Legends Hereabouts

[good4somethingbum]

Legends Hereabouts ©2017 Robert George BMI

Lightning struck an ante-bellum mansion late one night
It burned like the bowels of hell, and it seemed an eerie spell
Was conjured by the firelight
Then a hook and ladder rolled up in the smoke and fog
But perdition ruled the dark, and it took the matriarch
Two firefighters and a dog

Legends hereabouts
Say a soul escaped the graveyard’s catacombs
You can jeer and doubt
But this swamp is where a wily spirit roams

Icy moonlight melted in the pines like candle wax
Trevor turned his TV on, watched a Star Trek marathon
While he drank a coupla cold six-packs
Then he lit a Chesterfield and dozed off in his chair
Flame consumed his singlewide, then a shadow slipped inside
And dragged old Trevor out of there

Legends hereabouts
Say a soul escaped the graveyard’s catacombs
You can jeer and doubt
But this swamp is where a wily spirit roams

Poor Natasha was an old whore,
Who’d been hiding since the Cold War
Then one night she wrapped her car around an oak
Was it sabotage or gremlins,
Faulty brake lines or the Kremlin
Either way, a shadow pulled her from the flame and smoke

Somethin’ in the brush n briar,
Swam out in the muck n mire
Saved a man who toppled off an old rope bridge
Whispers soon maligned like tumors,
Beauty parlors filled with rumors
And what they suggested was pure sacrilege

Those misfortuned souls were saved by firefighters’ ghosts
And yet Sunday crowds were warned, such a thing was not suborned
By those who made up heaven’s host

Legends hereabouts
Say a soul escaped the graveyard’s catacombs
You can jeer and doubt
But this swamp is where a wily spirit roams

O we’re livin’ in a dark age,
And the Good Book is a shark cage
That protects our souls from predators outside
Yet it’s hard to kill suspicion
When it mates with superstition
And the devil’s horsemen take the reins and ride

Then one night ole Stan was loaded,
When his homemade still exploded
The roof collapsed and Stan was pinned down underneath
Death was like a smoky dragon,
And his savior’s tail was waggin’
When it dragged him from the still house with his teeth

Ole Stan quit his hundred-proof that night and praised the Lord
Cos if heaven welcomes hounds, yet the ghost dog stuck around
Maybe this world is its own reward

Legends hereabouts
Say a soul escaped the graveyard’s catacombs
You can jeer and doubt
But this swamp is where a wily spirit roams