Coffeebreak Thrillers   (Back to Poets' Corner)

The visitor

by Joe DiMino, who retains all rights.

 

Once upon a night so bleak--
Still and frozen lay the creek--
air with threat of death bore--
pushed, swore and swore,
pounded the frail, wood door.

Shutters noised--bolting and banging--
metal hinges adding more tumultuous tang
as they, in vile unison, vibrantly rang.

Suddenly, through frosted pane,
I spied, lurking down the lane,
straying off to the blanketed plain,
a spirit like figure.

It crept upon the sod's snowy cover--
amidst rocks and shadows
stopped--darkly hovered--

(Of superstition--I had no fright--
still--an air of death grew bolder,
as darkness abscessed the night--)

Again from hiding it sprung--
in sweeping arcs massive arms swung--
for my cabin door, plowing a path,
with haste I shuddered, awed by this wraith--

Silence ensued more vociferous than shout--
I sat at my table (candlelight flicker),
thoughts wildly racing--quicker--a manic flicker...
(Of superstition--I had no fright--
still--an air of death grew bolder,
as darkness abscessed the night--)

Suddenly there came a knock--
my door hardly sounded--
from my chair I rose, more bounded.

"Who is it?" I demanded;
leaning heavily into the door;
"Hurry--state your stand--
What monster has this God forsaken night sired?
What slinks across the frozen land?--
keeping common scavengers a-fear in their lairs;
the stench of death recalling despairs--
what dreadful agonies have you come to bare?"--
To which there was no reply--
nor further from I.

Followed another brief silence--seething with violence.

This silence continued but a fleeting moment more,
ended by fury, the Devil alone could spore;
for on my door it commenced to pound,
pounded and pounded, noise--how it sounded
and bounded, from wall to wall
from all to all--

"Let me in!" it shouted--with fury--with rage;
I would not be here
if not for your page--
Let me in!" fiercely it urged--
Door shackles weakening with each new surge.

Finally--there came a mighty thrust--
Bolt lock springing and flinging as it bust--
Left in the doorway, amidst whirling dust
stood a figure
clad in black shroud--
puffing--snorting--brutishly bowed.

Of no man had I this depth of fear nor sense of jeer;
still, as I knew my own name, the ferocity of men
compared to this seemed tame--
knowing well
this to be not man but ghoul,
restricted naught, by any flesh-rule.

It followed my every move--
as a predator would stalk or taunt its prey;
nowhere to flee, no safely away--
thus, sensed I my life to be at bay....

But before I could stir
nor slur my disdain,
this grotesque courier of bane
had lifted its shroud
then mockingly bowed--

To my surprise--
though bereft of human form;
conceived in some ghastly norm,
its face--absent of all but the slightest human trace--
yet that face!--that face!--clearly shown--
resembled my own.