the Spookhouse in the Woods is introduced (an excerpt from Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons)

in this freshly revised extract from my novella-poem,

"Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons",

Sludge White ('Princess Pasty') and her animal escort
happen on the Curmudgeons' cottage,
and attempt to do something about it....

*******

hitherto unversed in selfless intent

she was eager to bond with her unforeseen friends

readily treading this untested terrain,

exploring its depths with a groundbreaking lens.

since the forest seemed bent on protecting her

she decided to leave planning up to chance

and aimlessly strolled through the wakening woods,

savoring the rising sun's slant, dappled glance.

flowers fell open at her feet as she walked

and she noticed she was understanding birds,

their snatches of song a liquid lightning

expressing a longing unburdened with words.

she could feel deer converging behind her

for a well of empathy had made itself known,

a timeless attachment dispensing with space

in cognitive lodgings sewn in with her own.

at this juncture she stumbled on a cottage

appearing abruptly, as if from thin air

with a tumbledown roof and receding gables,

a study in despairing disrepair.

its sagging, swaying siding was sidling away

and the disgruntled windows were agape,

their shattered shutters dangling from their hinges

as though they'd collapsed while trying to escape.

the overgrown path was sinking in quicksand,

its flagstones settling in a miasmic berth.

fragments of a chimney, partially interred

had been spit back out by the disgusted earth.

a stony bed of thorns served for a garden

while a brackish fetid puddle formed a pool.

the yard was littered with polka dot scraps

like the last remains of a detonated fool.

the weather-beaten door had been left open

and a rabbit had already hopped inside

to see if the house held sadder disasters

its sense of decorum was trying to hide.

as Pasty ventured in her diffident escort

fringed the sills with rows of sniffing noses

anxiously watching their human companion

parting the dust clouds as if she was Moses.

a petulant hat rack ambushed the entry

brandishing left hooks and spoiling for a fight.

the faded portrait had gone off its likeness

to judge by the way it was howling in fright.

billowing cobwebs flaunted from the ceiling.

jagged bloody nails protruded from the floor.

an ear-splitting squawk simply wouldn't let up,

seeming to stem from some tortured upstairs door.

broken dishes were scattered on the staircase
as the dumbwaiter turned out to be a mime.
and the hours sped by, or dragged on and on,
since the clock was telling lies instead of time.
clinging vines wedged in through broken windows
had reconciled themselves to temperamental light
and swung from the rafters with abandon,
appending tendrils to whomever came in sight.

though the yarn was lax, aimlessly unravelling,
the spinning wheel was prickly and nettled.
the atmosphere was fraught with the odd little sounds
one hears when a house becomes unsettled.
while the sloping walls were inclined to crack up

their moldings seemed content to simply moulder.
and the laws of science had gone off the rails
for the air inside just kept getting colder.

the tchotchkes on the mantelpiece were dismal.

and the capsized bottled ship had sprung a leak.

seven smoldering pipes were stacked on a rack,

steadily emitting an unearthy reek.

a misshapen beast snoozed in the fireplace

giving vent to yelps and stomach-churning snores.

a rattled skeleton clung to the closet

unhinged by the doorbells' spine-tingling roars.

the bearskin rug was hooked on wrestling

stalking pedestrians who dawdled in the hall.

a bygone stove probably exploded

as a charred silhouette was splattered on the wall.

tiles still trickled in a yawning crevice

divulging a dank, disconcerting cellar.

the distorted and conflicted cutlery

had surely been abused by Uri Geller.

a pair of swishing knives were swiping the air,
enthralled in a gripping, swashbuckling duel
under a ceiling peeling and congealing
with a gut-wrenching, foul-smelling gruel.
while the toppling embankment of filth-laden plates

teetered on its rank, precipitous brink,

whatever was crawling in the pantry

was hardly an antidote for repugnant stink.

the princess resolved to confront the frightful mess

finding the task impossible to shirk

and thinking there ought to be fewer locations

in which such dubious things thought to lurk.

her four-legged posse pitched in at once

nurturing by nature and benignly inclined

seeming to dance in synchronized motion,

a symptom of borders becoming undefined.

squads of birds flew in and out the windows

in swift, deft movements precluding indecision

darting and flashing in breathtaking arcs,

a kaleidoscope of finely judged precision.

they hustled and bustled back and forth all day

with the throbbing pulse of a subway station,

scavenging cobwebs to soften up their nests

and ticking off the spider population.

a badger coaxed the sleepy beast to vacate,

removing snarled burrs enmeshed in his coat.

then the squirrels rid the rest of the chimney

of the hazardous buildup of creosote.

the rug was incited to tackle the hat rack

resulting in a frenzied, seething tiff.

while they were scuffling they were stashed in a sack

and dragged to the edge of a neighboring cliff.

the ear-splitting squawk belonged to a banshee

gone out of her mind since she couldn't find work.

Sludge White suggested the palace for a haunt

with a windswept graveyard thrown in as a perk.

as the skeleton could reassemble himself

sleight of hand made him harder to dislodge.

but he split when a raccoon scrambled his bones,

thoroughly persuaded to get out of Dodge.

the dumbwaiter thought better of theatrics,

and the clock expressed remorse for having lied.

the vines bought rumours of a spurious blight

and promptly transplanted themselves back outside.

the bloody nails were gingerly extracted,

the missing bits of kitchen floor retiled.

while the cutlery's core issues got hammered out,

the floating fencing knives were reconciled.

the clattering platters were finally washed

though it took quite a hodgepodge of paws to do,

and provoked a series of avalanches

that skinned the shin of a towel-drying shrew.

the idle threads were spooled onto bobbins

and nimbly settled on the nettled spinning wheel.

the slop that had slipped from the bottle was mopped,

and the ship was equipped with a brand new keel.

the crumbling walls were propped up and painted

in bright warm colors that delighted tired eyes,

chasing muted shadows from their wonted nooks

and encouraging the temperature to rise.

the portrait was touched up by a porcupine,

tickling its fancy and hindering howling,

subverting The Scream with the Mona Lisa,

a dash of giggles besmirching the scowling.

a wren taught the door-bell a whimsical trill

gleaned from the whistle of a wandering bard.

the godawful gruel was scraped off the ceiling,

sprayed by a skunk, and buried in the yard.

the crawling enigma remained unresolved

when the pantry unbolted its musty air.

no one could prove it ever existed

but no one believed it was never really there.

a sinister assortment of slinking things

were fettered together and carted away,

entrusted to a band of mendicant monks

who held exorcisms every other day.

the hapless cottage had been boldly rescued,

from its freakish preternatural crisis.

but the bone-chilling cellar was boarded up,

and left to its disquieting devices.

the animals returned to their woodsy dens

to forage for dinner and rest until dawn,

except for a lingering spectacled otter

frisking with his friend, a freckle-flecked fawn.

the birds made their roosts in the neighboring trees

with fretful twitters and cacophonous cheeps,

incessantly settling their favored perches

while Sludge White slipped into the deepest of sleeps.

the primal mantle devoured the cottage,

erasing the fleeting distinctions of form.

the chorus of insects wavered in waves,

like patterns of rain in the currents of a storm.

the penitent clock told the ticking tale

of the untended moments of unheeded time.

and a discarded heart lay soundly sleeping,

her garments in tatters, her face smudged with grime.

*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 19th of June, 2015)