A Sudden Southern Death
Filename: er01.html
© 1998 Ernest Robles
Length: Roughly 150 words
Genre: Horror/Mystery
Description:
A poem about love, horror and the swamps of Louisiana.
A Sudden Southern Death
A road of gravel embracing swamp
lay view for moon and hanging moss
where gator snap and crawfish claw
the weight of death will sink in bog
In this night of drag queen black
deathly pink nail and flowing dark scrawl
a blade is sharp--there be no dull
only burning cuts in flesh--so deep and raw
The scornful lover embraces night
seethes in broken bands of bone and gold
and forgo the vows of blissful life
reflections dance a jig on water cold
The body of man again will n'ver smoke
or taste the lips of mistress at night
but toil he will in heat and hiss in fire
a southern death the cause of fright
Burning, burning, toiling at night
forever she'll curse, forever more
and sink the tip of glint inside
ceasing the flutter of heart and birth
Crocks, bog, death and black bile
in brooding moon and prickly star
the taste of death has a calling fog
in tendril, murmur and shrilling call
Oh woman, man and unborn child
crinkle from grace for wrinkled clown
whose crooked smile and marble black eyes
hint toward the circus light--beyond the wood's edge
Of the night and some forgotten town
the moaning never stops short of hades' gate
in earthen scents death skips and prances
a weakness, holy chants at levee side
Come sunrise when webs recoil in morning dew
and darkness recedes into the bowels of Hades
a circus clown will remove his carney paint
slipping off oversized shoes and bulbous nose
A rap-tap-tapping against a wooden trunk
springs open the squeaky and molded lid
inside a black and gnarly finger searches
before it finds the carney paint inside a jar
The circus has come this way to town
tally the tickets your father has sold
as he has done every year since your birth
before the night is new you'll find your soul . . .
in
a
ja
in
side
a wooden trunk is how
a
sud
den
sou
thern
death
comes