Faerystruck Down

In the rolling fog of the purple sea

Where slugs infest the ridge

And breeze-bent heather

Tethers ghosts of the drowned

Beyond the threshold of the mind

Where sea hags howl at the moon

And shapes unseen

Sneak away human babes

Lies the maritime trail I was warned not walk

Urged by patrons of the old pub

To return to America, and be gone at next breath:

“For too tempting is the tourist from afar!”

But I split my sides at their heathen pleas

Doused their cares with whiskey and ale

Till after a spell, I was cheered out of town

Pushed along streets of leaping whispers

So onward to accursed shores I went

Bold with humor and the prod of drink

Where fish-lipped merrows in cohuleen druiths

Leered from frothy kelp isles

And the mutterings in belch-bogs grew ever near . . .

And the perverted, creeping shadows . . .

I will never forget their dream-drenched faces

As they sang and danced and picked over my end

Goblets high in the salty spray of the purple sea

Where many a mortal bone now rests in the deep

And in my last moments of earthly acquaintance,

Head a pivot and lit with fires green,

They branded my soul to the tongue of lore

Forever to break out madly from seaside lips

(From the book The Hunchback's Captive and Others)