The Shadow of the Axe (part five)

{Part One}
{Part Two}
{Part Three}
{Part Four}

Cesar and his turkeys crept up the stairs from the dank basement into the kitchen. A chill ran down their giblets when they saw the oven door leering at them out of the darkness. It quietly taunted them, "I've known your kind. And I'll know each and every one of you too. Just give it time. There's no use fighting." It was a curiously verbal oven. Or so it seemed.

Cesar mastered himself, gobbling under his breath; ultimately he had no quarrel with an appliance. "Focus," his inner voice said, "on the task at hand. Down the hallway, second door on the left." He floated down the corridor like a barnyard ninja, axe in hand, nerves taut and ready.

And then a muffled sob pierced his ear like whatever it is those people at Claire's use to pierce ears with. Cesar wheeled around back towards the kitchen, signaling the others to follow. And there was Sylvester sobbing and beating his fists impotently on the oven door.

Cesar didn't hesitate. He swung the axe with deadly grace, artfully detaching Sylvester's head. "Fool!" he hissed.

The other turkeys were frozen, transfixed by the spectacle, horrified by the bloodied axe and the malevolent Cesar. His gaze turned towards theirs and it was as if he was basting them with fear. The tension couldn't hold, something had to give.

And then light invaded the kitchen like a blitzkrieg. There stood Farmer Earl decked out in longjohns and his Colt 45. "Dumb turkeys" he said softly.

And then he started to shoot.
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Happy Thanksgiving!!! Keep an eye on your turkey; they're crafty beasts.

The Shadow of the Axe (part four)

{Part One}
{Part Two}
{Part Three}

"Honey?"

"Scnixgh-uhngfff"

"Honey!"

"What?" Farmer Earl rolled over and tried to open his eyes, but the art of sleep and the mysteries of physiology contrived to make them curiously unresponsive.

"Earl, there's a noise in the kitchen!"

Well art and mysteries be darned to heck, nobody messed with Earl's abode, which he lovingly called Chateau Jones. His eyes flew open and without needing to think his body left the bed and his hand reached towards the antique box under his nightstand. The box was black except for some gouges and chipped edges that it had acquired through more years of service than Earl even knew. The box and its contents were the one thing that the cranky old farmer had received when his pappi had died so many years ago. There hadn't been any money and the land had passed to his older brother Josiah who had quickly sold it and used the proceeds to move to the city, a longstanding dream. That golden dream had turned to pyrite within a year when the bottom fell out of the real estate market after the dumb government forced lenders to make bad loans to underqualified applicants. No matter to Earl, who had never cared for his elder brother's self-indulgence (or his explosive flatulence for that matter). And anyways, Earl had gotten what was of real value, the worn black box, his father's treasure and his grandfather's before that.

He silently reached inside.

(to be continued)

The Shadow of the Axe (part three)

{Part One}
{Part Two}

That night the frosty wind made moan. The earth stood hard as iron. The farmhouse stood unlit, Letterman was over and even Conan was asleep. It was the second watch of the night... but nobody was watching. Nobody save for Cesar and his ill-tempered cohort. Yes, they were watching the farmhouse with icy malice.

And the clock ticked.

Cesar quietly contemplated the razor edge of his axe and lost himself in a dream wherein he danced a perfunctory tango on the sharpened apex of steel, which plunged down cruelly in either direction. Yet he danced unconcerned. His partner was a shadow, a mere vapor, perhaps death itself. No matter; he danced as unto himself.

"Cesar!"

The calling of his name startled him out of his morbid reverie. He knew that it was time.

The band of turkeys advanced on the house from the side opposite the bedroom where Earl and his wife lay asleep. The old-fashioned cellar door was never locked. The turkeys knew this from the regular poker nights that they held in the farmhouse basement. And so they slipped in, as quietly as tea infusing hot water, as lethal as eating the wrong kind of mushroom.

(to be continued)

The Shadow of the Axe (part two)

{Part One}

The wind cut less sharply amongst the trees, but that wasn't why the turkeys were gathering there. No, it was a different kind of cutting that had their wattles all a-quiver. The kind of cutting that left their wattles and snoods next to the bloody axe in the yard while the rest of them got innapropriately touched and shoved in an oven. But not this year. This gaggle, brood, flock, gang of hardened turkeys wasn't going to take so much as a word of friendly advice from the farmer much less a blow to the head. And so they gathered.

Not being much for words they milled around and made gobbley noises. It was a combination of nerves and very small and easily distracted brains. But when Cesar arrived with the axe their focus got razor sharp... like an axe.

"Brothers," he intoned, "the time has come to bury the axe." Cesar paused, looked around with and intensity that only a large, flightless bird can muster, and then spat towards the farmhouse. "The time has come to bury the axe in Farmer Earl's back!" he roared, though in truth it just sounded like some spastic and overly ernest clucking.

No matter. The other turkeys understood his words. They understood his grim truth. And any sense of mercy or philosophical resignation on their part had died along with Phil the year before. Earl had to die.

(to be continued)

The Shadow of the Axe

The sky was brooding over the stubbled fields like an angry mother hen, just waiting to criticize the rural landscape with sleety derision. Cowed, the cows kept close to the barn door, which was open. They were not interested in picking fights or suffering the consequences of being too big for their, um... britches. But the turkeys? Now they were a different story. The turkey's didn't give a damn about the poultropomorphic sky. Chickens weren't their allies anways, certainly not come November time. And so the turkeys wandered to the pine windbreak along the edge of the field, sauntering casual-like in small groups so as not to attract undo attention....

(to be continued)

Leaky Skills Lead to Harvest! (eventually)

Alas, I fear, a lack of sleep
Has caused my versing skills to seep
Out on the ground, where sinking deep
They'll spring to life! And then I'll reap.

With Apologies to Lennon/McCartney

I read the news today, oh boy.
Wait a sec, no I didn't.
Praise be!

Made Up

There was a young lass named Sharia.
Her parents were stricter than most.
One day she was caught with some eyeshadow on
And they tied her out back to a post.
Apparently Allah was angry.
He didn't support Maybelline.
Or at least not the manifestation he saw
On the eyes of the face that he'd seen.
And so the young lass named Sharia
Decided to try L'Oreal
But the sass in her choice and the tint on her cheek
Landed her back at the post for a week.
"Best from now on to be covered,
Three strikes and you will be gone!"
Her dear mother said. But Sharia instead
Spent all her cash on Revlon.

coffee

I would that coffee did adorn
My mouth on every single morn',
A joyful liquid full of vim
Sooth, casting out the murky grim.

Thanksgiving

The coffee maker makes a racket,
But it makes coffee too.

The Foolish Foal

There once was a young horse I'll call Wilbur.
He ran with an elan I'll call quick.
Whether chasing the sun or fleeing the darkness
'Twas all of a piece of his schtick.

He ne'er did feel the flick of the switch
Or give his obedience to man.
Solo he flew down the roads of his youth
Both-sided blind and knowing no plan.

The speed was a reduction of hoping
To terms which his hooves could control.
The foam on his flanks and his desperate eyes
Were the rendering of his soul.

But foam was a poor consolation
For ceaselessly running in vain.
His whinnying self-isolation
Brought no certainty, save for the pain.

End Times

Eschatological musings
Are thoughts about what will be
When 'beyond my control' meets 'today',
When the one most loved departs,
When the verdict comes down.
But the dirty little secret
Is that every day is thus.
You live at the behest
Of one greater than you.
Muse on that.

Sin

If sin is only minor,
A petty little thing,
Simply part of who we are,
just the way we swing,

Then Jesus' blood is optional
And God is pretty small.
We can just forgive ourselves!
Never mind the Fall.

Out with condemnation!
In with fuzzy love!
We'll just worship who we are
Forgetting God above.

That's today's "compassion"
The evil of our age.
Many call that wisdom.
Many think it sage.

But sin is not a minor thing,
Just a thing we do.
Nor is it acceptable
Forgiveable by you.

Sin is death inside you,
Blindness of the soul.
Sin is bowing to yourself
Pretending none is whole.

Sin is doing what you want
While standing on God's 'grace'.
Sin is calling God one's own
While spitting in his face.

What a work of death it is!
To hate the LORD and say,
"Sin is but a minor thing,
I'll do my will today."

The Perils of Short Legs and Sidewalks

Wiener dogs, when walking low,
As they are wont to do,
Sometimes get, but can't remove,
Stuff on their belly-boo.
If it's only grass that's fine,
For grass will come right out,
But bubble-gum and nicotine
Need elbow grease and Shout!

Hope in the Face of Hope

If "hope" is the word that you heard
Then you'll know that the word is absurd

For "hope" in the hands of a pol
Is nothing but sweet sounding gall

When this is the day that you face
And you're in that audaciousy place
Take a long breath and relax....

One, two, three, four, five, six, and...

Calm.

He isn't the lord of your life, now is he?
Nor the love of your wife, noshizzy!
So live with the hope that is real
And rejoice and be glad, and kneel...

Don't Kick the Fish

Kicking a fish ain't so easy.
Just ask my ol' uncle Jeb.
He took a great swing with his Nike
And mistakenly kicked my aunt Deb.
Though her poor bottom was ample,
And softer than most I dare say,
The kick touched a nerve
And Jeb started to swerve,
He hopped in that boat
Which was yet still afloat
And then it flipped o'er
And Debbie said, "Grrrrr"
And the kick that he'd meant for the fish
Made him wish an impossible wish
To reverse the events of that hour
And avoid the sopping wet glower
Of my auntie Deb.
Poor uncle Jeb!