An Attempt at Rhyme

As I lay snoozing late last night,
by an open window in the weak starlight,
there arose such a howling of ungodly screams
that kicked in the doors of all peaceful dreams.

We awoke with gasps and yelps of our own.
The noise curdled our ears all the way to the bone.
The ruckus raised hairs and made muscles tense,
It was like Satan's own picnic, just past the fence.

Were a dozen raccoons being flayed alive?
Had parrots swallowed a stinging beehive?
Were chimps being tortured and waxed free of hair?
What on earth could make that kind of noise out there??

There was growling and moaning and high, piercing shrieks.
Gnashing and screeching that came from the creek.
And with flashlights we peeked, we squinted, and peered
It wasn't the cats, (which was what I had feared).

It wasn't mad monkeys, or birds, or banshees.
It wasn't much of anything that we could see.
No demon pep rally nor demented raccoon.
Just trees and creek water, under the moon.

We don't know what it was or from whence it came.
Even when things settled down it wasn't the same.
Getting back to sleep that night turned out to be hard
with a minor apocalypse going on in the yard.