The Mandrake Curse

 

I spied the purple mandrake flowers

Sitting in their nest of green

And foolishly looked to rip them

From the earth they serenely sat upon

And everywhere a shriek echoed

Across the woods and leafy vales

and to my weary eyes I saw

The bulbous body resurrected

 

A face demonic in its glare

For being torn from fitful slumber

Wizened arms of knotty sinew

Legs like old men’s appendages

I sought to push it back

Beneath the sullied grave of soil

That churned and gnashed forever

Beneath the ancient gallows pole

 

Too late, alas,

My fingers sullied with root flesh

And taking on the tinge

Of violet spite and retribution

I threw its twisted form away

And wiped my hands across my mouth

Of drooling madness

Tasting bitter memories of death

 

I slept the sleep of madness

Where the shadow of the noose

Crawled up my prostrate form

And coiled around my neck

And all the while

That urgent, keening, scream

Urged on the twisted snake

That once hung here

 

Do not, my friend, go dancing

In the dark lands of the fey

After feasting on the poppy and the vine

For there are things that draw you

To them with their pretty petals

And they grasp you close

And breathe their scented secrets

In your corrupted ears

 

The pretty mandrake kissed me

And I travelled for a while

Holding it’s wasted fingers

And tripping through the trees

Until I fell upon

A bed of lilies in the dusk

And lay there staring

Blankly at the sky

 

The poison sucked my senses

And stole from my living form

And I felt the creeping drag

As nature pulled me beneath the earth

And there I lay to this day

With my shocking livid hair

Marking the place where my body

Twists and contorts underground

 

Waiting and waiting

For some unwary fool

To come to me

And tarry for a while

Then touch my tender petals

And close their foolish fists

Around my tortured

Ancient living soul