PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Bicycling, you passed by a scarecrow:

one, so you had been told, long haunted;

one, so you saw now, dressed in tattered 

rags, crokkedly propped upon weathered

beams---upright and crosspiece---that

centered it in a field on which even the

most hearty weeds no longer thrived.  On the

far horizon, the leaden sky seemed to

collapse disdainfully upon the abandoned and

obliviously flattened land.  Drawing

nearer, you saw---to your shocked

surprise---that the scarecrow gnawed

upon a rcaptive odent.  Suddenly, the mouth

paused from its leisurely mastication of the

small carcass---its brown fur now stained by

crimson streaks and dull green smears of the

shreds of its guts.  "Move along," the

scarecrow muttered---the sound of that

unforgettable voice so horrific that even

death must have been hesitant to hear it.

Not even the wind remained to strip the

landscape; and nothing was left on the

landscape to strip away.  Something

primevally primitive seemed to take

sentience within your limbs, to silently---

hysterically---plead for flight, for escape.

Yet, you made no effort to do so; and at the

corner of your eye, spme kind of swift and

surreptitious movement, spmething mounting

your bicycle and wheeling away without the

least pause or hesitation.  Your arms have been

stretched taut to bear your weight, and your

legs dangle useless (the soles of your feet

just a few unpassable inches above the

debris that passes for soil in this vicinity).  The

mildewed odor of long weathered fabric assails

your nostrils.  The acrid taste of mammalian

fur (tiny paws still twitching)  inhabits your mouth.

Though you cannot look away from the

dread shadows emerging from this blasphemy of a

dusk that is settling, you understand that

mocking birds and casually strutting crows have

already sampled the wetted morsels that, once,

were the myopic bulbs of your eyes.

Starward