Lycanthropy

Ol’ Neb in the midnight wetness
Gazed up at the beclouded moon,
Howled in silent supplication,
Begged for deliverance
none forthcoming.

Crawled to the hammock strung,
Slept fitfully and awoke to find
His pillow down-stream, gulleted,
Blocking the passage where the foulness
might have passed.

And so, the burthen holds,
The stay stayed fast,
Bonded tight against the mast;
The future lashed
to the unforgiving past.

There in the darkness
Did the drowning bastard
Lie, his clawing torpor
At the earthen sea amok,
as if to slink or shim.

The crows caw with nevermore than that
Which the ravened quoit did lay
On the untombed respite
Where the candle, burnt to butt,
flickered out at last.

Insanity possesses its own logic;
The moon-dog bitch will not heel.
Nor more certainly
Sit, shake, roll over,
or play dead.

She lives on in currish stubbornness,
Tilts her head at the master’s voice
Atremble in the half-shadow darkness
Where the dew, grown ever danker,
Anoints his craze.

Her unfelt touch beguiles
the wanton longing.