Horror Haiku Club Prompt
September 23 - Crying the Neck
An ancient custom in some areas of the UK wherein the last sheaf of grain at the end of the harvest is cut with with a ritual cry of:
"I hav’n’, I hav’n’, I hav’n" “What hav’ee? What hav’ee? What hav’ee?” “A neck, a neck, a neck”
Your prompt is CRYING THE NECK
Running as we cut
Slipping sly from from stalk to stalk
Until at last, trapped
In some areas cutting the last sheaf was bad luck and reaping crews would race each other to cut as fast as they could to avoid making the last cut. In the earliest traditions, the spirit of the field would race ahead of the reapers, but would eventually be trapped in the neck, which was cut and protected until the next year’s crops were planted.
Neck grasped, squeezed and raised
Asphyxiated spirit,
Her breath held till Spring
Prompt: Crying the Neck
(Been reading Kerouac’s TRIP TRAP this morning so here’s a Jack Kerouac-inspired twist—freewheeling, spontaneous, like a road trip -1959- through the fields.)
∞ Neck slips, a ghost breeze
Through golden veins of the field
Reapers chasing shadows
∞ Reapers stumble on
Scythes swinging wide like jazz riffs
Neck gone with the wind
∞ Cutting through sunset
We howl at the neck’s sly dodge
Midnight grins with it
∞ Spirit on the run
Reapers, tired, drag their feet—
Neck free, laughing wild
∞ Harvest hums a song
Neck dodges, we keep missing
Like jazz, offbeat, cool
∞ Moon rises, neck free
Reapers lost in their own chase
Grain whispers, “Not today”
∞ Scythe swings wide, misses
Neck skips on like a beat poet
Shadows cheer it on
∞ Running through the field
Neck just a blur in the dusk
Reapers sigh, defeated
∞ Grass whispers secrets
Neck gone, slipped through time and light
We stand, hands empty
∞ Reapers, wild-eyed, run
But the neck? Long gone, baby
Jazz in the field’s bones