Horror poem: the good witch

she hides in her hole!

a hideous worm!

she is vile and ugly and the source of our ruin!

she sneaks about and maligns our souls from the dark reaches, from her sunken pits, the witch!

she casts poison in our wells and rot upon our fields

she sows disease in our homes! seals our eyes with crud!

she steals our young, she drinks our blood, the witch!

we must rise up— together!

take up your wrath, sharpen your anger like a sword!

we cannot dull our justice, we cannot be ignored—

we march to kill the witch!

we storm her wretched tunnels wielding brands of light and fire!

we pull her screaming from her mud-damp crags, squirming from the mire!

we must scorch away her filth, and seal off all her caves, the witch!

bring her out into the daylight, throw her in the blaze!

—

but…

out here, naked in the light, can she really be so wrong?

beware… she will lull us with her devil’s song!

she grows lovely, beside her the brightest flowers seem so pale!

she’s glimmering and shining now like gold behind a veil

she’s whispering too! soft as the wind but louder than a yell:

stay your hand and listen well, for I’ve treasures to share and promises to tell!

I will share my magic, freely for the benefit of all!

if you but tribute me, I’ll work a special spell:

I will give you wealth and comfort and pleasure and many lovely things, all rising on a swell

from now on you shall live like kings!

peace and good won’t just trickle down upon you they’ll wash you over like a wave!

Follow me and this I swear: your lives will only get better from now until the grave!

can we believe her?

after all she’s stolen and all she’s done?

I’ll be the first to admit: I was worried by all the poison, theft, and death— but I was wrong.

now I’ve seen the witch, I love her!

I will stay loyal! she is beautiful and kind and fair!

I’d buy that love again at any cost!

come, friends, let’s see reason!

so our health fails, our land is poison,

and we have hovels instead of homes?

so our children whither and we work the flesh right off our bones?

these prices are but small favors, for the shining gifts of the good witch!

let us overlook the filth, and give praise where it is due!

the witch has bought us lots of things!

without her favor whatever would we do?

***

***

***

Author’s note:

I’m very new to writing poetry, but from the little I’ve read: I think poetry is best when it isn’t bogged down by the author’s own interpretations.

Good poems, to me, are evocative but open ended in terms of reader interpretation.

So this next part will fly in the face of that stated value (here’s your chance to stop reading and ignore this author’s note if you tend to prefer your poetry open ended too):

This poem was written to be symbolic of the conflict between two ideals of “love”: 1. The love of justice, and 2. The love, or lust, for material comforts. In fact, the “good” witch was pretty much just a masked stand in for money, or at least the longing for money.

It seems to me that both 1 and 2 can prompt a idealogical “love at first sight” where love of the second might cause someone to soften or abandon their love for the first and true love of the first might motivate someone to reject their love of the second.

If you want to read this poem the way that I interpret it, I guess you could simply replace the word “witch” with the word “capitalism”.