What follows is an erasure poem of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, which, if you’re not familiar, means I have erased most of the text but left the remaining words in order to form a new work.  I attempted to have a narrative, structure, and some rhyme, so the resulting story is quite abstract, but I promise there’s one there!

Lizard-Haunted Walls

(an erasure poem of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows)

by

Blaine Arcade

His Little Home First

Brooms and chairs had eyes of white
penetrating lowly house.
Spirit divine struck cellarage private,
busy working dust sounds.

Pawfellow passed, pardon got.
What lord floods February
basement with brown patches and moorhen heart?
Others grey-smothery…

Grass mysterious, Fellow!
Obey presently, wander.
Traveling way abroad showed my friend where
the world seems backwater

Where the mainstream passed Edge Brown
restless mill-wheel turn mill-house,
‘fore Paw’s luncheon-indulge and table-cloth,
gasping: ‘Pitch in, coat-proud!’

Continued: ‘I beg pardon!
You come on, company him!
Who? Two animals fresh, working hardest,
may fashion horizon.’

Etiquette forbade reason.
‘Well… we ought to be moving;
I wonder, is the job low-paying much?’
‘Full of pride! Two sculling!’

He up-seized the prostrate Paw,
hauled and trot the towing-path,
till righted his property by degrees:
stern-broken handy rat.

Back-talk sniggering planted
stories earth-dwelling a-field,
but afterwards escorted by his host
he was ripening-feel

paddle both boastful and left
where right glided the shadow
of a large boat-house toad pre-occupied.
Paw’s gipsy to-morrow

snorted deep into pockets,
he folded water paper
in that mean old river doggedly,
boat-going-stick mastered.

Prospects of the three in schemes
were caught and harnessed to graze,
grew fuller and larger all around them;
the skipper drove always.

‘Henceforth we all now possessed
takes practical purposes
to be righting by themselves no longer!
Till your shock bewitching is!’

With provoking remarks gave,
its contents landed spellbound,
instructed to make all accounts ventured,
transformation found.

Fire in his arm-chair-dozing
slipped him hidden places old.
They first made ugly effort as fixing,
but it multiplied cold.

That’s solid fact anyhow.
Broken spirits see entrance:
‘Hullo! Black menaces come from below,
fallen through penitence.

Step by step a door-mat proved,
if us only had your head!
Get up, hang on bell-pull, ring hard, hammer,
stick feet in perished bed!’

Summons Heroes’ Victory

Three friends exchanged firelight to toast themselves.
Suggestive clink of anchorage himself,
Toad said a smash-up will pay wages well,
piled up to the roof, in hospitable bell:
greasy fore-paw hunting.

Yesterday’s terror showed teeth, talked shop long.
Deep underground things want walls broad and strong.
Down, down, down, bramble came creeping along.
Blindfold short cuts led the creepers among
animal of tilled field.

Hedgerow, ploughed furrow, frequented pasture,
the clash of conflict that went with nature,
the rough lines were laid which held adventure.
Rapid nightfall beset firelight capture,
stroked a smouldering log.

Blind drawn down on the night and forgotten,
the blind silhouetted appurtenance
on perch so near them as to be even.
Toes cold on the road through darkness again,
pitch-dark electric shock.

Physical senses delicate murmur,
warning him through and through familiar,
yet he could not remember dead thither,
forsaken that day he found the river.
Sending scouts to bring him.

Captivating was clear, summons was plain.
Obey asunder to escape a faint.
Old Fellow upheavals his chest; Paw’s bank
toasting himself with armfuls so champagne!
‘One!’ ‘Two!’ ‘Three!’ Uprose fire.

Night voices clangorous cried in despair.
Plumping down with fresh a pound, the best there,
Paw swinging gave them corks very corsair.
Comrades coaxed each guest home, their last bunk ere.
Frame of mind for welcome.

The Earth Undertaking

Heavily animals fall,
arrive at Hall Hideous which throws any decent-minded
rescue mission of mercy
in company silent, protesting, soft-hearted, misguided.

Undertaken gravely now,
earthly yield force-converted to a proper point of view.
Stairs divided ruins old.
Village doctor alarmed and lawyer exhausted hurried two

the safe side. Lawyer, doctor
hopped out of bed, drive in smartest suit could lay hands on cash,
but all were awfully well.
‘Talking won’t mend matters,” spoke the Toad. “Meanwhile, walking high paths

in chorus of heart-singing
came out on top!’ Intelligence, Education breakfasted.
Meal party unattended,
stable-helps, hangers-on presently mastered and suspended.

Devoured conscious terror,
the traffic-queller, lord of everlasting night; chanted he.
‘And eaten up under him,’
observed chairman of bench, ‘very clear case. We cowering guilty,

judging from the witness-box.
Round twenty years us brutal minions fell upon the hapless
playful populace, assailed
with carrots spiky up time-worn stairs across dozing helpless.’

Past ten o’clock midsummer,
river companions still too hot to think of some cool dock-leaves;
no harm hereabouts Fellow!
Air stretching his legs, drew him to gravelly vocations’ breeze.

Spellbound, breathless and transfixed,
possessed utterly with the intoxicating melody,
they deadened behind a veil,
keeping till the hour should come, those called and chosen instantly

obeyed the backward curved horns.
Pan-pipes the parted lips, the animals crouching did worship
deepening oblivion.
The demigod revealed himself: the overshadow splendid.

‘Lest limbs be reddened and rent,
spring the trap that grows each minute fainter in the woodland wet!’
The song died into reed-talk.
Half-dozing understood, on the outer world of sunshine set.

Imprisoned so for stealing,
this clever, grim, and ancient gaoler, knowing pockets well lined,
frequently shrouded at night,
kept hot oven of misery so the wise remained behind.

Toad began to chivalry,
beset the comforting clink of lawyers with thick slippered feet,
contented himself a lot,
doing as good encouraged him on the residence replete

with spirits as pets locked up.
Honest toad pinned the old sovereign’s left in return for his cash,
and with a footstep command
set forth his chief danger: a strong sense of dignity afresh.

‘All my money must get home!’
‘That’s bad business,’ said dirty-work driver in snatches of song.
Toad puzzled over dull pain
in lower spine; by this time the ancient warder halberd-swung,

wiped a handful of good toad
through the tunnel, till at last, into air and peaceful moonlight,
Toad stopped, late and dark and cold
in an unknown wood, with no money, within a southing night.

Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season

Those boarders staying on all,
farewells in stream of comradeship, no doubt,
crossed a society complete about
closed eyes’ lizard-haunted walls.

Restlessly the rat rose moon,
Stirring sky was the only fact of life,
fell on figure of cool value a-live,
and shining eyes held fast too.

Ancient emperor came down.
Night-glamour better harvest his voyage
to everywhere the landlocked advantage
and hold the rat soon spellbound.

Seafarer refreshed his voice,
filled his glass with red and glowing vintage
while the talk flowed against the mile-long trudge
through dark doorways of past choice

till at last tramp of sailors
shall break out the call of the cup-been-drained
as the paralyzed rat struggled of strange.
Second-hand magic gathered

the kitchen fire to warm,
along miles of icy passages,
flags friendly and familiar heart of his
and dispelled sleep in his arm.

‘I dare say I lost my way
in the business of trouble and fortune,’
Fellow here said, not liking the onions
here a-coaxing their dismay.

Paw’s arm shot out and caught
the furious temper of choked revenge,
wreathed the very soul of Toad as sixpence.
Paw had taken as much thought

of money to pursue ashore
the history books that knowed hotel chains,
still beside the old cravings of his brain,
churning the mud of horror.

He did river-bank poor Toad
down a big dark hole and held on nobly
like a gentleman swaggering gipsy
while his cunning overflowed.

Animal again, the rat
served beasts laws with the power of long purse
so their dark night broke down wet and nervous,
but the night’s badger drew that

deafening voice, uttered storm.
A great secret unhallowed told big swords
to argue it’s getting events onwards
and rat-distributing heaps on the floor.

Belabouring animals
rather retired into a corner;
a towel-horse pricking ears on orders
to fetch handkerchief pistols,

some bandages, and plaster
took up the inferior position
assigned to him, wrung out expedition
wet with enemies’ laughter.

Squeaky voice: ‘Paw’s hour is come!’
His grim war-cry frenzied to the marrow.
Leant on his wiped brow thanks to hurt, Fellow
wriggled licking tongue for’em.

Crossly invitations bear
friends to the leading part, the fight laid flat,
adventures and triumph sketched out and trapped
on new-leaf turning-point chairs.

Bowed, coughed, uplifted voice sang:
‘Panic in parlors! Howling in the halls!’
He was taken aback from one guest small,
animals properly thanked!

Instrument of Fate now Successfully Tamed!