Hoof Prints in February

[Benjamin Stainton]

His voice reels around the old gymnasium -
“Evil is not one entity, or being, but every being.”
My mentor rallies on behalf of Evil.

He treats it like a well-worn shoe
or unknowingly pungent family member.
We, Francesca and I, always drink heavily
in his company. He'd prefer we drank evilly.

On the passage home, fingers clamped
inside mittens, we avoid terms like lead balloon
or social sabotage, and keep the open bottle handy.

~

Snow falls in a great ache over the fields.
A thick layering, like several slices
of extra-thick bread, smothers our velux window.

Christmas has been recast as a crude joke
for weeks now. One hard mince-pie in the pantry.
A writer called February the year's waiting room.

Francesca curls her lip into the pomegranate of morning.
Asleep, still asleep, still sleeping.
I compulsively triplicate in these quiet moments,
resting my eyeballs on the bedside table.

~

Power out, she begs me to rekindle the fire.
We smear ourselves in fisherman's rib
and raid the freezer for salvageables.

News reaches town by carrier pigeon -
While the sun overslept, something left
a trail of cloven hoof prints in the snow,
allegedly stretching for a hundred miles.

The biped scaled garden walls, paused
on rooftops, leapt across the river X.
Later, theories will be shuffled about badgers
or electrical storms. All equally baffling.

~

After the chicken burns, we light candles
in the living room and decide to get drunk.
The clock's pendulum violently swings.

She always believed we'd transcend time.
“People are afraid to leave their basements.”
Overly aware, I feel compelled to draw the curtains.
We both toy with the necklace I won at the fair.

A bulletin crackles from my dusty transistor.
Bloodthirsty headlines reaffirm his existence.
As if we ever doubted it.

[Benjamin Stainton]

It's based on a true story you know. In 1865, a trail of unexplained hoof prints were found in the snow in Devonshire, "allegedly stretching for 100 miles". The difference here is, this is contemporary, and the protagonists are on first name terms with Evil.

Hannah Arendt? Sure, I'd love too. So long as we avoid politics.

Hey thanks for the kindnesses, Felicite.

[felicite23]

aaaahhh.
a new voice.
new visions.
the quietude,
quotidian glimpses
all familiar,
a mystery (my favorite!)
and of course,
Mr. Evil, ever-present always.
you and i and the ghost of
Hannah Arendt will have a chat
one day.
lovely.
thanks.