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Every Day Poems

A Poem A Day

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Halloween Poems

‘Twas Halloween Night

October 28, 2020 by Every Writer

‘Twas Halloween Night

Peter Gregg Slater

‘Twas Halloween night, when all thro’ the house
Every creature was stirring, even grandad an old souse.
The candy bags were hung by the door with care,
In hopes that trick-or-treaters would soon be there.

The kids were all snug in their costume disguise,
While visions of Skittles danc’d in their eyes.
And Mama in J. Crew, and I in my Yankees cap
Had just settled down for a long night of door tap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the La-Z-Boy to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen wet leaves,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects under the eaves.
When, what did my shuddering eyes sight,
But a witch squadron in V-form flight.

With a grungy crone in the lead, so twitchy and full of evil zest,
I knew in a moment it must be the Wicked Witch of the West.
More rapid than eagles her coursers they came,
And she whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name;

“Now Slasher! Now Masher! Now Smasher and Vixen!
On Varmint! On Putrid! On Sunder and Nixon!
To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With their Swifters ashine with witches’ brew.

And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof tile
The prancing and prowling of the witches vile.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney Witch Westy came with a bound.

She was dress’d in janky knockoffs, from her head to her foot,
And her clothes were all tarnish’d with soot.
A bundle of sacks was flung on her back,
And she look’d like a peddler just opening her pack.

Her eyes – how they glared! her warts how distasteful,
Her cheeks were like mold, her nose hateful.
Her narrow nasty mouth was drawn to a gash,
And the faint mustache on her lip as white as ash.

The stump of a stogie she held tight in her teeth,
And the smoke it encircled her head like a wreath.
She had a hatchet face, and a nose like a beak
That wobbled when she shriek’d, like a hose with a leak.

She was lean and mean, a loathsome old doxy
And I shook when I saw her like I had a poxy
A squint of her eye and a thrust of her head
Soon gave me to know I had much to dread.

She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work
And fill’d her sack from our candy stash, then turn’d with a jerk,
And drawing her finger across her throat,
And giving a snarl, up the chimney she rose with her tote.

She sprang to her Swifter, to her coven gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like bullets from a pistol.
But I heard her holler, ere she drove out of sight-
“A miserable Halloween to all, and to all a terrible night.”

###

Peter Gregg Slater is a historian whose scholarship in American intellectual and cultural history is often referenced in both academic and popular publications. His poetry, fiction, parody, and essays have appeared in “Dash,” “Workers Write!,” “The Westchester Review,” “The Satirist,” and “Twentieth Century Literature,” among other publications.

Filed Under: Halloween Poems

The Haunted Isle By Richard H. Fay

October 26, 2020 by Every Writer

The Haunted Isle 

By Richard H. Fay

I lie beyond the narrow sandy strand,
A jagged mote upon the horizon,
A rugged speck upon the ocean.
Sailors skirt past my flanks in morbid dread.
My dark hollows house the unshriven dead.

I lie amongst the angry, swelling waves.
Churning foam obscures my treacherous shoals,
Doom for innumerable imperilled souls.
Wretched spirits weep on my savage shore,
Unheard above Poseidon’s constant roar.

I lie shrouded in a bleak, swirling mist,
Cloaked in an eternal obscurity,
Wracked by a turbulent, restless sea.
Haggard spectres drift amidst my grey stones,
Vainly searching for their sun-bleached bones

I lie beyond a mortal’s tenuous ken,
A dismal harbour for woeful secrets,
A forlorn abode of abject regrets.
Rendered barren by the sea’s bitter breath,
My rocky bosom knows nothing but death.

(Poem originally published in Illumen Issue 8, Spring 2008.)

Filed Under: Halloween Poems

The Vampire by Charles Baudelaire

October 22, 2020 by Every Writer

The Vampire
By Charles Baudelaire

You who, like the stab of a knife,
Entered my plaintive heart;
You who, strong as a herd
Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,

To make your bed and your domain
Of my humiliated mind
– Infamous bitch to whom I’m bound
Like the convict to his chain,

Like the stubborn gambler to the game,
Like the drunkard to his wine,
Like the maggots to the corpse,
– Accurst, accurst be you!

I begged the swift poniard
To gain for me my liberty,
I asked perfidious poison
To give aid to my cowardice.

Alas! both poison and the knife
Contemptuously said to me:
“You do not deserve to be freed
From your accursed slavery,

Fool! – if from her domination
Our efforts could deliver you,
Your kisses would resuscitate
The cadaver of your vampire!”

Published in 1857.

Filed Under: Halloween Poems

Seekers by Christopher Woods

October 20, 2020 by Every Writer

 

Seekers

by Christopher Woods

In the bus station
I was near enough
To be master of ceremonies,
Seeing them on their way.
But I had no idea,
Let alone imagination,
For what rolled toward me
On the dolly.
An ice chest, and I thought
It odd that someone would send
Such a thing on a bus,
Near midnight, from Houston
Or anywhere at all.
Then I read the label –
FRAGILE – HUMAN EYES FOR TRANSPLANT.

Later, on the bus
Rolling down the highway,
I couldn’t sleep.
I thought of them down below,
Wedged between boxes and suitcases,
Jostled on bumps and curves.
How they had no brain
To let them know a thing,
Where they were going
Or why.
I thought of my own life,
In transit once again.
My brain couldn’t tell me
What was ahead either,
Only that I was on my way.

I got off in the Rio Grande Valley,
While they continued.

Filed Under: Halloween Poems

THE WITCHES (for older children)

October 8, 2020 by Every Writer

 

THE WITCHES (for older children)

In the dark forest under the haze
absent the moon’s silvery rays,
when the night is black and still
the witches hold a blackbird’s quill.

They, merrily, jot down names
of naughty children
to beat them with disdain.
Their greenish eyes are frightful,
their ghostly hair quite dreadful.

They boil the bones of forest owls,
of hairy rats and ugly fowl,
in a large caldron as they cackle,
“Abracadabra, dung of a zebra,”
as Apollo rises from the shadows.

They cast their spells with horrid chants.
rousing frogs, toads and bats,
They aim to turn errant children,
into legions of moles and rats.

On guard, child, the witches prowl
and cast the spells I’d hate to see,
and in the morning, as you shower,
if you’re not careful, a toad you’ll be.

 

LAS BRUJAS (para niños grandes)

Es en el monte bajo la bruma,
donde no hay rastro de clara luna,
en lo más negro de la negrura,
están las brujas con una pluma.

Anotan, locas, los niños malos
para en la noche darles de palos.
Tienen los ojos verdes y raros
y los cabellos grises y ralos.

En una olla cuecen los huesos
de aves nocturnas de feo gesto;
“Abracadabra, barbas de cabra”
cantan las brujas venida el alba.

Encantar piensan a los incautos,
hipnotizando con su feo canto.
Ranas y sapos de niños malos
piensan hacerlos para su daño.

Cuídate, nene, que vienen brujas
a tu camita donde te arrullan
y en la mañana cuando te duchas
Sapo serás, si no me escuchas.

Filed Under: Halloween Poems, poem

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