Creepmas Day 13: The Dance Of The 13 Skeletons

The Dance of the Thirteen Skeletons

In a snow enshrouded graveyard
Gripped by winter’s bitter chill,
Not a single soul is stirring,
All is silent, all is still.
Till a distant bell tolls midnight,
And the spirits work their will.

For emerging from their coffins
Buried deep beneath the snow,
13 boney apparitions
Now commence their spectral show.
And they gather in the moonlight,
Undulating as they go.

And they’ll dance in their bones,
In their bare, bare bones,
With the click, and the clack,
And the chitter and the chat,
And the clatter and the chatter of
Their bare, bare bones.

They shake their flimsy shoulders
And they flex their fleshless knees
And they nod their skulls in greeting
In the penetrating breeze,
As they form an eerie circle
Near the gnarled and twisted trees.

They link their spindly fingers,
As they promenade around,
Casting otherworldly shadows
In the silver mantled ground,
And their footfalls in the snowdrifts
Make a soft, sulfurous, sound.

And they dance in their bones,
In their bare, bare bones,
With the click, and the clack,
And the chitter and the chat,
And the clatter and the chatter
Of their bare, bare bones.

The thirteen grinning skeletons
Continue on their way,
As too strains of soundless music
They begin to swing and sway,
And they circle ever faster
In their ghastly roundelay.

Faster, faster, ever faster,
And yet faster now they race,
Winding, whirling, ever swirling
In the frenzy of their pace.
And they shimmer in the moonlight
As they spin themselves through space.

And they dance in their bones,
In their bare, bare bones,
With the click, and the clack,
And the chitter and the chat,
And the clatter and the chatter
Of their bare, bare bones.

Then, as quickly as it started,
Their nocturnal dance is done,
For the bell that is their signal
Loudly tolls the hour of one.
And they bow to one another
In their boney unison.

Then they vanish to their coffins
By there ghostly thoroughfare,
And the emptiness of silence once more
Fills the frosted air.
And the snow that masked their footprints,
Show no sign that they were there.

But they danced in their bones,
In their bare, bare bones,
With the click, and the clack,
And the chitter and the chat,
And the clatter and the chatter
Of their bare, bare bones.

—Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Arnold Lobel 



I can't believe it's the 13th day of Creepmas already! Scary Creepmas everyone, stay safe out there!