Bag O’bones-Biddle

Ticky tocky ricky rocky
The cat hummed its favorite tune
Watching from overhead
All snug in its rafter bed
It knew dinner would be coming soon.

Pebbles rittled and rattled
Night mice skittled and skedaddled
The man skipped to the beat of his head
Though the house up ahead was in gloom
And the beaten head needed a bed.

Bag O’bones-Biddle
Watched the skipping man’s skediddle
A smile spread across his big shroom
He turned to stoke the cooling fire
And swept up ashes with a broom.

“Greetings my good dear friend,”
The man said to O’Bones-Biddle as if kin.
“Might I partake of a spare piece of floor?
As the night has come on quickly
And I find myself without safety of a door.”

The answer was yes,
O’bones-Biddle was quick to confess.
“Pardon the house it’s not as I wish.
My keeper has all but left.
But he makes a delicious dish.”

The night’s dinner was thin
“Too much is a sin.”
The skipping man said in fun.
“Or so the saying goes”
O’bones-Biddle nodded. “It’s a good one.”

“I wonder this night,
If by chance you just might,
Help an old man such as me?”
Bag’s spoke in a voice
To bring pity upon one such as he.

“Of course I may,
Anything you might say,
Of this grateful stranger.”
The man did smile
Not the least aware his danger.

“I hope it’s not much trouble.
With two we may carry double,
And the fire will be stocked up as could be.”
Bag O’bones-Biddle went out the door.
The man belched, sated and hunger free.

“Pardon me, your dinner was divine,
It was the best I’ve had in quite some time.”
“Thank you, kind sir. It was the last in my larder.”
But to fill it once again,
I need not look much farther or harder.”

Ticky tocky ricky rocky
The cat hummed its favorite tune
Watching from overhead
From its rafter bed
Shaking its head at the buffoon.

First one load then two
Back and forth the men flew.
Wood stacking up higher.
“What all of this
You could build a bonfire.”

“Oh no, dear me,
I am no one for a party.
But I like to be prepared for a dish.”
Bag O’bones-Biddle took up is fiddle,
“I’ll play whatever you wish.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.
It’s time for bed, you know.”
And the man looked about for a way.
O’bones-Biddle, ignored the denial
And with a drawing he began to play.

“Ticky Tocky Ricky Rocky
That was what me Mum sung.
Ticky Tocky Ricky Rocky
Until the day she was hung.”
Bag O’bones-Biddle played and hummed.

The man danced and danced,
Though the music was un-balanced.
“What are you doing to me, you’re mad?
I can’t do this much more,
Or me heart will burst and I’ll be had.”

Bag O’bones Biddle stepped to the man,
His hands fiddled as fast as a fan.
The man backed his back away,
Toward the rolling boil,
Whose fire had helped stoke to stay.

The cat sat and it watched through the pane.
Seeing nothing as wrong but all for its gain.
For it knew it would not be too long,
Once the fiddle began,
And heard Bag O’bones-Biddles’ mum’s song.

Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in December of 2015. He shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.