Vicar-ious Verse: The Leprechaun

In honor of the holiday, a sonnet I wrote some time ago imagining the darker side of the old Irish legends (as if there were a *brighter* side!). Not related at all to the movie starring Jennifer Aniston, except for the fact that Warwick Davis has already agreed to star in the film adaptation of this poem.

The Leprechaun

The little man slips sly out of the wood
and knocks the dirt clods off his hobnail boots.
Westward, the sun becomes an orb of blood
and creeping shadows blanket hard, gnarled roots;

His coat is road-worn, holes in the elbows;
his tattered trousers: mud-caked as his shoes.
Burst vessels spiderweb his swollen nose;
his face, once jolly, darkens like a bruise.

The bottle in his fist helps him forget
the shame and pain he's left, the stories told
about him in his former village yet:
how he, of all his kind, first lost their gold.

He spies the thief, asleep in his back yard,
fingers the knife, and smiles--this won't be hard.

Nota Bene: if poetry is your bag, the Vicar's alter ego spent a year or so sometime back writing a sonnet every day, many of which were horror themed. The entire project is available for perusal online, though I wouldn't recommend trying to swallow it whole. Maybe just read the horror sonnets by clicking here, and hopefully find something to enjoy.