Ben Brannigan's Grave

Spanish moss hangs in ghostly fingers
From the Elder Oak near Brannigan’s grave.
You cannot walk here without their caress-
Entwining in your hair, brushing against your face,
Or is it perhaps a wisp of dewed spider web instead
As Brown Recluse find Spanish Moss appealing?
The old grandmother in the village gravely tells of souls eaten
Here near the crumbled grave, where the stone rots
And the hard dry ground under your feet
Cracks like shattered glass.
Like splintered crystal, the screams echo in the night
As mist fingers grasp those of moss and web
Pulling you in to Brannigan’s Lair.

There are treasures here the legends say.
Gold and diamonds await the soul
brave enough to beard Ben Brannigan
in his grave. Old bones lie bleached
in their tattered ragged remnants:
the meat of their souls long devoured
by the rats that crawl in vapid moon light.
With no coin to mark their passage,
The strangers lie, keeping company with Ben Brannigan.

The villagers will not disturb this place.
They know full well what the outsiders scorn as
Urban legend or auld wife’s tale
Is, in fact, truth, else why the strangers lie
Beneath the Elder Oak, their necks broken,
Eyes bulged like spider sacs about to burst,
Mouths full of unsaid words and undead maggots.
No, the villagers listen to the old grandmother
And stay away from the Elder Oak.
Raised on stories best forgotten,
They know the creed, how greed can twist
The entrails entreating one towards ever more.

The old grandmother sits spinning deep within her hovel:
Clothed in shadows and her mourning gown
Of deepest black with hints of violet hues,
Laced with strands of web-grey hair.
Spinning tales and tapestries of fine silvered threads.
Silver entangled with the fine gold
Chain around her parchment throat
That holds a tarnished locket bearing
A miniature likeness of Ben Brannigan.


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