Those who dwell in Drauthenboch
[[toil in dark fields]]
[[steal dragon eggs]]
beneath an empty moon,
harvesting mandrake roots
nourished by torrents of tears
gathered from unfaithful maidens
in buckets of virgin wood.
[[fields2<-continue]]
They ride on the backs of
snow-white horses with curlicue tails
and leathery black wings
and manes of brittle blue glass.
[[eggs2<-continue]]
Mandrakes, chopped up
with black-bladed sickles,
taken to Satanic mills
and ground into flour
to make Beelzebub’s Bread,
[[fields3<-continue]]
sold to sorcerers who slather it with butter
made from the melted remains
of goblins who flew too close to the sun
on the backs of eyeless hippogriffs
[[chapter2<-continue]]
Those who dwell in Drauthenboch
[[wear no clothes]]
[[wear clothing made of wood]]
They fly to black-capped mountain peaks
and snatch eggs from dragon nests,
piercing them with pitchforks
with highly polished tines
and lines of Twine
tied to hickory handles
[[eggs3<-continue]]
They bring their bounty back to Drauthenboch,
where gargoyles sit impatiently in outdoor cafes
listening to strolling skeletons play violins
stringed with the vocal chords
of Trappist monks
[[eggs4<-continue]]
The gargoyles eat the eggs raw,
shells and all,
swallowing them whole.
[[eggs5<-continue]]
The eggs hatch inside the gargoyles’ gullets
and the babies spit flames,
trying to burn through
the throats of their captors,
[[eggs6<-continue]]
but the gargoyles gulp down the babies,
sending them into their stomachs,
where digestive juices dissolve them
into six essential nutrients
[[chapter2<-continue]]
and shear their furry bodies with
black-bladed sickles
and sell the clumps to ghost trappers
[[no clothes 2<-continue]]
Pine-cone coats and birch boots
and beech breeches and hickory hats.
They methodically plan
every action in their day,
fearful of spontaneous combustion
[[wood2<-continue]]
who twist them into magical cords
and weave them into nets
to ensnare snarling specters
who swarm through the
swamps of Swansea on sultry nights,
annoying the alligators
[[chapter 3<-continue]]
Those who dwell in Drauthenboch
[[drink dreams]]
[[eat elf steaks]]
which would burn their wooden wardrobe
and melt their soft bodies
into blobs of fat which the
gleaners take to chandlers
[[wood3<-continue]]
to turn into thick black candles
for Satanic rites
performed in abandoned abbeys
by uninhabitable nuns
[[chapter 3<-continue]]
They pour lamentatious libations
into goblets of bright green goblin glass,
downing them in one lugubrious gulp,
drinking the dregs of dreams
drained from the brains
of depressed doyennes
[[chapter4<-continue]]
The elves cut off their own tails
with black-bladed sickles,
wincing as they mince,
and sell the meat in market stalls.
It tastes like chicken.
[[steaks2<-continue]]
Those who dwell in Drauthenboch
[[live in mazes]]
[[live in shanties]]
The appendages grow back quickly,
only to be lopped off again,
for there’s much money to be made
from mutilation
[[steaks3<-continue]]
That is why many humans think
elves have no tails,
for we have never visited
the market stalls of Drauthenboch.
[[chapter4<-continue]]
Mazes made of mica,
rented from minotaurs,
with walls mounted on wheels
so the minotaurs can
rearrange them every day
and sell new maps to the tenants
at exorbitant prices,
showing where the bathrooms are
[[chapter 5<-continue]]
and sing sea chanteys
and sleep in hammocks slung
from mastheads
listing the long-gone editors
of obscure art magazines
read by aspiring pyromaniacs
[[chapter 5<-continue]]
Those who dwell in Drauthenboch
dread [[stormy nights]]
[[sunny days]]
when they melt beneath the pelting drops
of ruinous rains filled
with the stomach acid of
egg-gulping gargoyles
[[stormy2<-continue]]
When furless flesh is
crisped and crinkled
by Ra’s relentless rays
and the smell of cooked meat
travels for miles
in the mouth of the wind,
drawing dragonflies to the feast
[[sunny2<-continue]]
The melted bodies run in rivulets
down slippery sluices
and are sucked out to sea,
[[stormy3<-continue]]
where sailors on whaling ships
spot the luminescence
just beneath the surface
and mistake it for whale sperm
and follow it for days
while the whales head the other way,
escaping into friendlier waters
[[stormy4<-continue]]
But it seldom rains in Drauthenboch
because old women stand atop the northern hills
casting storm spells to drain the rain,
coaxing it from the clouds
before they reach the city.
[[stormy5<-continue]]
As the barren cumulonimbus clumps
pass over the dark towers
of that benighted metropolis
they make dry, raspy sounds,
troubling the uneasy sleep
of those who dwell in Drauthenboch
But it’s seldom sunny in Drauthenboch,
where brooding purple clouds
shaped like the faces of old women
quilt the skies for years at a time
and cast shade upon those luckless souls
who dwell in Drauthenboch