From CHANCE OF A GHOST, Helicon Nine Editions
(www.heliconnine.com)

WHAT THE CHILDREN STILL BELIEVE

There's a ghost under the bed,
waiting to drain the blood
from the soles of your feet.
This is the reason you always
keep your feet covered.
There's another ghost in the closet,
but if you sleep facing the door
he can't get out.
Turning your face to the wall
would be fatal. Leaving a light on
will always foil ghosts, but if
you must be in the dark,
then look towards the door.

You never taught them these things.
Somehow they always know them.

There's a skeleton under the house,
buried a hundred years.
At night you can hear the bones
rattle and stir.
It has flames instead of eyes,
and a tongueless voice
that murmurs and sings:
"Here in the cellar we're waiting,
rags and clattery bones!
rags and clattery bones!
When we come out to dance
one night you will have to join us,
ready or not! ready or not!
Here in the damp we are waiting.

This is the song of the bones
you have not yet forgotten.

-GW

Only God Knows What
(Wish I could show Janet's Illustration)


By the evening of the sixth day
most creatures had been named;
yes, God was nearly finished,
save one moniker unclaimed,

one destined for an animal
that crawls along the ground,
that only comes out late at night
to make its dreadful sound.

It lives in drains and basements
and it forages like rats;
its teeth and talons are sharp enough
to scratch the eyes from cats.

It slinks and slides on stairways
as you awake in fright,
shivering to the floorboards
that are creaking in the night.

The windowpane stops rattling,
the house goes quiet and still;
and then you hear a furtive sound
inside your window sill,

and you cry out “There’s something there!”
and Mom soothes you; “There’s not!”
but you insist “There is! There is!”
And only God knows what.

There're probably not many George Jones/Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans.

"Riley's Blues"

[To the tune of George Jones’“Bartender’s Blues”]

Well, I date the Slayer, and mostly it’s good.
Yeah, her lovin’s what keeps me ali-i-ive.
But I feel like a loser, but I ain’t a boozer,
So,I come to this unholy di-i-ive.

And I need crosses of silver and stakes of wood, to keep all the demons at ba-a-ay,
And a honky tonk vampire to suck me good and help me feel e-vil all day-eee.

Well, once I was awesome, I was tough as they come,
Till they took the chip out’n my chayust.
Now I’m weak as a kitten, and although it ain’t fittin’,
This bar is whar I feels the bayusst

And I need crosses of silver and stakes of wood, to keep all the demons at ba-a-ay,
And a honky tonk vampire to suck me good and help me feel e-vil all day-eee.

Damn, the Slayer just caught me with my vampire ho,
And rurned what had been a fun da-a-ay.
And I got a feelin’, I soon will be reelin’,
She’ll be kickin' my ass till Sunda-a-ay

And I need crosses of silver and stakes of wood, to keep all the demons at ba-a-ay
And a honky tonk vampire to suck me good and help me feel e-vil all day-eee

Here's one that gave me chills when I first read it:

OLD CHRISTMAS MORNING (Roy Helton)

"Where are you coming from, Lomey Carter,
So early over the snow?
What's them pretties you got in your hand
And where are you aiming to go?"

"Step in, Honey -- Old Christmas morning
I ain't got nothing much,
Maybe a bite of sweetness and cornbread,
A little ham meat and such.

"But come in, Honey! Sally Ann Barton's
Hungering after your face.
Wait till I light my candle up.
Set down! There's your old place."

"Now where you been so early this morning?"
"Graveyard, Sally Ann.
Up by the trace in the salt lick meadows
Where Taulbe killed my man."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning...
I can't scratch up a light.
Dampness gets on the heads of the matches,
But I'll blow up the embers bright."

"Needn't trouble, I won't be stopping:
Going a long ways still."
"You didn't see nothing, Lomey Carter,
Up on the graveyard hill?"

"What should I see there, Sally Ann Barton?"

"Well, sperits do walk at night."

"There was an elder bush a-blooming
While the moon still gave some light."

"Yes, elder bushes, they bloom, Old Christmas,
And critters kneel down in their straw.
Anything else up in the graveyard?"
"One thing more I saw:

"I saw my man with his head all bleeding
Where Taulbe's shot went through."

"What did he say?" "He stooped and kissed me."
"What did he say to you ?"

"Said, Lord Jesus forgive your Taulbe;
But he told me another word;
He said it soft when he stooped and kissed me,
That were the last I heard."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning."
"I know that, Sally Ann.
For I killed him, coming down through the meadow,
Where Taulbe killed my man.

"I met him out on the meadow trace
When the moon was fading fast.
And I raised my dead man's rifle gun
And killed him as he come past."

"But I heard two shots."
"Twas his was second:
He shot me 'fore he died.
You'll find us at daybreak, Sally Ann Barton;
I'm laying there dead at his side."

With the holiday upon us, here's one more suitable poem - this one from Australia:

THE GRIESLY BRIDE

"Lie down, my newly married wife,
Lie easy as you can.
You're young and ill-accustomed yet
To sleeping with a man."

The snow was deep, the moon was full,
As it shone on the cabin floor.
His young bride rose without a word
And ran barefoot through the door.

He up and followed, fast and sure,
And an angry man was he,
But his young bride was not e'er in sight,
And only the moon shone clearly.

He followed her track through the new deep snow,
Calling out loud her name.
Only the dingoes in the hills
Howled back at him again.

Then the hair stood up along his neck,
And his angry mind was gone,
For where the two-foot track gave out,
A four-footed track went on.

Her nightgown lay upon the snow
As it might on a bed sheet,
And the tracks that led from where it lay
Were never of human feet.

He started in to walking becak
And then began to run,
And his quarry turned all in her track
And hunted him in turn.

An empty bed still waits for him
As he lies in a crimson tide.
Beware, beware, O trapper men,
Beware of a griesly bride.

The Knock

It’s Halloween, the fires are doused,
and all the hounds of hell unhoused
are prowling round your cabin door
as shadows flit across a floor
lit by a crimson light that wanes,
and filters through the rain-flecked panes.

The door is knocked, the latch is lifting
the clouds that once were slowly drifting
are billowing, darkening, deep and frightening
thunder roars and a flash of lightening;
a face lit up in the looking-glass.
A face ordained to come to pass.

Cheekbones, gaunt in high relief,
familiar, though the glimpse is brief,
and two hands joined in unholy praise
upon a head that's Astarte's,
all stay in your mind and the vision lingers.
You pray on the beads with bloodless fingers.

“Oh Mother Mary and your Son!”
you pray until time and tide are one.
And wait in fear of another knock
but time has stopped, you kneel and rock,
oh slowly. Your fate is clear.
You are one who will knock next year.



[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited November 02, 2006).]

As tomorrow is the great day, I think I'll bump up this thread! Enjoy.

Here’s one of Yeats’s Samhain poems to add to the mix:


The Hosting of the Sidhe

The host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving our lips are apart;
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.
The host is rushing 'twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling Away, come away.

My vampiric version of Donne's "The Flea"
 

The Flea

Consider how the flea sucks first at you
then nuzzles in your crotch, skips to your wife
and makes her cry out like she does in sex,
softly, with just a hint of pain. As you
purple your nail, consider that the life
you crush for sucking at your thighs and necks
is but a fleshly bottling of blood,
like you. Now spilled. Consider how the vintage
staining your skin fermented in this flea,
joining your wife and you, two bloods. Why should
a flea live hungering? There’s no advantage
in that. Consider then a thing like me.
I’m like a flea that innocently feeds.
That’s right. Put down the cross. I have my needs.

LOVELORN WITCH

Forget your book of spells,
your signs, your potions and your ring,
you sought advantage over
others, thought black arts would bring
you power, hoped your way
through life would be a bigger laugh
if you could call on super-
natural tricks to smooth the path.

And now you sit and bawl,
black pointed hat with tip askew,
the desperate thumbing through
your spell book was no use to you.
So fold away your stocking,
cape and long black-fingered glove,
what good is sorcery
if you can’t have the one you love?

Just a reminder that the usual approach on the Mastery board is to post poems by Old Dead People. (I admit that this thread began mixing it up years ago, so nobody is to blame for being confused, and the contributions are fun.)

Here is a Halloween one to remind you youngsters to say your prayers tonight and watch out for the Black Things and don't ever, never, make fun of no Old Persons, living or dead.

LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE

by: James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
INSCRIBED WITH ALL FAITH AND AFFECTION

To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

LITTLE Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,--
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout:--
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz there,
She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parunts, an' yer teachurs fond an' dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

All the usual false apprentice modesty aside, as founder of this thread maybe I can issue a fiat: It's okay to post your own poems here. Maybe not in a parallel thread which you start entitled, "I'm Pretty Great, Aren't I?" but in this thread, it's okay, even encouraged.

Chris

Well, then! Here's mine.

Epistle to the Pumpkin Field


This is the truth:
They knife your face,

drag out your entrails
to feed to the crows,

and set the flame
in what remains.

Ecstatic vision.
One night: you shine.


Facebook members have also been treated to a lovely one by A.E. Stallings.

No spooks, but there are dead people in it:

Etruscan Tomb: An Inventory

One hand mirror, two amphoras,
Three amphoras, four;
Five figured vases
Arranged around the door;
Six miniature warriors
Recalling heroic lore;
Seven little, eight little warriors,
In bronze, without the gore;
Nine painted musicians
Playing a silent encore;
Ten partying patricians;
And happily, a whore.

Okay, Chris here's one of mine.

Brad the empaler, on Halloween night,
paints girls--with malevolent skill—
brushing on fear as they slowly turn white,
growing paler and paler until:

Brad takes his palette knife out of his vest
and cuts in some wide crimson lines;
into belly and throat, into temple and chest.
Then he mounts his peculiar designs.

The Great Pumpkin Song

On the Night of Halloween
Making merry on the Green
SHAPES OF EVIL can be seen:

Bogles, bugaboos and bats,
Witches in their pointy hats,
With their wailing, witchy cats,

Gorgons, basilisks and orcs,
Devils with their devil forks,
Monsters with their eyes on stalks.

Now the horrid Pumpkin Head
Rises from the squelchy dead
And his Pumpkin Eyes are red.

As he munches, as he scrunches,
Ah my Sweets, my Honeybunches,
They are children's bones he crunches.

Children, he has come to take you,
Shake you, flake you, break you, stake you,
In a Pumpkin Pie to bake you.

Stay inside and don't be dumb
When the spooks and spectres come.
Sit down safe upon your bum

And
never,
never,
never,
never,
never,
never
leave your
MUM!

Opening Ceremony

Despair! Our jack-o'-lantern isn't out.
He's still inside the kitchen. "All the other
neighbors have lit theirs," we nag our mother.
She drops a match--the third, now--with a shout.

The doorbell rings. "The sun is barely down!"
she scolds us. "There's an etiquette, you know!"
We do, but nothing, NOTHING, is more slow
than dusk on Hallowe'en. Just ask this clown.

No time to hear his "Trick or treat!" I shove
some candy in his pillowcase, then slam
the door. I almost miss my mother's "Damn!"
She'll never light it, coming from above!

Again, the bell. My sister groans. "Your turn!"
I bark, in crisis mode. Perhaps beneath...
between the stringy boogers in his teeth...
we might persuade the candle-stub to burn.

I find a chopstick: "Sideways! Poke it in!"
We light the end and thread it through a slit
of toothy maw. So close...so close...it's lit!
Let Hallowe'en officially begin!

Dare I reboost this lovely old thread of Halloween poems?

I do so with the warning that when it was begun, the rule about not posting one's own poems was honored more in the breach than in the observance.

Still, I hope the poems will be enjoyed and more can be added.

Crafty Verse
 

Halloween Horror?

Emily D. Franklin 1612

Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day -


Emily D. Franklin 1782

Witchcraft has not a pedigree
'Tis early as our Breath
And mourners meet it going out
The moment of our death -

.


Pumpkin Sunrise
over Wollaston Harbor


Plump, ripened, birthed

from the orb of earth,

a pumpkin sun rises


subduing the sky

with soft-hued light

of orange mist.


We don’t know

if our every thought comes

from within or without.


We don’t know

what it is we hold in our hands

or what we’ve overlooked.


October 27, 2023



.
.
.
.

Second Communion

Kneeling silent
amidst a slither
of hissing snakes
he feels them coil
within his hair
encircle his brow
ride over eyes
brush lips
chase twitching tails
around his neck
and slide down
to tightly twine
like ivy vines
arms and chest
crotch and legs
then glide around
the knees and calves
to rope his ankles
in this den
he’d dug for them
when he turned seven.

Sounds like fun! Some years ago I did a book called Pulp Sonnets, all based on Gothic, pulp, B-movie tropes, and the ones below were adaptations of key scenes in Frankenstein and Dracula. What you are looking for? Or something oriented more towards younger readers?

The Second Death of Dracula

Jonathan tossed the box from the cart it rode
and we prized the lid back with a screeching sound.
Lying in the box there on the ground,
the Count was covered with dark soil the rude
fall from the gypsy wagon to the road
had scattered over him. He was death, bound
in a wax image, and his red eyes glared
with the vindictive awful gaze
I knew so well. I saw their baleful hate
turn to triumph as the last sun flared.
But then the great knife flashed and swept on high.
I shrieked as the blade sheared through the white neck
and the Bowie knife plunged through the heart. And yet,
a wonder happened then before our eyes:
just as that body turned to dust and ceased,
those twisted features settled into peace.


The Monster Speaks

I am malicious since I am miserable.
Am I not shunned and feared by every man?
Even you, creator, want to pull
me into pieces, you, who stitched this hand
to wrist, this wrist to forearm, arm to shoulder;
your holy electricity restored
my graveyard flesh to warmth, but now you’re colder
than glacial ice on an Antarctic shore.
Since you’re playing God, I’ll act my part,
not Christ brought back to die---I’ll play the devil
(a better role) and make your good my evil.
I cannot make you love, so I’ll do worse:
I’ll make you fear. I’ll desolate your heart.
I’ll make you curse the hour of your birth.

And here are some by others...


The Kraken


Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sirens

Sirens are singing monsters of the sea,
With many voices and varied melody.
Often the reckless sailors passing near
Are sung to sleep with sweetness in their ear,
And ships are wrecked and all aboard are drowned.
Although the mariners who perished found
A lovely virgin from above the waist---
Below, birdlegs were monstrously misplaced.


Bishop Theobaldus
Translated by Willis Barnstone

From The Story of Sigurd the Volsung, “Regin Tells of Fafnir's Transformation”

"The night waned into the morning, and still above the Hoard
Sat Reidmar clad in purple; but Fafnir took his sword,
And I took my smithying-hammer, and apart in the world we went;
But I came aback in the even, and my heart was heavy and spent;
And I longed, but fear was upon me and I durst not go to the Gold;
So I lay in the house of my toil mid the things I had fashioned of old;
And methought as I lay in my bed 'twixt waking and slumber of night
That I heard the tinkling metal and beheld the hall alight,
But I slept and dreamed of the Gods, and the things that never have slept,
Till I woke to a cry and a clashing and forth from the bed I leapt,
And there by the heaped-up Elf-gold my brother Fafnir stood,
And there at his feet lay Reidmar and reddened the Treasure with blood;
And e'en as I looked on his eyen they glazed and whitened with death,
And forth on the torch-litten hall he shed his latest breath.

"But I looked on Fafnir and trembled for he wore the Helm of Dread,
And his sword was bare in his hand, and the sword and the hand were red
With the blood of our father Reidmar, and his body was wrapped in gold,
With the ruddy-gleaming mailcoat of whose fellow hath nought been told,
And it seemed as I looked upon him that he grew beneath mine eyes:
And then in the mid-hall's silence did his dreadful voice arise:

"'I have slain my father Reidmar, that I alone might keep
The Gold of the darksome places, the Candle of the Deep.
I am such as the Gods have made me, lest the Dwarf-kind people the earth,
Or mingle their ancient wisdom with its short-lived latest birth.
I shall dwell alone henceforward, and the Gold and its waxing curse,
I shall brood on them both together, let my life grow better or worse.
And I am a King henceforward and long shall be my life,
And the Gold shall grow with my longing, for I shall hide it from strife,'
And hoard up the Ring of Andvari in the house thine hand hath built.
O thou, wilt thou tarry and tarry, till I cast thy blood on the guilt?
Lo, I am a King for ever, and alone on the Gold shall I dwell
And do no deed to repent of and leave no tale to tell.'

"More awful grew his visage as he spake the word of dread,
And no more durst I behold him, but with heart a-cold I fled;
I fled from the glorious house my hands had made so fair,
As poor as the new-born baby with nought of raiment or gear:
I fled from the heaps of gold, and my goods were the eager will,
And the heart that remembereth all, and the hand that may never be still.

"Then unto this land I came, and that was long ago.
As men-folk count the years; and I taught them to reap and to sow,

________________________________________

"And I grew the master of masters—Think thou how strange it is
That the sword in the hands of a stripling shall one day end all this!
"Yet oft mid all my wisdom did I long for my brother's part,
And Fafnir's mighty kingship weighed heavy on my heart
When the Kings of the earthly kingdoms would give me golden gifts
From out of their scanty treasures, due pay for my cunning shifts.
And once—didst thou number the years thou wouldst think it long ago—
I wandered away to the country from whence our stem did grow.

________________________________________

"Then I went to the pillared hall-stead, and lo, huge heaps of gold,
And to and fro amidst them a mighty Serpent rolled:
Then my heart grew chill with terror, for I thought on the wont of our race,
And I, who had lost their cunning, was a man in a deadly place,
A feeble man and a swordless in the lone destroyer's fold;
For I knew that the Worm was Fafnir, the Wallower on the Gold.

"So I gathered my strength and fled, and hid my shame again
Mid the foolish sons of men-folk; and the more my hope was vain,
The more I longed for the Treasure, and deliv'rance from the yoke:
And yet passed the generations, and I dwelt with the short-lived folk.

"Long years, and long years after, the tale of men-folk told
How up on the Glittering Heath was the house and the dwelling of gold,
And within that house was the Serpent, and the Lord of the Fearful Face:
Then I wondered sore of the desert; for I thought of the golden place
My hands of old had builded; for I knew by many a sign
That the Fearful Face was my brother, that the blood of the Worm was mine.


William Morris

The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly

Once I loved a spider
When I was born a fly,
A velvet-footed spider
With a gown of rainbow-dye.
She ate my wings and gloated.
She bound me with a hair.
She drove me to her parlor
Above her winding stair.
To educate young spiders
She took me all apart.
My ghost came back to haunt her.
I saw her eat my heart.


Vachel Lindsay

The Wendigo
by Ogden Nash

The Wendigo,
The Wendigo!
Its eyes are ice and indigo!
Its blood is rank and yellowish!
Its voice is hoarse and bellowish!
Its tentacles are slithery,
And scummy,
Slimy,
Leathery!
Its lips are hungry blubbery,
And smacky,
Sucky,
Rubbery!

The Wendigo,
The Wendigo!
I saw it just a friend ago!
Last night it lurked in Canada;
Tonight, on your veranada!
As you are lolling hammockwise
It contemplates you stomachwise.
You loll,
It contemplates,
It lollops.
The rest is merely gulps and gollops.

Here are a couple, the first one by Edwin Muir the second one by me.

The Shades

The bodiless spirits waiting chill
In the ports of black Nonentity
For passage to the living land,
Without eyes strive to see,
Without ears strain to hear,
Stretch an unincarnate hand
In greeting to the hollow hill
Above the insubstantial sea,
The billow curving on the sand,
The bird sitting on the tree;
And in love and in fear
Ensnare the smile, condense the tear,
Rehears the play of evil and good,
The comedy and the tragedy.
Until the summoned ghosts appear
In patterned march around the hill
Against the hoofed and horned wood.

—Edwin Muir (1940s)


For That Which Has Fallen
All Souls

For that which has fallen,
Moisture-seeking crawlers
And palsied hands of leaves
Unclasp summer’s trophies.
For that which has fallen,
The moon’s a beggar’s bowl.
For that which has fallen
Come those who’ve passed over
Beyond the veil of sight
On hieroglyphic feathers
Inscrutable forever,
With light, air, and mist
Tangled gray in branches,
With ghouls that guard our doors,
With olives and horse-chestnuts
In silver dreams and armor—
For that which has fallen
Returns. And as for us,
We wish, we come to see,
To go down, tired or happy,
To that which has fallen.

Eating Sardines on All Hallows Eve
 

.

Eating the Flesh of Sardines on All Hallows Eve

My thoughts are crammed like sardines
inside my cranial can.
It’s hard to tell if they aim to attack me,
back me into an early grave, or beg me
to consume them before they consume me.
There’s more to me than meets the eye.
There’s more to me than bile and blood.
My thought streams scream, turn to flood.




.