cold,
dark and damp,
stone stronghold,
huddled camp.

Even then
Creakers crept,
stalking when
cavemen slept,

as they will
evermore.
Creaking sill,
creaking floor.

Uncle Samaya Wants You!

Rally, men! Uncle Samaya wants you
to defend our home, the red, white and blue
against our foes abroad, both far and wide,
in foreign lands…or those within, stateside.
Do not question our leader or his plan,
he needs us united, unto a man,
lest the enemy beat us, or we stray
from the warpath, the American Way.
Come away with him for basic training,
follow orders, obey, Freedom reigning
over your lives like a strange paradox:
repeat the lies the way a parrot talks
and know yourself to be free at long last,
free from choice, uncertainty, and the past,
living day to day, order to order,
all things arranged, like a hostel boarder,
never thinking about what could have been,
but accepting the bloodlust with true Zen;
never questioning the Neocon wars,
nor the zero-sum games, the either-or’s.
Come, men, become a devotee of Sam,
learn the tenets of both lion and lamb,
led about by the pride, but in a flock,
fang and fleece, claw within a clove-hoofed walk,
and from this oxymoronic conceit
realize your potential: butcher and meat.
For he is a tengu abducting boys
to teach them combat before he deploys
them against his foes, against those opposed
to his eagle-winged rule, those as hard-nosed
as the tengu himself, that red-faced elf
whose eyes are affixed on power and wealth.
A guru of blind faith, a tribal force—
Rally men! Heed his warcry! “Stay the course!”

The Yuletide Dragon

There is a dragon within the wind
whose bite cuts straight to the trembling bone,
and though no wounds remain aft to mend,
the bite lingers, still, like seeds deep sown.
The dragon seeks with its pallid eye
heartbeats by hearth, by fire, those warm lives
that flee from it as it roams nearby,
its keen unseen teeth like icy knives.

The backcloth sky is but harsh white wool
through which the bleak, blank sun often glows
cold, far-off, like a corpselight of Yule
when the biting air swells up and blows.
We are scorned by that distant-drawn sun
for yesterday’s oft ungrateful cheer,
our Summer arrogance now undone
by the Yule dragon’s icicle sneer.

Elder-aged, now, I lay all alone
in this Yuletide season of the cold
and try to sleep, but I toss and groan,
wondering how I became so old.
The dragon snorts, then groans, too, and sighs,
and licks at me through a frosted crack;
will I survive till the dragon dies,
just long enough for Spring to come back?

Transformation

Change is always so difficult
it is a husk you peel and molt,
killing the old self in due course,
removing old habits by force,
revealing the sore skin beneath,
aching exoskeletal grief,
and then weaving a raw cocoon
from the scarred ruin you have hewn
as a fresh scab congealing, hard,
itchy, burning, till you discard
what was bled to render its flesh,
a stygian-carapace mesh,
and, by picking it, contemplate
the old, scar-borne truths which you hate
and then you confront what you hide,
tucking yourself away, inside
all that you rue, resent, and loathe
about yourself, that husk you wove
to become a pupa of change,
awakening to find—so strange—
a stranger unfurling your wings
to fly free from the former things
that defined your self, saving face
by discarding face, to erase
what had been for what would now be:
a murder of myself by me.

Scarification

A petty thing,
a little line
between yours and mine,
that can sting,
a nicking mark
seeping such blood
as to bring the flood
for the ark;
to cut in twain
and drown the earth
beneath frothy surf
and the pain.
What can I say
of this red line?
The scar will define
what it may
and what we are
as we carve space
out of time and place,
near and far,
dividing life,
dissecting earth,
knowing well the worth
of a knife,
and of a pen,
of the red ink
which makes us all think
we are men.
For we worship
law and order,
border to border,
and we drip
from cuts we draw
along our skin
to demarcate kin,
tribal law.

Change

This ancient chrysalis chafes,
keeping too close to the skin,
like one of those small bank safes
magicians lock themselves in.
Sealed tightly shut, I do doubt
that Houdini could escape,
and I only want out—out!
It is an ironic jape.
Life is a zombie’s coffin,
a Pharaoh’s dusty old tomb
like what they put Karloff in:
a mummy with little room.
You suffocate while wound-round
in bandages of the past,
yet however much you pound
the old casket lid holds fast.
To break free, you must first die,
yet to die you must first grow,
shedding larval husks to fly
like the Mothman, on the go.
Perhaps the bridge must fall down
before we hear the warning
of that cryptid, leaving town
while others are still mourning.
Of course, on the other hand,
change comes when least expected,
Mr. Hyde taking command
while the signs are neglected.
It can be like Dracula
waking to a brand new age,
exchanging moldy moolah
for fresh ink on a crisp page.
Turning over a new leaf
is not so easy as said,
no easier than the grief
that comes when mourning the dead,
or eating the dead, like ghouls
who hunger for what is past,
the bitter, nostalgic fools
in cemeteries amassed.
This living-dead life idles
like Frankenstein’s creature bound
to bygone flesh, the bridles
electric, but with no ground,
so the charge does not charge,
but burns the assemblage whole,
death remaining, by and large,
despite the jolts to the soul.
True change comes when least wanted,
like the full moon to a man
whose lupine life is haunted
by every monthly span.
It visits us, like a ghost,
a poltergeist in revolt,
possession unto a host—
a demon we cannot molt
as it rearranges chairs,
smashes dishes, shatters glass,
bringing to us the nightmares
which, at sunrise, should then pass,
yet they do not, subsuming
the day-to-day life we knew
until the shadows looming
become a stale cocoon, too.
And then great Cthulhu wakes,
disrupting the status quo,
and amidst the floods and quakes
we lose all we used to know,
finding ourselves lost, afloat,
like flotsam in tides so strange
that we regret this brash boat
moored on the island of Change.

Two More Rhymes

What-Knot
There is a knot made of conflict,
a ball twisted with emotions,
threads bound together, as if tricked
by their struggling, wrangling motions.

I’ve tried to untangle this knot,
to loosen and unwind its twine,
but it does not relax as ought—
it is a knot, this heart of mine.

The Tower
The limestone-toothed tower looms tall,
its shadow stretching over all,
reflected in the crystal loch,
built to endure, from block to block,
a famed fortress of those before
who reigned in bygone times of yore,
yet, the kings have all gone to dust
and the tower stands, as it must
not because dead kings willed it so,
but because Nature did bestow
great power to her ancient stones—
power to outlast kingly bones.

Two Rhymes

Futility II
A lifetime of labors
for what one hopes to be,
by books or by sabers,
but to spit in the sea
for all that is its worth
in the backwash of brine:
spittle upon the earth,
such is this work of mine.

Omen
In a barn blackly bearded with a bog-borne mold
an ill omen was birthed, a goat horned tenfold,
gutting his mother as he came unto the world,
and in his nebular eyes the stars glowed and swirled.
His horns grew coiled around and into his own skull,
piercing his brains until his wits were dim and dull,
for his was a crown cursed by banal happenstance,
the misfortune that occurs by mere random chance,
and he grinned like an idiot god who could see
the meaning of Life, Death, what was, is, and would be.

Offal’s Lessons In Manners

Offal, the court fool, speaks:

“A lord marked a swineherd at his morn meal.
‘How came you by such uncouth manners, friend?’
The swineherd spoke while he ate to his fill.
‘Manners are not so hard to comprehend.
My hogs have manners, too, which oft contend
with the highest lord ruling in his land,
for though they lay in the filth they expend
it behooves them to not use a hoofed hand,
their snouts deep in what they don’t understand.”

“The lord, astride his horse, snorted disdain.
‘You would do better to learn from your lord.’
The swineherd swallowed and, without refrain,
laughed aloud, eyeing his lord’s long, sheathed, sword.
He said, ‘I have learned much from my swine horde.
Indeed, they are not afeared of the blade
for they are too happy among filth, lord,
to know the blade till its kiss has been made
across the throat and their life debts are paid.’

“The lord blinked, confused at such unconcern.
‘Had you sense you would not speak quite so free.’
The swineherd did not flinch, but took a turn
around his sty, watching his hogs till he
saw the sow roll in grime and gunk and glee.
He then said, ‘Had you sense you would know how
filth can come out of either end of me,
but I find truffles well as any sow,
which I gift to you, lord.’ He gave a bow.

“‘You bring me no truffles!’ the lord replied.
‘Indeed, I think you hoard them for yourself!’
The swineherd smirked from ear-to-ear, quite wide,
not unlike a mischievous bogle elf.
‘Go to my larder and look at each shelf.
I am deprived of truffles, and of care,
for I have not your manners or your wealth.’
The lord dismounted his horse, haughty his air,
and went to the cottage to look in there.

“Meanwhile the swineherd went to the lord’s horse
and fetched the lord’s blade from the bridle’s sheath.
He said, ‘Oft one must be careful, of course,
for swineherds among hogs may come to grief
wherefore fallen—however long or brief—
they may feed their lessers with the fumble
for hogs rush to claim what others bequeath,
even if unwitting be the stumble.’
The lord came out, then, with a gruff grumble.

“‘I found my truffles, knave!’ he growled aloud,
his arms cradling truffles like a farrow,
but afore he could say aught else, he bowed,
his neck split from a slash, clean and narrow.
Away fled his spirit, like a sparrow.
The swineherd fed the body to his swine
and buried the bones beneath a barrow.
‘Ill-mannered hogs may begrime when they dine,
but they may yet end a royal bloodline.'”