Dead Beat

That time of the year again and time to blow the cobwebs off this Hallowe'en tale...

Dead Beat

The night was lit by an icy moon           
The valley was shadowed deep               
The wind through the leaves               
sang a haunting tune                   
while mere mortals were asleep           

The swoosh of a bat wing beating low           
kept time to the mournful sound            
A drum-beat calling                   
to the dead below                   
and they rose up from the ground           

The wind picked up, they danced to a tune               
Tarantella with throbbing beat               
and they whirled about               
with a whooping shout               
Like lightning, their flashing feet           

Black clouds scudded across the sky       
A threatening storm drew near               
And with breathless stance               
the end of the dance                   
arrived as the sky came clear   

Undead skeletons returned to earth           
to dank holes in the ground           
And at cock’rel’s crow                   
as the dawn did glow                   
in the valley there was not a sound

There at the edge of the valley steep
he shook at the frantic scene
He thought he was hid
from the things they did
by the light of the icy sheen

Nothing is hid from the Devil’s eye
One night he would claim Jake’s soul
It would not take long
for his wailing song
when the Devil took his toll   

Nearly a year since that fateful night
when he discovered that space
Each night Jake was drawn
to the spot ‘til dawn
and haggard had grown his face

Every night out, with a joyful shout
he went to “The Cemet’ry”
No more did he dread
the delights of the dead’s
night of debauchery

The Devil hid the reality
in inn at the edge of town
The skeletons’ bones
no longer were shown
but decked in the finest gowns

With wine and ale drunk from goblets black
and the music playing loud
nights partied away
Jake slept all the day
while the Devil stitched a shroud

Friends scoffed at his tales of wild nights spent
Such a place did not exist
They thought he was mad
said Jake had gone bad
did not believe his tales of tryst

Jake sang his song to his adoring throng –
had he realised his plight
he’d not be so quick
to select his pick
of these ladies of the night

Back to the inn called “The Cemet’ry”
he went on the fateful night
A year to the day
since they first held sway
and Jake was in for a fright

At the party’s height, when midnight chimed,
skeletons’ gowns fell away
Jake had drunk the dregs
Entwined arms and legs
were just bones now where he lay

The walls and roof of the bright-lit inn
faded away from his view
This was not a dream
Loud was his scream
There was nothing Jake could do

Music changed to The Tarantella
His blood chilled as he recalled
the same night last year
when he shook with fear
and in fright Jake’s heart beat stalled

In the cemet’ry graves opened wide
Lightning flashed and thunder rolled
And at dawn’s first light
all were hid from sight
except Jake, lying there cold

They found his body later that day
Terror was etched on his face
Mid graves of the dead
their hearts filled with dread
in that haunted, eerie place

They laid his body in deep-dug grave
to the beat of muffled drum
The Devil with glee
held the soul once free
and the mourners were struck dumb

They went no more to that curs-ed spot
just hoped Jake would now find peace
‘Twas a foolish thought
If the truth they’d sought
they’d know his dance would never cease

On Hallows E’en, when the moon shines bright
in spite of a stormy sky
Then Jake’s clanking bones
and pitiful groans
can be heard in high wind’s cry

He joins in the dance of bones set free
by The Tarantella’s beat
and he curses the time
of that midnight’s chime
when he first saw flashing feet

Now all you reading this sorry tale
take warning of poor Jake’s strife
on All Hallows Eve
the cemet’ry leave
or you may forfeit your life 

 © Ida Jones