Clemens and Farley in the Maze of No Tomorrows

Clemens and Farley in the Maze of No Tomorrows

A reckless dummy
with painted freckles
and crazed eyes -
name of Clemens -
who babbled more than
his masters voice
could tolerate,

was tossed
to the pumpkin patch,
along with his
roughed-up
baby-blue piano -
name of Farley -
with its much maligned
pedals and cracked
white ivory
that made it leer
like a certified
hillbilly

you'd think a piano
would stand firm
and not let strange
wooden creatures
terrorize
its sensitive parts,
but Farley was quite
smitten with the piano
player's seductive
overbite and knotty-pine
digits

that's because
Clemens was special,
in a spooky tooth -
spazzed out -
sort of way.
with his ginger locks
and his second-hand
doll clothes,
torn from the body
of a clumsy old drunken
marionette who
happened to cross his
no-you-don't zone.

Clemens and Farley
lay claim to that
pumpkin patch like
maniacal homesteaders,
enticing young and old
to follow their melodious
musings into the Maze of
No Tomorrows.

'come into the maze!
come drink in my gaze
your days are about
to be numbered,' 

was the thought
going through
Clemens numb
skull the night
all the children
went missing.

chilly night it
was, too.
'coyote cold'
so the legend goes.
with owls on the prowl
and pumpkin men
licking their lighted
scowls.

on this night
screams could be heard
that made wild wolves
shudder and turned
steel nerves
to butter.

billowing smoke filled
the rigid night air
as the cry of the farmer's
angry woodchipper
raged through the
cornfield's maze,
making pine shards of
a certain ventriloquist
dummy

meanwhle, the children
were last seen
under the light of
a silvery moon,
dancing with a baby-blue
piano.

the woodchipper cooling
in the glow of their joy

Photo credit: Richard McDonough