(A Corpsely Comedy; Inferno, Inside.
ThE Nightmare Tale Re-Told for the Spirit of Christmas).

She whisks
From the Land
Of the Dead
Like a Fish
That falls
Out from
Your Egg-shelled
Head.
Oh, but Emily
She does see,
All those blackened corpses
Rotting & rotten things
Dead things from the eldritch
Ground, things like heads
That go round-and-round
Little girls that fall
Off Merry-Go-Rounds
Little boys that call
For their Fairy Tooth Mounds

Wandering & wondering & blundering & blondering
"Blood blood blood!" cries the bloodering dogs
Storming the town like lost & rusted bones
Thunder clouds clapping above
Over the "celebration"
Of a colding marriage
On their golden way
To the bolding carriage
And then the bloodied church;
But first, there are the eyes

Ohhh, and how Emily does see
All those nasty & un-natural things
She mistakenly believes
For make believe dreams
Like torn & twisted trees
Hanging with Toms & Christinas
From the thorns like cans of tuna beans

And, oh, how the Lords, the Gentlemen
Are so wickedly insane
Inane, perhaps
Off with their heads so we
May wear their portly hats.
To this horror, such a promise
To poor Victor
And poor Victoria,
In this Land of Haunts and Deaths.

In the mist, the mystery
The midst of a ceremony
That will be killed
Come the eyes of Emily
The Corpse Bride, you see
Undreamed of mutual joy
She would cut off the hands
Of the Van Dort boy,
And feed the Everglot girl
To her ever Hopscotch creatures
Below.

He(and
pre
sum
ably dis
mem
ber)r she.
E(yes)mily.

And above? Like
Earth dressed in a moldy green,
Dirty flowing wedding dress
Such a mess, is she
Our lovely Emily
Her eyes
Like a
Ukrainian haunting spell
Spilled & misppelled
From Dante's or Mary Shelly's "Hell"
This so-called "courtly love"
From the ruined above ("Amore")
This is the arrow that the bow of exile
Kisses & tastes & eats first
With sharply teeth & sharper thirst
As lambs to the wolves
From the tombs of Ravenna
Ravenous is she
To die or dine in Purgatory
Even if only for a slice of Paradise

(Remember sweet Eurydice
And poor Orpheus
Who lost
His head?
All for Love)

Oh, but now it is time
For the poisoned wine
Dying from the vine
Like butterflies from the moon
Out from Emily's eyes, nearly too soon
(To his horror) her still-fresh corpse
Crawls forward like the mist over graves
"But what of your promise to me?"
She waves like water from a haunted sea,
While spiders & maggots climb out
From her hollow eyes
"Am I not beautiful, good sir?"
"The most beautiful in all of
The Land of the Dead."
"The Dead?" she whispers
As if the very word were poison.
"Death does not have to be a prison, sir."
"But I love another."
"Than I must kill you."
"I do not wish to die."
"Why? Is not death a celebration?"
"As is marriage, yes."
"Then why?" And how her anger burned
And yearned, but she did not turn:
"Am I not capable of Love and Emotion, sir!"
Her sarcasm flew like bats & bells.
Victor grew frightened, and thus he fainted
Banging his head
Only to see Mr. Bonejangles.
And know now that he was
Surely
Dead.

And when Emily reached out to kiss Victor's head
She watched as her eyes rolled
Across the bone-ridden floor
"Oh my," she uttered. "Oh my."
And The Skeleton Band Leader began to dance
For the Lady of Chance
"This is a celebration, after all."
"Why yes! Of course, it is."
And in this story, Emily never lets Victor go

Never lets him go
Home.

So below, he stays.
And above, Victoria climbs on top the church
Where they were to be wed
She jumps, instead.
"Oh my," whispers Emily
As she puts back in her eyes.
"I have come to claim my husband,"
Victoria cries.
"Oh my, oh my, oh my...
Victoria, you are only less than a widow
And I must send you back above
And there you will go.
And there, you will stay
For all of eternity," spurns Emily
Still wearing the clothes she was killed in
As she waited for her groom.
"You see, I too, was killed too soon."
And Victoria was forced to drink the dark poison
While Victor watched and cried
And she died, into Life.
"Oh my, " said the bride
Never to be the Wife.

And now whenever she stares into
Her bedroom mirror
She will always see
The Eyes of Emily.


*Dedicated to Tim Burton
& Helena Bonham Carter.

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