The Vomit Tree

It stands alone upon a nightmare plain,
Tall, gaunt and horrid in the noisome gloom,
A ragged wraith up-thrust in dreary rain,
Bedecked with an uncommon viscous bloom
That mocks the gibbous moon's wan leprous light,
Filling the soul with vague and formless fright.

If you should pause beneath those dripping limbs
That waver in the wind above that bole,
You must not hope by droning prayers or hymns
To save the cringing remnants of your soul
From what will drop upon you from a height
To blanket you with nausea and blight.

From what vile strangeness in the earth it drew
Its loathsome nectar, none can say. But now,
It leafy-green expanse a-brim with spew,
It gurgles underneath that crusty bough.
A stench pervades the mist-enshrouded site
Where stands the Tree, its leaves with bile bedight.

The branches give a shudder and let fall
Such clabbered treacle as from some foul gut
Might be upheaved, to shower with grime and gall
The hapless wayfarer who should have shut
Himself up warm and dry as best he might,
Rather than venture out on such a night.

The gods forfend our eyes might ever see
The heaving horror of the Vomit Tree.


-- Donald R. Burleson
16 May 2015

Copyright (c) 2015 by Donald R. Burleson
All rights reserved