The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Energy cannot be created
or destroyed.

But it can be trapped
tortured
determined.

It can get stuck.

Out of anguish,
it can force a body to
traverse the marshes nightly
for centuries
while the black stallion gasps below
and the moon stares up above
and the owls inquire as to
who this eternal zombie is.

It is the Headless Horseman.

Propelled by a spirit that craves
its vessel’s missing piece.

For it will not be admitted to Heaven
or Otherwise
without this
rotting artifact.

The hollow’s sleepy sounds
offer no comfort
to this deaf entity.


Not the grass speaking in tongues
nor the frogs clearing their throats
nor the crickets playing organic violins
nor the wind murmuring pagan lullabies
nor the trees conducting static swaying song.

The Horseman’s soul rides through
a silent infinity
propelled by the yearning to escape
the haunting memories of the last sounds
that ever entered the long-lost cranium.

There were bullets screeching like banshees
and bombs roaring like lions
and orders bellowed as if from an angry God
and men moaning like animals suffering a slaughter.

Though the age of the Revolutionary
is long over,
this War rages on in the energy that
cannot remember being born
but can never die
and cannot escape its holding cell
until the impossible
reunion of skull and neck.