Behind the Chocolate Door

In a dream one night
I came upon a long white picket fence
Surrounding a white wood-frame gingerbread house
With peeling paint
Quaint
(in a visual sense)
Flowers were sleeping outside of the fence
(planted, no doubt, at considerable expense)
Snapdragons, marigolds
Overgrown, with colors bold
Each petal bright as metal, right,
I saw just there in front of me
Large, shoe-sized saffron bumblebees
Wearing off-white painter's caps
And droning, lazily, from flower to flower.
And down the street, (where it was icy cold),
A drift of snow, a soft white she,
Meditated patiently
From hour to hour while
Contemplating the flowery bower.
Two-and-a-half bluebirds scolded to me
From their Scandinavian, high-rise penthouse
At the top of a walnut tree.
The fence, for its part, was jovial,
Though shabby in repair...
"I've spent all my existence surrounding this house,
With no time for painting or care."
Through the gate slightly creaky
A sidewalk ran,
Curved like a girl,
But spoke like a man,
Yes, it dashed right up to the chocolate front door,
'twas a path of distinction
(and, I learned, much more)
Made of bricks, made of gumdrops
Made of emeralds and pearls
Red rubies were scattered like cherries
And sapphires, some,
For September girls addicted to berries.
What a path,
What a walk,
Through the gate
To the house,
Through the yard through the chocolate front door
From the sky that was beryl
And glowing with sun
Straight to a dark curtain'd room
(where I'd soon be undone)
It was there that I fell through the floor
To a cavern
Where gray-gloved hands with palms of sable
grabbed me and held me down
On a table
Many hands
Ugly hands
Grasping hands with no arms
Hundreds of hands,
Cannot fight
(I'm unable!)
No bodies nor heads
Just millions of hands
Squeezing too hard and so strong
With their knives and their saws
And their toothpicks and pliers,
And razors and hoses
Syringes and icepicks
They all came along.
In those hands, those hands,
Those hideous hands
Ah yes, my dear, just slice off my ear
A butcher knife
But SO sincere
See the blood (it's MY blood!)
Must I eat my own feet?
Anon, what is next?
Will they feed me my sex?
And the throat-wrenching screams
Ring like hour-long themes,
Is this reality,
Agony sublime?
Just in time, just in time,
(the screams are mine!)
All this and more
Behind the chocolate door
Inside the frame house
With the white picket fence
And the snapdragons and marigolds
Some dreams make sense
This one made me sweat
(And oh, don't forget),
This house has many rooms
I've seen a few
But for you,
It may be time, I've heard,
To make your debut.
One thing more:
(Don't fall through the floor)