mud-beast
Fretfully he
toils, heaping mounds of earth,
Excised from the grave's new-formed dark mud-guts;
With sucking claps the clods of mud-beast's girth
Forms hunched at grave's end, grinning earthy ruts.
The mud-beast
watches with savage intent
As the aged sexton whistles away fears
That carry streaming, web-like with the portent;
Death's rutted visage smiles and leers.
Deeper the sexton
toils as the mud-beast
Roars in laughter at the victim's chatter
And, rain-driven, he skulks toward his feast
As aged gravedigger feeds him fatter.
Silently the
mud-beast lurks, leaps then feeds,
Settling in his bed of mud, blood and weeds.
Adrian
Hoad-Reddick 5/2/95