Image from Moviegone

He slipped away one night
One un-enchanted evening
Left the Lolita in gingham and pigtails
With her yapping little rat-dog,
The tatterdemalion fool without a clear thought
And the timorous tabby,
Slipped away to his one and true road
Shining sterling
In the moonlight
Just as he did.

He did not travel West
Nor North, or East
Or even South,
Ducking the living trees that were his purpose
On his way to truth’s horizon.
Nothing wicked this way comes,
No simian swoops from cloudless skies.
He is the silver-skinned master
Of the night.

Through icy brook
Sending glaciation through his form
His hollow chest knows
Where he can find her abed
To fill the otiose void
Within him.

He lay with her,
Trailing brushed silver fingers
Along her tender flesh,
Offering searching machinery
For her to straddle.
Human passions given
Ride on oil-driven dreams.

Her own hungers
Hammered echoes from his cavernous breast.
Searching, grasping, opening latches
Spinning gears and groping within
Seeking the one thing he could not offer,
The thing she would not do without,
Dooming this to be their once
Their only.

It is a long road back
To those he has left.

———

• Dorothy
• Scarecrow
• Witch
• Lion
• Wizard