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)

thoughts on being human

this morning i saw this headline at commondreams.org:

Pope Francis Keeps Insisting

On Recognizing the Palestinians

As Fully Human, Like Jesus

Maybe Would Have

...
would that even Americans,
befuddled by the panoply of corporate funded goons and propaganda outlets,
could find their way to grasping this concept.
it would be a relief to so many, here in "homeland", and abroad in "conquestland",
waiting to be recognised by the "exceptional", pigment-challenged folk
of the "sole unexpendable" nation as spirited siblings of the same species.

Sappy's Vision, an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons",
comprises the final stanzas from the 'night of dreams', wherein each of the
characters is visited in a single night.
*******

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 rippling sound,

a bier in the midst of kneeling figures,

in a sea 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.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

Psychic Pastiches, an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"
references two of the other posted excerpts from the 'night of dreams'.
*******

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 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.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

"heady words", an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

adds to the 'night of dreams', wherein each of the charactes is visited in the span
of a single night.  in this portion, we visit the spookhouse in the woods (the cottage
the Curmudgeons call home) to see what's stirring in the kitchen.
*******

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 passed 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.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

Gropey's Dream - an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons",

continues the account of the 'night of dreams' (wherein each of the characters is
visited in the span of a single night).  here is Gropey's dream:
*******
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.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)

the night of dreams begins - an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

begins the 'night of dreams', wherein each of the characters is visited in the

span of a single night.  it opens in the castle, where the queen has just shelved
her concocting efforts for the night, after the mirror interrupted the spell.  then
we visit the cottage of Guanyin and Sylvana, who were introduced in the excerpt
relating the aftermath of the drone attack on ByWater Landing.
*******

as she lay sleeping supposition surfaced,

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.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)