another excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem,
"Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"
seemed rather appropriate for Hallowe'en...

it takes place shortly after Sludge White had bitten into the poisoned apple,
and Sleazy had been carried off by the titanic arachnid.  nearby, Sappy tended
Mock's wounds (incurred from the same beastie) during the stormy night...

****************

Sludge White was sailing a subliminal sea,
gliding on a surface that glinted like glass.
her memories were ranged like sleeping mountains,
their colors cascading in a slumbering pass.
she was vaguely aware of all that transpired,
seen through a cloistering filter of crepe;
and tried to decipher what could have prompted
misfortune to open it's snarling gape.

her fur-clad familiars found her fallen.
a dubious heartbeat convinced them she was dead.
though ashen pallor bedimmed her glimmer,
a pink glow illumined the roses on her head.

as the deer nudged her with their probing noses,
an eerie wailing was let loose by a loon.
then a chorus of keening fused with the storm
in a howling lament that beckoned the moon.
it rose in the midst of turbulent flashes;
in shafts of fluorescence and gleam-tinted cloud.
and the fell fog was pummelled by pelting rains,
forging wispy tatters out of steaming shroud.

the skittish fire that Sappy had set,
crackling in the shelter of prehistoric stones;
was encouraged by the flickering moonlight,
fostering warmth in their chilled and dampened bones.
as he rocked Mock in a cradle of compassion,
the skies spilled out their spurting, silver sheets;
and he lulled the delirious ramblings
of anxious adolescence roaming lonely streets.

Mock closed his eyes when the winds subsided,
and the deluge dwindled to intermittent drip.
as the moon traipsed off in search of perspective,
Sappy hunkered down for a cursory kip.

Sleazy came to in a foul smelling cavern,
steeped in the silence that saturates night;
wrestling with his wrapping and scuffing the scrapes
he'd acquired from the spider's frantic flight.
he'd barely discerned the subtlest shuffle
when a presence emerged an inch from his face.
for a heart-stopping moment he felt it musing.
then it ripped apart his slithery case.

already running as his feet touched down,
they kept on kicking when he found he'd been lifted.
but sharp, spindly limbs simply spun him around,
and placed him in a spot where starlight sifted.
he embraced the bathed air like a stifled child
imbibing the breezes that bring in spring;
and hardly held on to the side of the cliff,
skipping and slipping and nearly taking wing.

in a nearby nook a pair of plump pigeons
snickered together as they watched him flit by.
and having made certain he hadn't been followed
one of them mounted the star-dappled sky.

**************

(thus ends the excerpt).....Evan Hawthorn, 21st of October, 2014