Forest of Evil

painting by Behshad Arjomandi.

Forest of Evil

In the darkness of the forest near Vlad’s castle,

the stench of evil has saturated the tender bark

of aspen and birch. The trees became barren.

Last Fall, as the leaves dropped, they were the

last signs of life

The bubbling brook that fed the trees was

poisoned, because of the thousands of corpses

dumped into the creek near the Castle. The water

turned gray, the pebbles turned red. When Spring

arrived the trees could not blossom. Their bark

became black with a deathly ooze.They began to

lean over, their spines broken. Their spindly 

branches intertwined into a bulwark of sharp 

brambles.

First the birds left, except for those who feast on

carrion. Then the animals fled. Soon villages were

abandoned. Years later people asked what had

happened in these woods, but no one knew the

answer because those memories were left here

with the trees.

Glenn Buttkus

Prosery

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub