Crow Takes A Holiday

Jack Daw, that black feathered fucker,
taunting me until all I could see was rage,
lowered me down the well,
dangling from the ginn pole like a bindlestiff.

Clinging to sanity by a thread
no thicker than the spider's web tangled in my hair,
I searched for the cause of the foul taste
and Stygian odor in the dank atmosphere of the shaft.

It's cold at the bottom of a well.
Hence the old saying,
"Colder than a well-diggers arse," I suppose,
My teeth chattered, sparks flying from the fillings.

There, in the sidewall, tucked in a niche,
the corpse of a rat, source of my night terrors
and tiny bites upon my face and arms
when but a babe in swaddling.

I screamed silently,
lest my tormentor recover my wailing carcass
as fast as a bucket of water raised with no regard for spillage.
30 foot ginn poles can move like lightning.

With thumb and forefinger I latched onto the tail,
placing the odious flesh with my feet in the bucket.
Straining leaves and flotsam with the screen provided,
gorge rising as death wafted all about me.

Satisfied by the absence of solids
where liquid belonged
I released the bleach tablets in the sack at my side,
the stench of decay hidden in the acrid clean of bromine.

Now I loudly voiced my readiness to ascend
Job completed, yearning for the light,
the radiant warmth of the sun,
a hope for the future.

Jack Daw, that black feathered trickster,
went fishing, leaving me to dangle alone.
Now I am the alpha and the omega
of the stygian stink emanating from the well.

Never trust a Crow to do a man's job...

cc2005 Creative Commons Wil Mosher


Verses created in response to a request by the Poet Ivy,
@ Ivy is here, seeking the weird, strange, etcetera
experiences of our lives. Whether it serves her purposes,
only time and Ivy can tell.