Electra Movie Camera image by Joe Haput CC BY-SA
The Evil Eaton: Cantos I-V
by Cosmic Poet Simon Pole
I
Let us imagine there had been,
An evil Eaton, little seen,
Back in a room, among the dust,
Where ancient heirlooms pock and rust,
There it schemed and plotted vile
Some wicked wiles to inflict while
His brother Tim, the greater one,
Who honest measured tod and ton,
An empire lay on stately streets,
Where upright trade its fellow meets;
But oh what trade would he install,
That brother black, at Satan’s call.
II
Who can perceive when he chose ill,
Perhaps it was at Mary’s mill,
When brother Tim his network starts,
Where ran the rail, and dump the carts
Their produce loads, and products dear
He sells to all that robust year,
And so ascent is he assured,
To elite heights, if well endured
Is challenge and vicissitude
Of fate at large and commerce crude;
And was not then it prickish pride
That ate his brother black inside?
III
To see weak Tim a fortune make
From such a meagre husband-stake,
And see the warm, affirming glance
Of each new soul he had the chance
To sell a rake or bag of beans,
And fill their needs from out his means,
An affront this, a tickle cruel,
That made him sore with envy drool,
That brother black, when surely he,
Whom nature blessed most lib’rally,
Should be the one to rake the dough,
With efforts slight, and overt show.
IV
Was then that he, on knees the east
In praying faced, and raised the beast.
“Hark me” he says, “and grant my wish,
And I will be your darling dish
When all is done, so let me ride
My brother’s back, and fratricide
I’ll bring about, but not the shiv
I will insert; instead he’ll live,
And I will prey on those who gawk
At his show windows, and who walk
His bursting aisles, and thus extract
My sweet revenge with subtle tact.”
V
So at the mirror Turney stared,
And watched as lamp and candle flared,
There was a chant, and throaty chokes,
As sulf’rous fumes the stove-air stokes,
But nothing more, except the tinge
Of green-gassed death which made him cringe,
But there it was, upon his wrist,
A rotten spot, a spreading cyst
That would to other parts proceed
As grew within the evil seed;
But such the cost, he knew it well,
That cinched his partnership with hell.