Puppet Terror

Of all our fears, is none so real
as the terror as a child we feel?
The thing that from the closet peers,
as darkness falls and bedtime nears;
The walking dead, a chopped-off head,
each one instills a special dread.

And yet more frightening than these,
the thing that makes one's marrow freeze,
that haunts adulthood like a theme that poisons a recurring dream,
is that which has no life at all. The evil puppet. The deadly doll.

A creature born to be possessed: so still, until a child's behest
should animate its sleeping form as from a netherworld reborn,
then only to be tossed aside like flotsam on a lonely tide.

She and all her kindred bent on vengeance for abandonment,
and mute with deadly vows to keep for troubling their endless sleep,
sit watching, waiting, all their days,
with maddening, unblinking gaze.

So shroud the doll with pearl-white teeth
and bind her with a garlic wreath,
and seal the dummy in his case with special care to hide his face.

You say you have no fear nor thrill? I say to you, one day you will.

You'll glimpse a broken mannikin with staring eyes and sallow skin,
or maybe find a china doll propped awkwardly against a wall
and feel within your frozen heart the terror such things can impart.

For in the time it takes to scream, as life becomes a fever dream,
you'll know that in the midnight gloom,
a puppet moves outside your room.

I leave you this to contemplate - just wait, my friend -
it's there - just wait.

~ John Koenig