The Tale of Solomon Grundy
A splinter of moon in a swamp-water eye,
Born under green moss, where the dead maggots sigh.
The air smells of pickled fish, salt, and raw fear,
Solomon Grundy is finally here.
The preacher is silent, the water is sludge,
A baptism of iron, the tombstone won’t budge.
He drinks down the Tuesday in a gray, heavy gulp,
And turns all his Sundays to wet, rotten pulp.
He weds a torn shadow in a veil made of mist,
With mud for a lover, a cold, empty wrist.
They dance on the razor-edge, Monday to noon,
Under a howling, forgotten yellow moon.
His blood turns to clockwork, the gears start to break,
A fever on Sundays, he cannot e’er wake.
His bones are now timber, his breath is a hiss,
He swallows the void of a Thursday abyss.
The hours are melting, the shadows grow tall,
He’s climbing the ceiling and walking the wall.
A sickness of memory, a plague of the past,
Solomon Grundy is breathing his last.
The sky splits in two with a thunderous moan,
His skeleton rises from a throne made of bone.
The clocks stop their ticking, the world turns to rust,
And Grundy is nothing but silence and dust.
The grave is a mirror, a dark, open mouth,
He goes west, north, east, and he wanders down south.
Buried on Sunday, but Monday is near,
That is the end ... of the monster I fear.
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