A metropolitan artist, city born and bred,
A man who painted portraits of things within his head;
A man whose depth on canvas was noted far and wide,
Whose brilliant bristle eloquence had stemmed the critic tide,


Lingered on his laurels on a bricken building top
Devoid of inspiration, his flow of genius stopped.
Life had reached a level of hum-drumity, it seemed,
A change he sorely needed, and of a change he dreamed.

Perhaps an oriental trip, slant eyes and yellow skin
And pigtails might rekindle that creative spark within.
Or a jaunt to dear old Germany where a gaily painted stein
In the hands of a mustached merryman might bring a scene to mind.

But wait, a trek to Spain-ward could be the very thing;
To gaze from the midst of a motley crowd into a gay bullring;
Or an African adventure, where the dark dwell in the dark.
The native in the jungle could strike a blaze-bound spark.

The alpine peaks of Switzerland might stimulate his id
And cause his hands to do again the things that they once did.
Or a voyage upon the ocean, the South Pacific p'raps
Could rend the veil of ennui that kept him under wraps.

Ah, the many trips that he could take to mystic lands abroad
Encompassing the beauty that mankind doth applaud.
But foreign fields he felt were filled with fellows just like he
Who sought the scenes for which sightseers search and seldom see.

Too far, too long, too round about, there must be something near
That could stimulate the inner mind through awe or joy or fear,
Which could bring to light on canvas some inner abstract thought,
Some turmoil deep within the brain that no one ever caught.

He craved a quiet, rustic place where souls long dead might linger,
Where the inner eyelid might be raised by the flick of a ghostly finger.
Anything to trigger some emotion he'd not known,
Some feeling he had never put on canvas to be shown.
 
But it must be something different that could whisk him from sleep's door,  
In an instant to a wide-eyed, apprehensive mental uproar.
A haunted house, that's the thing!  That's what he must find!
A place where spectral spirits could arouse a drowsy mind.



And so he packed his sleeping bag and all his artist's tools,
The canvas and the pallet, with its brilliant color pools.
Then he packed a bag of pins with which to induce pain,
He'd paint that feeling 'case th' ghosts were canceled due to rain.

Being a very thorough man, Sam, as we shall call him,
Also took a gun along, should something else befall him.
He molded silver bullets in case the "else" was vampire,
No sense risking total loss of his artistic empire.

He packed his long green limousine with all this paraphernalia
And topped it off with a boomerang, directly from Australia.
Then he drove down to the corner, filled 'er up with gas,
And set out for the mountains, t'ward Superstition Pass.
 
On and on for hours he drove, in search of a devil's den
Where spooks and goblins run amuck amid the wailing wind,
Through forests dark and valleys deep and fields of waving weed,
In quest of a harrowing haven where nightmarish specters feed.

Then off a ragged mountain road and 'round a horseshoe bend,
Across a noisy, planken bridge at a place called "Reason's End",
Atop a brushy, craggy hill, he spied a gabled mansion,
A tattered wreck from bygone days, complete with porch and stanchions.

A roof of hand-hewn shingles revealed a battle with time
Where the woody brown was brindled with the gray of a stormy clime.
And the broken window panes revealed a depth of purple gloom
That spoke of eerie shadows that lurked in musty rooms.

He parked the long green limousine beneath a willow bower,
And slowly crept up closer to the ominous shadowed tower.
The crenate trim was shabby now, and dangled from the eaves,
And the rusted gutter played the grave for a thousand autumn leaves.

Was this the place he'd sought so long?  The question burned and taunted.
It looked the part, it promised all, but was it truly haunted?
A wisp of chill caressed his brow as he peered through an aged portal
Past the antiquated craftsmanship of some departed mortal.

Already his great artist mind was forming abstract scenes, 
Exposing a sleeping artist's eye to a freshet of colorful dreams.
Ah yes, exhilarating brain waves promoted color blends
That he could put on canvas to shock the minds of men.

And then a sound, a tiny sound, but an eerie sound at that,
Jolted more of the fiery scenes which hid beneath Sam's hat;
A sound like one from a stiffened tongue forming a ghostly vowel,
And a joyful Sam clapped his hands and shrieked a gleeful howl.



He jumped the fence and cartwheeled twice to the fancy limousine
And grabbed his tools and bed and gun and boomerang and things,
And trotted back through cockleburs to his glorious haunted castle,
Thankful now he'd left behind the metropolitan hassle.

Inspired once more, he set up shop in a dank and murky room
And lit a lamp that flickered low within the shades of gloom.
With incentive such as this he'd paint a most profound chef d'oeuvre
That would stay, like Mona Lisa, in the hearts of men forever.

The sun laid low behind the brow of the autumn-colored hills,
And darkness brought a new deluge of canvas-filling thrills;
A touch of blood, a dash of pale, a ghastly glaucous glaze,
A spray of deathly white to hint a spectral, phantom haze.

Intensity!  Intensity!  Oh, the glory of it all!
He'd illustrate the fervid fear that superstitions call 
From 'neath the lid within the id where grisly goblins lurk
And black grimalkins skulk about to do their dirty work.

He'd paint the pangs of fear so clear 'twould grip the viewer's heart
In the gelid clutch of terror's touch where icy panic starts.
With a master's touch he dipped the brush in a pallid horror hue,
But the stroke fell short with the faint report of a sound that had no cue.



A shadow passed the window, and an ancient floorboard popped,
And--for an instant only, mind you--his flow of genius stopped.
Then Sam regained composure and painted somewhat faster,
With only fleeting glances at the shadows on the plaster.

One moment, then another, and a minute, maybe two,
And other little noises began to filter through!
For an instant Sam was frozen, as a headstone by a tomb,
His heartbeats echoed off the wall as hollow drums of doom.

Glorious!  Glorious!  Such fear he'd never known!
He grabbed a brush in either hand and painted terror tones.
A blood-red this, a fiery that, a brilliant new emotion;
No artist ever stroked a pad with such intense devotion.

And then again his movement stopped, he stood with brushes poised.
A different sound beset his ears, a horrid, gurgling noise!
A pearl of perspiration appeared above his brow
And he grabbed another canvas... he could really paint 'em now!
 
He took out three and set them all up quickly in a line
And squeezed the color out of every tube that he could find.
He took a brush in either hand and one between his teeth
And painted feelings mortal minds had never yet unsheathed.

He was going to be immortal!  He could feel it in his bones
(If he didn't have a heart-attack before  his works were shown).
The paint flew 'round the gloomy room like a hail of colored rain,
And he painted, like a demon, perturbation from his brain.



His hands were freed from conscious heed and swashed a scene of their own.
As a brush convulsed with a throbbing pulse, a swirl of ebon was sown,
While a shaking wrist jittered a twist of verdancy into the tone
And chattering teeth staccatoed a wreath of the gore of bloody bone.

Then, calming some, but still agog, he surveyed his one-man show.
A masterpiece!  And 'twas all inspired by the ghostly sounds below.
This specter he must seek and find, and from sheerest gratitude,
Embrace him for these greatest works of emotional pulchitrude.
 
But caution yet was still advised, so he grabbed his blunderbuss,
And into the chamber, a silver-laden casing of brass he thrust.
Upon his trusty boomerang he tied a crucifix
In case his apparitious friend was full of deathly tricks.

Continued on Page 15...

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