[Roderick Usher]

Here's a little Halloween treat for you all. I write one of these every year and send it out to friends and family to get them in the seasonal mood.

Working on illustrating this one and a few other for a volume of creepy children's poems - sort of Shel Silverstein meets Poe.



Underneath the Bed
S.K. (c) 2006

Mother said “it’s time to sleep”
And kissed me on the head
Story time was over
And the prayers had all been said
She wishes me sweet dreams
But my heart is filled with dread
Mother won’t believe
There’s something underneath the bed

There’s something underneath the bed
I swear I heard it breathing
Inside my troubled mind
All sorts of nasty things are seething
Maybe it’s a blob
That absorbs its victims whole
Maybe it’s a succubus
Who’s come to eat my soul
Terrified to close my eyes
For fear I’ll soon be dead
I lift the sheets – oh no!
There’s something underneath the bed!

“There’s something underneath the bed!”
I screamed into the night
Into the room my parents flew
And clicked the bedroom light
“I saw its bloody dripping fangs
And its yellow eyes!”
My father said “Son cut it out,
Stop telling awful lies.
I’ll show you there is nothing,
Not one thing for you to fear”
And dropping to his knees
Into the darkness he did peer

But the darkness looked right back at him
And yanked him down below
And screams echoed through the night
As blood began to flow
The mattress leapt, my mother shrieked
Outside the house we fled
“Now do you believe there’s something underneath the bed?”