THREE POEMS LaVon Carroll Let the witch lie! I have driven a stake through her wicked heart. Her dark blood has spilled Into the gray-green earth, And her raven wings are folded over the wounded breast. What matters the tear that is crystalled on her cheek? 18 I have some grieving to do Let me go out alone to the hill Where the brush is garbed in shadows Like gentle old nuns. There I will sit on a rock and the sticky grass Will scratch my legs, and the gypsy sun Spreading bright rags to dry on the blue west hills Will give me a casual nod before the night I have some grieving to do So I am going away from the cheerful cheerers And doers-of-good And look on me with a pale cold eye To where the stars are cool and far And beg me to remember My sorrow is somewhat less than eternity. I slept in the claws of an anxious fretful dream Whose hot perspiring body lay over me Like some forgotten thing to which I had been prey Willing and yet unwilling. How was this That while the spittle ran from its jaws, And I felt its hot sick breath ready to devour me, I noted yet how soft and silk its fur How strong and terribly alive the muscle ridging the flesh-How beautiful the eye of evil. 19