The Macabre At Jonothan's Brook... Poem by Frank James Ryan Jr...fjr

Oh! That night...the night they came
when the birch woods snapped and fell
in the deeps of Jonothan's Brook
coursing water mixed with blood,
as if the earth were menstruating.
Smooth and silent, the water moved
and curled 'round the hundred year rocks
in serpentine 'til it came to a fork
that connected the Brook with two rivers,
surrounding an island-like spread of land
where there stood a lone old structure,
that housed a family no one knew,
as they were the only folk of Privacy
who were isolated from the rest of town.
beneath the cut soil,
dug in May of nineteen ninety three,
just days before the tragedy
that in time would take a tiny town,
of six dozen people to its knees,
never to regain their lost pride
for their inexplicable manner, fear and actions.
They were a small family, by quantity
a family of three,
the child, an adopted girl from somewhere
south of a Texas fence.
Their house was made of pine, and stone,
with windows that bore dark draperies
starch rigid as if....they'd been painted on
to fit the window panes.
And the condition of the outside
was controlled by the Brook
and its perpetual coursing force
during the storms,
that ostensibly became more frequent
and destructive...
as each year turned into the next.
And these storms were loud and feral
as if a Sea-Witch were overhead
and upon this families home
casting her spells from the old, wilting trees
slowly dying from the damp spread of land
that poured from between two rivers,
divided by the fork, and them.

Until one shadowed night in May,
of the year, Nineteen Ninety two
when this quiet family of three
were all slain while asleep in their rooms.
No one knew who could have done it,
No one took the time to care;
The police from Privacy were called
and after taking in a two hour coffee break,
they moseyed on down to the house,
by police boat, down Jonothan's Brook,
that met the twin rivers,
at the fork where a rundown house
housed a family of three dead souls.

I heard it on the news, next morning,
in the midst of a heavy rainstorm,
before the lights went flickering out,
and we scrambled for candles in the dark,
and that later I would think to myself;
how surreally apropos that was!

They were just a reclusive family,
never bothered or hassled a one-
of the seventy-two townsfolk
that comprised the Town of Privacy.
I guess, quiet would be understating
they existed amongst themselves,
lighting votive candles during the day
praying nights in the black of their attic,
and scaring the bejesus out of one young boy
eavesdropping where he didn't belong.
And because so, the townsfolk feared,
whispering thoughts amongst themselves;
assumptive notions, offensively graphic...,
insidious, but with no foundation,
yet with pre-judged condemnation
which soon became suffice to say
that when the Townsfolk heard the news,
they leapt and howled in their streets
like rabid wolves in the night,
feasting on their slaughter.
scaring the bejesus out of one young boy
who'd one day be tell his story
about the horror of Privacy
to a judge and jury of twelve
under oath and bible sworn.
To this day, nothings been done.

A quarter century's come and past
the Town's populous just forty-three,
A Nor'easter killed most,
in the May of ot'three.
They were all buried the same,
same way, same place, same cause;
they had no chance to choose their final stead
and in truth, they brought it on themselves.
Each and all were warned years ago
'bout consequences when you anger
the forces of Jonothan's Brook,
that was never seen calm again
since that night in May of ninety-three.


FjR-MMXVI