A Night With Sybiline Skull Poem by Adookorn Auaduma

my mother a candle flame
hard
for weeny lad to prod in windstorm
lay in a divan bed

fellow feeling ride on pale horse
along shuddery path for inquiry
about a moribund mum lay in black divan,

lashes horse with rod of self-inflicted guilt

horse sense fall off like persimmon
fruit in hot spring
led horse off-the-cuff
along palpitant path to the cove of a magus

his shrine, a craniometry class
hoarded with axial skeletons of being,
hum ethereal words
one by one
the magus whisper to their ear,
raise up a skull, handed over to me

life flee along tracks of small voice
to its nadir
leave glassy shell on the floor

hands tremor
roll skull on its feet

courage notice the hairy large order
impose on a wee falla
vamoose like noon vapour

the wizard scuttle to the rear of the shrine
return
squeeze leaves into my ear
skull speaks dialect
held me spellbound

agape gather cordwood
poke fire of hardwood, hurl fear
into abyss
wear the scary night with friendly mask

bid me home in hairy night
with sybiline skull
through plaintive forest dire with brays
of monkeys
hoot owl
screech owl
nocturnal insects and fairy
sing passing of mum lay in day bed

wall of black
forest led us on wonky feet
retch fear, a second companion
on groping path

skeleton gossips danger
lodge the frightening night
elf
beast of prey
lives in scheol

fear pops up, desorb into the dark

with random hug we breast
the first hamlet
laid calm in the white-livered silence
of a bridgehead

at a footbridge along the outskirt
of the hamlet
ember-like glow quaint, alarming
blink
glow
grow

skull gossips of wilothewisp
fear dash from the beetle-browed forest
hug with depressed hands of cramp

swift heel
of deer beetle over gangplank
eery ember grow a gaint
flame of inferno

a knock
on the door of the sleeping hut
provoke dying
mom to weep for idle risk through
taunting forest with hair-raising
sorcery skull

but windstorm defile efforts,
douse her candle flame!