skimming the stirring edge of recurring dreams
where she restlessly wandered a bleak terrain
with its plundered and sundered, overmined seams.
but the dangling threads were superseded
in her fitful filtering of fussy detail
by the need to sate her covetous hunger,
engulfing her senses like a toxic Grail.
her husband passed the night avoiding conflict
staring past the omens glaring in the sky;
shying from silence, sidestepping reason,
and striving to recall just how it felt to cry.
when at last he lumbered into slumber
he found himself fêted by merchants from the town,
their fatted coffers flush with flashing coins.
but his eyes wept blood and he couldn't find his crown.
*
in the forested fringes of Fleagle's Fern
in a cottage heaped with sleeping brooms and crows
the hopeful dreams of Sylvana were sweetened
by diffident departures, scented with rose.
floral breezes floated in from the heather,
fluttering curtains, caressing curling toes
redolent of their garden meanderings
flirting with flowers in flaccid flaunting rows.
Guanyin sat serenely in spellbound silence
contemplating space with wise and sightless eyes
tenderly attended by the monkey,
a sorcerer's apprentice in simian guise.
all of a sudden a laugh escaped her lips
and she nodded her head while the monkey grinned.
then he crept away so as not to intrude
on her intimate discussion with the wind.
*
Gramps kept watch in the spookhouse in the woods,
haunting the hallways, treading trenches in the floors
like a soldier whose horror lives inside him,
forever ensnared in never-ending wars.
he couldn't bear to close his eyes in darkness
uncertain they'd open on daylight again.
he feared waking up in a formless, senseless void
beyond the compass of anyone's ken.
his grandson slept soundly, swathed in reverie
swaddled in irony and wound in his sheets
unaware of his elder's unraveling woe,
reviving his life as a stray on the streets.
springing from a hideout, Pasty at his side.
spitting at soldiers, then taking to their heels.
scavenging for crumbs with pigeons and sparrows.
pinching saucy tarts to spice up paltry meals.
*
Pally's muffled dreams teemed with flying children
a sinuous string of tiny trusting hands.
losing his grip, he clambered in a chasm
struggling and slipping in suffocating sands.
he leapt from the covers, his heartbeat thumping,
thrashing and shivering in a sweat soaked chill.
Nate pulled him close and stilled his soundless spasms,
blinking back the tears Pally's eyes wouldn't spill.
later when moonshine winked in the window,
divulging the tale of an owl's furtive flight
Nate drifted through themes lifted from childhood
drenched in dappled sunshine, splashed with wells of light.
he fashioned a pipe at his late father's side
eager for approval, brash with newfound skill.
but the stem recrafted into a cudgel
radiating hate, and hankering to kill.
he smashed it on the ground, and battered its pieces
but the scene scattered and spun like a top
and flung him on a plank of a rickety bridge
spanning a daunting, precipitous drop.
pursuing sentries surged from either side
their arrows clattering and plunging in the gorge.
as he panicked the situation altered
to a clustered bluster round the blacksmith's forge.
he couldn't quite grasp the gist of the grievance
that roused the peasants to bristling high dudgeon.
but he glimpsed the weapons burnished on the wall
which briskly recalled the brandishing bludgeon.
he pondered the source propelling its evil
and the shrouded fright shouting in outraged eyes
and woke with the notion that disavowed doubt
must be rife in a life where violence lies.
*
scrapes, scuffs, and scratches from rough ragged edges;
scruffy toughened beards that grate on chafing chins.
leaching rusty hinges attached to their latches;
splintered shards and the prickly points of pins.
serrated nettles and sharpened incisors;
thorns that cling to roses in porous clay pots.
pliant spines consigned by riled porcupines;
spindly needles slung through tightly threaded slots.
squelching squishes made with sploshing galoshes
when pouring rains make drains puddle up with drops.
sopping socks, spongy mops, and dribbling noses;
sludgy snow melting in slushy sloppy plops.
slippery flippers and soft supple slippers;
smooth wet surfaces of gleaming polished rocks.
flimsy flat feathers inhabiting hats;
the gooey slimy jumble of cream cheese and lox.
obdurate itches that linger on fingers;
vague echoes of feelings where once there were rings.
barely breathing breezes that tickle prickled skin;
fleeting encounters with butterfly wings.
glossy satin finishes glazing confections;
the crunchy crumbles on gooseberry pie.
velvety linens and warm woolen mittens;
Gropey rolled over with a satisfied sigh.
*
in the same gabled room under the rafters
in a rumpled and crumpled tumbledown bed
Rashful was tangled in a muddle of covers
his pillows bunched up on top of his head.
he snored with a deafening, gravelly roar
like a sour-tempered, frog-ingesting bear
and dangled his feet in divergent directions,
wriggling his toes with each release of air.
he was taking advice from sage hummingbirds
bobbing in a circle, flitting past his ear,
throbbing brilliant wings and whispering droll things
arrogant humans were disinclined to hear.
altering branches unveiled an antlered man
arrayed in the mantle of a sunlit night.
or perhaps a deer with a human semblance
ardently painted with a palette of light.
fused grievances were shed in an instant.
accumulated miseries melted away.
he felt it would take astonishing effort
to align with the weight of the mortal fray.
and he laughed aloud with blithe abandon
at the happiness stemming from a simple tree,
readily grasping Sylvana's rapture
for this was doubtless where he'd always want to be.
*
the bay window was open in Sludge White's room
and billowing breezes were scurrying in
puffing the curtains and ruffling the feathers
of the sill-hugging birds that nestled therein.
in an image that was slowly receding
she saw herself waving and saying goodbye.
and someone was hushed by the thrushes and doves,
crushed with the embers beneath the garnet sky.
a rapid succession of snapshots followed.
in each her likeness was the constant focus;
leaping from ledges and spitting at soldiers,
relentlessly viewed from an unseen locus.
she couldn't recall such an obsession
in the psychic pastiches she'd hatched up before
and was baffled by the sheer consistency,
the bane of ploughed minds and refuge of a bore.
but glimpsing the dazzling, quicksilver emotions
spraying like sparks from a sharpening knife
she grasped that they had to be Sylvana's
who'd opened this window when she entered her life.
in the tart taunts tossed at thuggish sentries
she discerned the witty bite of Mock's waggish bent
and mused that she must be paying calls on dreams
as the deer by her side nodded their assent.
*
Lumpy slumped limply on his clumped, bumpy mattress
further sleep stumped by a scratch in his throat,
resolving at last to head for the kitchen
to drum up a helping of honeyed compote.
he wobbled down the steps weaving past Gramps
a mournful ghost wielding a wavering candle
weirdly contorted by trembling shadows,
lugging more sorrow than he could stand to handle.
a gilt candelabra glitzed up the kitchen,
brushing its glitter on fritters and truffles.
the swashbuckling knives had retired to their drawer,
though tempers still flared in trifling scuffles.
Weepy poured milk for the pendent otter,
curving round his shoulders and peering in the pail.
Sleazy waltzed in after gadding about the inn,
plastered and pickled yet lustily hale.
"all right, me lovelies? are the riffraff sawin' logs?"
he reeled and stumbled, landing in a chair.
Lumpy clattered a bowl on the cluttered table,
flashing to Weepy an eye-rolling glare.
the bearskin watchrug inched past the doorway,
snapping at conjecture deflected in the hall.
an errant draft played havoc with the candles
and shady grotesqueries danced on the wall.
"the wind is changing" Lumpy thickly remarked,
mumbling while shovelling his syrupy fruit.
"those are heady words" Sleazy tartly observed,
emptying his pockets of aces and loot.
the cards were sticking together like thieves,
their slick edges polished by his amply greased palms.
forged papers slipped out of a hidden lining,
stashed in a sampling of pornographic psalms.
he pitched a pamphlet hawking stagnant swampland
and unloaded a pair of lopsided dice.
then he plunked down a pouch packed with laced roaches,
spurious simoleons, and sizzling ice.
next came furtive flasks and spicy lubricants,
and the keys to unlock unsavory lairs.
though Weepy and the otter had started for bed
they could feel Lumpy smirking from the stairs.
*
dropping from his tethers into deepest sleep
Weepy soared in the old familiar pattern.
he'd been making this journey in the darkness
ever since sentience first kindled his lantern.
he'd never been able to direct the path
for unnatural sway nulls natural law.
he simply accepted events as they happened
and felt with his heart whatever he saw.
he glided above the unattached ponies
as daylight streamed from a swollen salmon sun.
they'd not yet exhausted their blissful exertions,
blistered and bleary yet still having fun;
freshly engaging a burgeoning freedom,
the cult of control ripped apart at its seams.
and he flushed like a lighthouse, brimming with mirth.
for tears never coursed through his nightseeing dreams.
the otter was nestled just under his chin,
nimble paws twitching and curling claws withdrawn;
exploring a world of dawning wonders
as he frolicked and frisked with the freckle-flecked fawn.
he replayed the day they gentrified the cottage
after the borders had first come unwound.
the elder otters were boxing up bugbears
and sorting them out on the beaten down ground.
a commotion arose from somewhere inside,
spawning a pause in the birds' busy bustling.
then a stout elk emerged grappling with a sack,
bouncing about and vigorously tussling.
Pasty appeared in an open window,
beaming a smile like a tender piercing dart.
she brushed her fingers to her lips in a kiss
and for some strange reason he woke with a start.
*
Sappy stepped sadly through the backlit forest,
wary and weary from a night scanning signs
gravely shaken by unpromising portents
ominously twinkling in sinister trines.
the astral aspects were full of foreboding
and the patterns formed by flocking folk were drear.
never before had leaves lost their luster
or berries been bitter so early in the year.
in an instant his surroundings were shifting,
constantly whirling in contrary motion.
countless particles shimmered in the air,
spinning the currents of a cellular ocean.
hues were suffusing in myriad directions,
a kaleidoscope escaping its frame
gradually altering everything in sight
save where he'd come from, which remained quite the same.
Sappy was confronting a vast living picture
composed of tinted light and muted sound:
a bier encircled by kneeling figures
in a mass of pink flowers, reposed on a mound.
mammals and birds swelled overhanging branches
and swallowed the sorrowful stretches between.
their heads were bowed and many were wailing.
a lachrymose wind lapped the edges of the scene.
though he stood on the brink he couldn't see faces.
so he leaned in closer, squinting his eyes.
and the vision vanished in that very moment,
trailing a whisper of wearying sighs.
he reeled and collapsed in the trampled clearing,
grasping at grass that had recently been burned
and wondered if he'd witnessed the future.
it was then that he noticed the fog had returned.
*
the anxious harpy had risen with the dawn
to slake her rancour and stay her aching need,
attempting to quell her equivocal qualms
with decisive action and distracting speed.
donning a hooded cloak she headed for the stairs
past the nodding king in his aerie lair,
his ashen face etched with the trace of a tear
his crown askew on his alabaster chair.
the hidden chamber seemed just as she'd left it
awash in its litter of glittering junk,
the wainscoting stained with the travelling blood
the book sequestered in a trifle-filled trunk.
the mirror was dozing in patches of purple,
swathing his gaze in a cryptic veneer.
the cauldron was insistently simmering,
seething bursting bubbles and free-floating fear.
the roughhousing rats were asleep in a heap
except for the spy who was watching the queen,
his red eyes glowing under half-opened lids
peeping from the rim of a tarnished tureen.
she slipped a slim vial from her vestment,
slurping its turbid liquid in a single swig
and set in at once to swagger and writhe
like an angry puppet in a scandalous jig.
her face was engrossed in a raging mask,
her skin stretched entirely out of proportion;
a staggering sack of wriggling wrinkles,
a sagging feat of torturous contortion.
then she clutched at her throat with dramatic flair
retching in a rasping agonizing gag
and stumbled to a standstill before the mirror
decked out as the craggy, haggard old hag.
she inclined her head, batting her bleary eyes.
"well, deary, who's the scariest in the land?"
he winced. "your likeness, your highness, takes the cake.
in all fairness it ought to be contraband."
she let loose a cackle and slapped his frame
flipping his shiny surface the wrong way around
and briskly hobbled to the smoking cauldron
amidst scuttling rats, revolving the ground.
raising her arms in solemn demeanor
she appeared to peer at a spot past the ceiling
and produced an enchanting thrumming hum,
the drone of pious bees, their rapture congealing.
"i wake the winnowing wights in windblown wastes,
dissolving fallen dead with withering waves.
i summon the sirens of Sicily,
singing stranded sailors to sodden sea-swept graves.
i flush the frothy crystals melting fell fjords
ye frost fairies foster in thine ice-bound caves.
i arouse the selkies and stream-dwelling sprites,
dousing the earth with thy spouting, splashing staves.
i conjure fog from its filmy elements.
i evoke the mantle of billowing blue.
i convene the cover of inky darkness
and wrest subtle mist from early morning dew.
i tinge my features with banishing brushes
to shelter my pigments in nondescript hue.
i steep in pervasive evasiveness
and suffuse my semblance with a clandestine brew.
i assemble the ousted ancestors
to hearken to my wishes and answer my plea.
in the name of thee who are wholly unholy
so it shall happen, and so mote it be."
the mirror spun around and softly muttered
"i said it before in this same dreary den.
she managed to revive that tuckered out horse
just to beat it to death all over again."
the snooping rat snickered in his bewhiskered dish
and the mirror blushed with a coral glaze.
then the crone dipped an apple in the cauldron
and clasping her basket stepped into the haze.
*
in a huddled hamlet not far from the castle
in a rambling bend of the babbling brook,
the slimy dampness was swirling in the streets
and settling a chill in every clammy nook.
the innkeeper was clinging to a ladder
propped against the entrance of the Gimpy Gait,
an oilcan tucked in his apron in hopes
that the squeaking sign might finally abate.
a saucy barmaid sauntered out of the tavern
in a lavender wig like candyfloss
and reposing his hands on his padded hips
aimed a sideways glance at his daydreaming boss.
"will you be about it the rest of the day, then?"
he tarried while staring into the murk.
"don't get your knickers in a twist, our Trixie!
when did mindin' me become your line of work?
i was simply recallin' the creakin' din
on that windswept night when the floodin' occurred.
that's the last time i set eyes on our Pally,
gone missin' all these days with nary a word.
i warrant he's landed in serious trouble,
mixed up in whatever's happened to Nate.
i warned him about wearin' his heart on his sleeve
and now i'm afraid it may be too late."
"if she wants to pal around with them Curmudgeons
it's nothin' to me, and not my affair."
"i know you're worried. ya' ain't foolin' me.
all the growlin' in the world don't make you a bear.
you've heard the grim tidings from ByWater Landing.
i think they were after Nate and his mates.
there's a knot in the pit of my stomach
sayin' Pally was there and he's in dire straits."
Trixie gasped. then he bolted from his tears,
spinning on his heels and careening through the door.
the innkeeper swung his head slowly and sighed.
"all this hell on earth, and still they cook up more."
and the mist gathered at the base of the ladder,
winding its way through disappearing rungs.
and the barkeep expelled the taste of salt.
then he flinched from the sting of the sea in his lungs.
*
trailing fickle fancies of the babbling brook
the festering fog continued to churn,
instilling billows in the whimpering willows
flanking the forest that fringed Fleagle's Fern.
Sylvana awakened to tittering twitters
from bickering crows aslant on her wall
as they slowly slid down and flitted back up,
inexplicably managing not to fall.
"it's about time the fledgling opened her eyes!"
said one with a beak of piercing prominence.
"are you speaking in metaphor, dearie,
or trotting out more of your pompous dominance?"
"wah, wah, wah" said the third, gregarious bird,
skittering over to the dressing table.
Sylvana stretched, in the midst of a yawn,
then beckoned brightly. "how did you sleep, Miss Sable?"
the second crow darted onto her shoulder,
tenderly pecking her fondly tendered ear.
"just like the dead, dolly! and how about you?
have you replenished your unrelenting cheer?"
"we can see that for ourselves. the question is,
with whom did she share that amorous parting?"
in sudden umbrage Sable dived at Sharpebeake,
and the third crow cawed. "they're already starting!"
"what is she talking about?" Sylvana asked,
but Sable was too caught up in the scuffle.
the third crow skedaddled onto the bed,
narrowly skirting the hovering kerfuffle.
Sharpebeake squawked as the squabble lost altitude.
"it's not my fault that she chronicles her sleep.
ask Dithery if you don't believe me."
and the fray was curtailed in a squashed, ruffled heap.
Dithery looked stricken. "keep me out of this.
anyway, i wasn't paying attention."
the whistling broom approached the discomposed crows,
swishing up dust to downplay the tension.
patiently waiting till they skipped in succession
it tidied the wisps from under their claws.
then herding floating feathers if swept from the room,
scattering matter with scarcely a pause.
"just what did i say?" inquired Sylvana,
as Dithery tweeted the broom's catchy tune.
"you were mooning over sunsets and limpid eyes."
Sharpebeake simpered, improvising a swoon.
"i thought we agreed after that tragic mishap
not to stick our beaks where they'd don't belong"
said Guanyin, guided in by the monkey
and braiding macramé that was stringing along.
though she talked with her hands the strands kept knotting
which passed without comment from anyone there.
her presence possessed a soothing solvent
and the aura around her clarified the air.
"have you anything to say to Sylvana?"
she asked while stroking the doting monkey's paw.
Sharpebeake looked askance at her intractable feet.
"apologies tend to get stuck in my craw."
the monkey grinned but no one else noticed
for they were all mindful of the change in Guanyin;
the curious quickening of atmosphere,
the sudden distraction that tilted her chin.
after a moment she caressed Sylvana's cheek.
"the queen of need has been busy, my dear.
i wonder she doesn't tire herself out.
your shining friend's the beacon that draws her near."
Sylvana was visibly shaken, saying
"i'll be ready in a trice, and on my way."
Sharpebeake deflected the threat in Sable's eyes
with an absurdly innocuous display.
"bring those you can trust from the Collective.
and watch that your steps aren't beguiled onto bog."
Guanyin and the monkey repaired to prepare
for Sylvana's gallant venture in the fog.
the crows saw her off from their perch in a window
after Sharpebeake chucked out a sighing dove.
she shook her head as she ruefully said
"our fledgling's flown the coop, and fumbled into love."
*
the forest, rolling in myopic vapors
was carpeted with a cruising occlusion
compelling its denizens to forage
in a cocoon of claustrophobic confusion.
condensing droplets fell from spectral elms
smudging skewed wrinkles on the surfaces of creeks,
etching the windows of the spookhouse in the woods
with scrawny, stretched signs in cascading streaks.
Sleazy was slumped on the kitchen table,
dozing and dribbling a drooling stream of twaddle.
Rashful stood muttering, his hands on his hips,
irately eyeing the upended bottle.
he shrugged his shoulders and stumbled to the stove,
starting in on the breakfast preparations.
Sleazy awoke to snatch up his clutter,
a tidy avoiding of recriminations.
when Weepy and the otter came down the steps
Rashful was humming an out of tune ditty.
exchanging in glances their stunned disbelief,
the otter expressed an ear-flattened pity.
Weepy's twin Gropey plied his old vocation,
slinging laden dishes with dexterous hands
which paved the pair's passage with the pirates
menacing the shores of their plundered latin lands.
with the grace of a mime and a dash of panache
he shuffled muffins and plated pork pie
stacking up crumpets and glittering fritters,
cramming the table in the blink of an eye.
the princess came in as Sleazy brewed coffee,
encumbered with flowers that filled up the sink.
she wrought a rose wreath to wear in her hair,
transfixing the otter with another sly wink.
then everyone ducked from pelting cutlery,
caroming with a cacophonous clatter
after an accelerating butter knife
unnerved the salad forks, making them scatter.
*
upstairs, urgent tapping was rousing Nate
while his wits untangled from a feeling of doom
stemming from the visceral conviction
that something quite sinister had just left his room.
"come in" he croaked, comprehending he was alone.
Mock entered at once, as white as a sheet.
Nate tried to rise but clung to Pally's essence,
still sensing his warmth and the press of his feet.
Mock said "i can't find Gramps. i think somethin's wrong.
he's not in the cottage. i've looked everywhere.
the only odd lead that's turned up so far
is a broken candle on the edge of a stair."
Nate threw off the covers, looking for his cape.
"what about Pally. did you bump into him?"
Mock's jaw flew open. "no, i never did.
i ought to have caught that. sometimes i'm awfully dim."
"stuff and nonsense. you're as sharp as they come.
but time's wasting, Br'er Mock. let's alert the others."
"that fell fog's reinfested the forest.
i'd fain it rained brimstone, if i had me druthers!"
*
with the slippery knife safely apprehended
the serving spoons plunged back in their platters.
but though the splattered flatware had settled down
the tablecloth and napkins were in tatters.
it was clear from Nate's conduct something was wrong
when he prodded a possum out of his chair.
"Pally and Gramps have gone missing" he said.
"our sole clue's a candle, discarded on a stair."
searching looks scurried in concentric circles
while adding up the agitated faces.
a timid rabbit hopped out of the glare
that ominously clustered in vacant spaces.
the door sprung open and Sappy tumbled in,
a frantic, flopping fish shuddering for breath.
"something's in that fog. and it followed me.
and i'd swear it intended to scare me to death!"
this second disquieting revelation
coming as it did in the wake of the first
left the company in a shell-shocked state
their composure crumpled and their bonhomie burst.
the final whimper asked after Lumpy
radiating panic as it bathed them in gloom.
it trickled out of Weepy, frail as a whisper
and hung in the air like death in a tomb.
*
the birds outside were caroling chatter,
embroidering dissonance from lyrical trill
bantering with brethren from Pasty's bay window
fresh from their huddle, bunched up on her sill.
they strung out their perches on fanned out branches
despite the dingy, diminished perspective.
for though they loathed the malevolent mist
they were fond of Sludge White, and fiercely protective.
with rapt attention they watched the six Curmudgeons
accompany Nate through the makeshift door
with their hurricane lanterns and flaming pitch,
divvied up in parties, each composed of four.
Rashful's retinue included the twins
with the spectacled otter draped on Weepy's neck.
he rallied their valor by warbling his ditty,
afflicting those in earshot all to heck.
Sleazy spun diversions for Nate and Mock
with his unrivalled flair for flinging dirty words,
ferried by echoes that twined through the trees
in varying directions, confounding the birds.
they vanished from sight as the writhing sallow swirls
swallowed the light that seeped from Sappy's torch.
then a deeply disturbing silhouette
darted from the shadows and sidled off the porch.
*
[thus, crunching and sliding, October ventures forth
on the spluttering spilled beans of chapter the fourth.]
*
- Evan Hawthorn, the 30th of September, 2018
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