The Western Gate

It sat in the corner of the playground, exhumed the aura of loneliness as a beacon that drew a curious glance which evolved into inquisitive hunger of compulsion from the children, eager and hungry for play.
The maypole in the playground had ropes made of coarse rope, perhaps at one time it was thick hemp rope, perhaps soft, that over time and seasons made each fibre brittle, each loom barbed and scratching.
The ropes hung down from the vermillion iron pole as nefarious nooses resurrecting aged old gallows, but where the scraggly necks of the weird and wild, wise and wonderful were strung through its snare, it is the wrists of children who now claw willingly into its trap, pulling down such that the lasso wraps tightly as a bracelet, and they would run, run around the maypole and swing outwards flying into the air. At times defying gravity they would float, but for a second perhaps and the spinning wheel that sat proudly above as a crown upon the column would elevate them free, the rules of the adult world broken, free from the burden of the physical laws.
The wrists of the children would tear, bruise and the more the maypole gifted them the magic of flight, the more the noose bit into their tender skin.
The wheel itself, whose bearings worn, would squeal and sing a harpy cry, celebrating the wild dance. Each squeak and creak a grotesque accompaniment from an orchestra, a symphony of the liminal choir.
Each day the children would return home, the parents admonishing them for the horrific injuries to their wrists, and would treat them all with sickly pink antiseptic cream, and soft bandages. Letters written to the park authorities went unanswered, and health and safety was years away.
Our maypole stood there fed, satiated as Bacchus from the gluttony of a spring orgy.
By means of capillary action, where moisture rises upwards, the blood over years of offerings would rise and feed into the spinning crown, dripping downwards into the hollow iron pole to feed the beating heart of the beast therein.