Halloween meni jo! Mutta joilla se on sydämessä ainainen, tässä esimerkki Jack Prelutskyn lystikkään kammottavista painajaisrunoista:
Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep (1976) -
Jack Prelutsky
http://www.oocities.org/tk421storm/jack.htm
The Wizard
The wizard, watchful, waits alone
Within his tower of cold, gray stone.
And ponders in his wicked way
What evil deeds he’ll do this day.
He’s tall and thin, with wrinkled skin.
A tangled beard hangs from his chin.
His cheeks are gaunt, his eyes set deep,
He scarcely eats, he needs no sleep.
His fingers wave arcane commands.
Ten boney sticks on withered hands.
His flowing cloak is smirched with grime.
He’s wanted since the dawn of time.
Upon his hat, in silver lines,
Are pictured necromantic signs.
Symbols of the awesome power of the wizard,
Alone in his cold stone tower.
He scans his mystic stalk in trade,
Charms to fetch a demon’s aid.
Seething stews of purplish potions,
Throbbing, pometergic lotions.
Supernatural tracks and tomes
Complete with lore of elves and gnomes.
Talismans, Amulets, willowy wands
To summon sprits from beyond.
He spies a bullfrog by the door
And stooping, scoops it off the floor.
He flicks his wand, the frog’s a flea
Through elemental sorcery.
The flea hops once, the flea hops twice,
The flea becomes a pair of mice.
That dive into a bubbling brew
Emerging as one cockatoo.
The wizard laughs a hallow laugh,
The soaking bird’s reduced by half.
And when, perplexed, it starts to squawk,
The wizard turns it into chalk
With witch he deafly writes a spell
That makes the chalk a silver bell
Which tinkles in the ash and air
Till flash! A fire burns brightly there.
He gestures with an ancient knack
To try to bring the bullfrog back.
Another Flash! No flame now burns
As once again the frog returns.
But when it bounds about in fear,
The wizard shouts, “Begone from here!”
And midway through a frightened croak
It vanishes in clouds of smoke.
The wizard smirks a fiendish smirk
Reflecting on the woes he’ll work
As he consults a dusty text
And checks which hex he’ll conjure next.
He might pluck someone off the spot
And turn him into who knows what.
Should you encounter a toad or lizard,
Look closely, it may be the work of the wizard.