Her delight is painted to perfection
On her mummified hide.
Her robes are a queen’s confection.
But she is shriveled inside,
Embalmed slowly
In the temple of vanity,
Stuffed with the souls of the lowly,
Puffed by a despot’s insanity,
Wizen heart, withered liver,
Eviscerated and discarded,
A weltered quiver,
Hollow and disregarded
But for a core of self promotion,
A balm of blame,
A black flame.
Her sincerity is moldy powdered rust,
Humanity turned to dust,
And pasted into place,
To form a papier-mâché face.

Like a dry Egyptian wind she cackles.
And her papyrus design crackles,
As the inner bane shows clear
Her Gorgon reflection in a mirror.

~ Daniel F Mitchell

There’s a scullywumper in my closet.
It only comes out at night.
I hear it crack the closet door
When my mother turns out the light.

There’s a sneaky peeky shadow man
Hiding beneath my bed.
When he hears me fall asleep,
He floats about my head.

There are sock creepers in my drawer.
They hide beneath the socks.
When I open up to see,
They stay as still as rocks.

But when I sleep, they creep, creep, creep,
And gleefully cheep, and in a pile heap,
To watch the wolf-bat from the deep
Who comes to feast on counted sheep.

When I am sleeping,
Terrible things come creeping!

There are carpet seepers,
And lock peepers,
And hairy fairy moonbeam weepers.

There are tum tum singers,
And gum gum slingers,
And oochie-coochie yum yum bringers,
And sometimes even dingy wingers
With long and crooked bum bum stingers!

There are hallway creakers,
And outside-the-window peekers,
Buzzard-rat beakers, from-other-room speakers,
And in the corner, squeaky squeakers,

And even sticky icky-poo reekers.
(Who are only once-a-weekers)

There are smoky jokers with a terrible cough,
And blanket-pullers who pull the blankets off,
And gleaming ghosts with stickers beneath,
Making steaming boasts with long and yellow teeth!

When I go to bed at night,
When I sleep, I sleep in fright.
Every scary living and dead,
Comes to gather round my bed.

But of all the scaries great and small,
Of all the scaries there might be,
The scariest scaries of them all,
Are the scary scaries I cannot see.

There’s a scullywumper in my closet.
It only comes out at night.
I hear it crack the closet door,
When my mother turns out the light.

~ Daniel F Mitchell

Bow low to the gods, in reverence.
Kowtow and partake of their benevolence.
Their commandments are all of right and wrong.
Don your vestments, and play along.
Sell your body for the highest price,
In bondage to bonds, a roll of the dice
To determine your destiny in heaven or hell.
The neon gods reward the faithful well,
Afford them every material desire,
But burn blasphemers in inert fire.

Market your life to the time clock.
Sacrifice your soul on the auction block.
Pray fervently to the neon gods for mercy,
Or suffer a pauper’s fate for heresy.

~ Daniel F Mitchell

~ Daniel F Mitchell

The house is so silent now,
I cannot bear to sit any longer.
Alone on this stump, I am cold,
Colder still to feel the sun
Of that morning
When these roots had life.

I hear a gust of wind picking up,
No branches for it to sway,
Just the gate hinges recalling the days
Of shade and laughter on the grass.
I think I should rise, meet it, him -
The old man gone from his arm chair.

Were his knees newer, maybe he too
Would rise to see it.
He saw the colors it had before.
He rose on other days,
And walked the garden path
To the field beyond the shed.

The plots are fallow now,
Unplowed for some time,
Rows of posts still tied by rusted wire,
But not so tight as in times past -
A few winters away from complete emancipation,
Though they must be too warped and weathered to care.

I fear the hedge is grown beyond hope.
No shears will bend its ways now.
The dead spot where the old tabby used
To bear her kittens has widened some,
Not so much that it wouldn’t still do
For cat shelter, or even a mouse.

The ghost should be gone since
He dragged the skeleton out with his hoe,
And buried the soul beneath the walnut tree.
He’ll not need the space any longer.
He’s hoed no more than tabby’s bones
For many summers.

A fine patch of fuzzy weeds grow
Where the strawberries did.
Memories of pumpkins, and grape vines,
And frosted plums come to mind.
A few rattling corn stalks are still standing
Like some deserted, Navaho graveyard.

A wind blows long and low, across the open rows -
A conscience burdened with past vice,
Or mirth simply expired,
As the whispering of witches,
Not in spell and conjuring,
But in repentance and remorse,
Or maybe just the cat.
I think I’ll rise and find it.

~ Daniel F Mitchell