The Awful Dead Man and the Miserable Goblin
An Epic Horror Poem
An Epic Horror Poem
“No greater grief than to remember days; Of joy, when misery is at hand.” — Dante Alighieri
One day in the desolate and terrible land
Where no man goes who’s able to stand
The terrible smells of the hilltop trolls
And evil deeds of monsters, scaring souls
Was a lone goblin so foul and so mighty clever
He could stare at a child and make him quiver
Or join right in cunningly in a witch’s brew
Or cast down a young virgin who did screw
He clunked as he walked down the path of bone
Along the river of blood, as decayed corpses moan
He shuffled along in the horrible darkened night
As he heard a small whisper and hated this sight:
He could see in an alleyway between two small shops
A little old man who could barely stand like Grandpops
Hobbling along as he waved him over to the dreadful side
Never asking for anything, wanting him to listen unkind
The old man dressed in black on the dreariest of days
As was the fashion being a place of muddy weak ways
He wore a top hat and a great monocle of screams
Positioning himself as a merchant of horrible schemes
“Filth, what did you want?” cried the awful little goblin
Wanting to know what sort of delightful evil was his sin
“Strife,” he said as he bowed tipping his spider-infested hat
That is my bargain as you can imagine awfully at that.”
“Strife!” screamed the goblin with a hideous small laugh
“I claim that and have experience in making a man daft.
What could you give me different than the man of shadows?
Dealing out old miseries and terrible hidden sorrows?”
A shift in his mouth came with his crimson eyes
As the old man grinned with teeth like knives
He came up closer, with his breath like garlic
And told him a darkness that could make you sick
“Strife is only a certain thing that leaves a dull aftertaste
I promise you a pleasure fuller, making one a masochist.”
The goblin was stunned and then frightfully withdrew
Away from the maniac’s quite terrible hue
“Apologies, O man of great and strong woe.
For I did not mean to compliment you so.
But please do share what you have in store
Of your great misery, please do not ignore.”
“Oh, yes, you ugly gentleman, I will tell the distress
Beside the two shops of the stupid, dreadful Press.
And that is what I will tell you by the small ghoul light.”
And then he brought him deeper by tapping on his right
He tapped with his bloody cane on the rock hew
On the side of the troll mountain where evil did accrue
In the bleak silence, the nasty and awful kind,
As he slunk away, the goblin went into the deep blind
Descent so long and dark in the mountain’s heart
As they tumbled down with a noisy sudden start
The goblin was so green, covered with his slippery slime
Looked up at a little house as the old man asked to dine.
“Oh, please, right this way, you terrible sad sack.”
The door covered with skulls made a loud whack
Creepy hands shriveled inside around the door
As it opened out came a slithery snake, all sore
It passed down the way as the goblin went forth
Into the deepening darkness of all terrible sorts
He landed on a chair and sat himself downs
The old man with kettle started the brain grounds
Terribly filled with a nasty and wicked hate
The old man sluggishly started way too late
As he sat down across from his newly dreadful buddy
In his chair was a hairy monster covered as a mummy
“That’s much better as we sit and have a small chat
So awful and boring that would put your hair up to bat.”
And with the little flicker of light came from the fire
Where the old dusty cobwebbed hearth started for hire
Inflame, it did not as the spiders and a single maggot
Crawled all about in a frenzied scene as the goblin bet.
“Now what I wanted to tell you, I won’t go on about me,
So cruel a proposal that I hate the privilege to see.”
“Now, I tell you, disastrously!” the old man cried.
“Of what I do differently on the darker, other side
Of the town I hail from and never did I ever
See so many lazy, putrid, and simply laughable severs.”
“Oh, please,” said the goblin rolling his ugly droopy eyes.
“I was never one to compare or believe other’s dark lies.
So save me from your pitiful soul-sucking dumb talks
With which I am quite done! Go away you only mock.”
The old man frowned as he listened with great pain
At the annoying little imp, he got with little gain
This annoyed him so he began wickedly again
Then he began to reflect like his old enemy called men.
“Oh, my unbearable chap, I wouldn’t waste your precious time
Of which our hearts our always restless with wicked sublime
So hear me out now, you little filthy dreadful terrible man
And sit back; I’ll talk of drudgery of little do you understand
“I found in my travels across darkness and madness
In the sunken places of decay void of righteousness
I bantered with evil creatures of every wicked kind
But then found this hideous one right out of his mind
“It was a death bird so rare did I ever awfully find
I looked it up in my travel book already signed
Across the isolated lands did I take it out to jot
All my maddening thoughts swirling inside, I sought
“And what did I find? May you ask about my travels, yourself?
About this wicked bird if you kill it would make one wealth
I found it to talk and speak horribly of a terrible sort
Whispering in my ear secrets to which I now resort.”
“He said, ‘If you want your hideous creatures of men
To never wander to the Sacred Heart of Light’s Den
Then you need to torture them with a thing called goodness
Of which we desire to taste which is why we left the Light Nest.’”
“I pondered this saying and thing so dirty and untrue,
Not realizing it might be a test from the Never New.
But as I pondered it in this darkness, devoid of all light
My mind was fogged with an ugly sense of old insight
“And then I tried it out on this old unpleasant chap
He was an old man like myself but so terribly adapt
To a life of goodness and a great big vault of virtue
That I didn’t think it would work so wonderfully cruel
“As I tempted him with a set of every kind of test
To aim at cutting him off from the good rest
I suggested good things but with a horrible twist
Never knowing the full weight of the dangerous risk.
“But he did, yes! Oh, did he ever take the bait
It started out slow and didn’t go right to hate
But as his life took a turn filled with lonely sorrows
Suffering came and took hold of his tomorrows
“Addiction to drink became his wicked crutch
Underneath my little motioning of the wicked such
He left his wife of thirty years so far and more
Descent into madness was not far from shore.
“His children stopped caring for him in their life
He isolated from everyone his friends of rife
Along with anger, pride, and from anything
Misery mixed with all these dirtied pretty things
“He went further away from all godly good morality
As he slowly stopped praying ruining his own reality
The aromas of sadness he wore around his neck
Like a great millstone, he was thrown in so quick
“He was a man of sorrows painted with awful grief
Like the carpenter bent on our destruction so brief
Long ago hanging from the mousetrap of our master
Where he bound us all under our own terrible disaster
“But still in this awful and dreadful place below
We may still lure some old cold and unruly souls
Who desires like the higher demonic ones of dark
To reject our Enemy raising fists; leaving their mark.
“So, the sin of the story is quite and simply this:
Tempt the ones with goodness that they can miss
They think they follow their Maker, following their heart
Drifting away from all Christian friends, that we impart
“A little mark of cruelty from others so mean
As they go away from their little flock unseen
Desires of the Bearing Image heart turns to stone
As the little cold tepid soul becomes enthroned
“In a crust of loneliness empty of all fleshy solid stuff
As one simply becomes enamored with sinful fluff
But thinking about doing their part when they simply say no
Beginning with leisure where they stumble into the unknown
“And the unknown of life is a playground for darkness
To grip the soul and twist it into a wild frozen mess
Despairing the heart of man away from its true purpose
Blinded he rejects original desire turning to wanderlust.
“And so you see my distant friend, that you can seep
Into their minds, thinking ahead while they weep
Just like the Man of Galilee who cried for his man
Called him out into blinding light which Angels are fans
“And so you know the untruth of the boring matter
Which you may find hard to understand the latter
But I tell you unruly that this is what makes one higher
In the eyes of our master who lives down in the great fire.”
As the two sat in the maggot-infested putrid place
Worms of all sorts came across his shriveled face
And then without warning the old man took his pipe
Made of bone and put in yellow sulfur with delight
The old wretched goblin did not see his point
“I don’t get it,” he said rather sore, seeing the joint.
“How could someone be enchanted by goodness?
Only us miserable folk down know wickedness?
“How could it be possible to enchant the heart’s senses
With light and insight, and through love’s lenses?
You make no sense you miserable bafoon!” he cried
You haven’t gotten a single soul, this I can confide!
“You’re probably a being from Heaven; a gross spy!
Hidden without us seeing you are from on High!
So I will leave while you choke on your own words
I hope you are sad, away with you to the bat-birds!
“Perhaps you’re misguided from thoughts of the Enemy.
You think you’re so cunning as you simply will not see
That you’re a lost cause that’s why you’re station’s so low.”
As the goblin folded his arms tangled in a scary bow
“I am most unsorry,” the dead man quickly said.
“About us monsters who simply desire such dread
But as the Enemy made us as immortal souls
We wander aimlessly in anxious and angry boles.”
“Enough! I must be going,” said the wretched little imp
“I find you repulsive, almost divine!” going with a limp.
“You talk like those weak slaves and heavenly beings
Your head in the clouds worshiping and doing His dealings.”
And so with a turn of the head and with a timid strut
The old monster went out of the old man’s small hut
Inside the caverns of the ancient evil and awful tides
A hole so dark and deep, he climbed out to the sides
And clambered through muck and excrement so foul
Squeezing his bleak little life through the dirty bowels
Hopelessly struggling to find a pale darkened small light
Some sense of comfort never would he find with might
And so pushing through dead corpses and filth anew
He plopped down on the dead brown grass a strew
Clumsily, he rose and shook the dirt right off
From his already filthy decaying body so rough
And he went with a cock of his head as his body and limbs
Went all down into the den of misery and malice of whims
Of which every evil creature in this land did untruly desire
Awful and dreadful sights as they fanned their hallow fire
And so in the land of frost and lonely chill
He wandered with no true or sharpened will
He walked along lazily on the river of dread
Misery was his pal, always hanging his head
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