So Halloween is about a month away, & perhaps not on anyone's mind right now; but where I teach, it's a reasonably big deal, and moreover, I'll be dressing up in a particularly humorous costume, so I'm looking forward to it. Moreover, the literary magazine at my school, which I advise, will be hosting a Halloween-themed Poetry Slam in an effort to drum up schoolwide interest. Right now I'm looking to gather a nice collection of poems so that if no one writes anything, we'll still be able to perform and have some fun. Anybody have or know any poems to help me out?

I'll start. I remember this one by Alicia, posted a few years ago around Halloween:

A Bone to Pick With You

It's time to take the skeleton out of the closet,
Where it has lain these months in the catalogued gloom,
Stored bone by bone in boxes and brown paper parcels:

Femurs, vertebrae, fibulas, skull, meta-tarsals.
It's time to put it together with wires and hooks,
To light the sullen lantern behind its sockets,

And dress it in the black suit with the fraying pockets,
And the creaking shoes with holes worn through the soles.
It's the time of year when the skeleton malingers

On the front porch, and the neighbors point their fingers,
(But nobody, nobody whispers behind our backs.)
It's time to take the skeleton out of the closet,

Where it lies the rest of the year like a safety deposit,
Accruing the interest of dust, and a layer of gossip.
Later we'll drag it back in, and bone by bone

We'll take it apart, and clean it with acetone,
And pack it in cotton-balls, muffled with tissue paper—
We'll padlock the door, so that no one can ever tattle.

But something's afraid of the dark. Hear it rattle, rattle.

Sticking with the theme of skeletons, there's this by Richard Wilbur:

To His Skeleton

Why will you vex me with
These bone-spurs in the ear,
With X-rayed phlebolith
And calculus? See here,

Noblest of armatures,
The grin which bares my teeth
Is mine as yet, not yours.
Did you not stand beneath

This flesh, I could not stand,
But would revert to slime
Informous and unmanned;
And I may come in time

To wish your peace my fate,
Your sculpture my renown.
Still, I have held you straight
And mean to lay you down

Without too much disgrace
When what can perish dies.
For now then, keep your place
And do not colonize.

Good things there. Can anybody think of others? Thanks in advance.

Chris

From my forthcoming opus illustrated by Janet Kenny

Halloween Horticulture.

Our uncle, on the distaff side,
struck us all as rather crazy;
for more than twenty years he’d tried
to graft a head onto a daisy.

But then, one stormy Halloween,
notwithstanding that she ranted,
Auntie’s head was plainly seen
upon a daisy stem, transplanted.

Now we’re all happy and agreed:
Uncle was well motivated –
though sometimes Aunty goes to seed,
we can see she’s cultivated.

Why not Robert Frost's "The Witch of Coos"? It's not a Halloween poem per se, but it is a marvelous ghost story.

What's your costume?

Since Jim's broken the ice on posting one's own work, I'll make a mockery of the "mastery" category and post an impromptu ditty of my own:

FAUX PAS

I can't tell what you're going as.
What monster, might I ask?
The ugliest creature I've ever seen!
What's that? It's not a mask?



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited October 06, 2006).]

And here's one by a master to compensate. I think it's apt, though it doesn't invoke Halloween per se:

This Living Hand



This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.

*

(John Keats)

Jim, Tom, Bob, thanks so much! I just wanted to pop in and say, 1. I'm delighted to see your own works here, as I'm less interested in "mastery" per se than things high school kids would find entertaining, & I think both your poems fit the bill. & 2. the poem does NOT have to contain the word "halloween" or have specific reference to trick-or-treating. The Keats is perfectly apt.

I'm also interested in good scary stories to read around a campfire.

Thanks again guys!

THE HALLOWEEN MEN


We are the Halloween men.
We are the scarecrows,
filled with straw, alas.
We are the headless horsemen.
The eyes are not here.
The ears are not here.
The lips that would kiss
a bonnie lass
are not here, alas.
Here our banner is raised,
skull and crossed staves.
The cellar is haunted
in this twilight kingdom.
Halloween candy
and broken jaw-breakers
litter this valley.
A star is born, second-hand Rose,
the only hope
of Halloween men.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
in the rituals of mourning
at six o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
and the ideal idea
Falls the shadow.
Life is very long
as only the Shadow knows.
this is the way the film ends
not with some fangs but a whistler


Robert Meyer

Conrad Aiken has a quite ambitious poem called "Hallowe'en" too long for me to type here. Also this, though not a poem:

BlogThis!
The Essential Ghoul's Record Shelf
A song-by-song tour through pop music's unexpected fascination with the ghastly and supernatural.

IT'S HALLOWEEN | the shaggs

THIS BAND, made up of three youthful sisters named Wiggin from New Hampshire, might have been the worst ever. Their 1969 album, the first of only two produced and portentously titled Philosophy of the World, is an assemblage of discordant, off-key instrumentals, monotone lyrics sung with muddy articulation, and a rhythmic accompaniment so lethargic that it sounds as though the drummer, Helen, had no desire to pound on her toms, and grudgingly did so after receiving a stern lecture from her father. (This scenario is possible, by the way; the band’s manager and driving force was their father, Austin Wiggin, Jr.) And yet there is something extraordinarily compelling about the songs the girls produced — so compelling that, although the band performed almost exclusively at the Town Hall and nursing homes of Fremont, NH, and although only 100 copies of their album survived post-pressing theft (the producer made off with 900 copies), Frank Zappa reportedly heard them and proclaimed the band to be “better than the Beatles.”

The Shaggs have developed a small cult following over the years, in part inspired by their unfeigned wretchedness, which, to modern ears, sounds deliberate — almost punk. “It’s Halloween” is a typical example of their songwriting, consisting of a few simple chords, strummed laconically on guitar, drumming that never seems entirely in sync with the remainder of the song, and half-hearted, homely descriptive lyrics that rely, lazily, on the most general images of the Halloween season. “The jack-o-lanterns are all lit up,” singer and songwriter Dot Wiggins drones. “All the dummies are made and stuffed.”

Listening to the girls fumble their way through this song, it’s easy to understand why Rolling Stone Magazine once said that the girls sounded “like a lobotomized Trapp Family Singers.” The song is beyond enervating, it’s narcotizing — critic Lester Bangs was reportedly astounded to discover that the sisters were not junkies. Yet the music is utterly fascinating. There is a queer consistency to this song, as there is to all of the sisters' music. The Shagg’s sound is instantly identifiable, like a frame from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari — so fully its own thing that it cannot possible be anything else. But perhaps a better filmic comparison would be Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as this seems like the music that the alien pod creatures, upon assuming the identities of hapless suburbanites, would make. It’s clearly the product of a vegetable intelligence, and, unexpectedly, might just demonstrate a vegetable genius.

posted by Dr at 2:32 AM

WITH HER HEAD TUCKED UNDERNEATH HER ARM | stanley holloway
VOODOO VOODOO | lavern baker
MR. GHOST GOES TO TOWN | the five jones boys
CRISWELL PREDICTS | mae west











[This message has been edited by Mike Slippkauskas (edited October 06, 2006).]

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Irish poet, 1866 - 1918:

"All-Souls' Night"

O MOTHER, mother, I swept the hearth, I set his chair and the white board spread,
I prayed for his coming to our kindly Lady when Death's doors would let out the dead;
A strange wind rattled the window-pane, and down the lane a dog howled on,
I called his name and the candle flame burnt dim, pressed a hand the door-latch upon.
Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I could not sever coward flesh from fear.
I called his name and the pale ghost came; but I was afraid to meet my dear.

O mother, mother, in tears I checked the sad hours past of the year that's o'er,
Till by God's grace I might see his face and hear the sound of his voice once more;
The chair I set from the cold and wet, he took when he came from unknown skies
Of the land of the dead, on my bent brown head I felt the reproach of his saddened eyes;
I closed my lids on my heart's desire, crouched by the fire, my voice was dumb.
At my clean-swept hearth he had no mirth, and at my table he broke no crumb.
Deelish! Deelish! my woe forever that I could not sever coward flesh from fear.
His chair put aside when the young cock cried, and I was afraid to meet my dear.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

"The Fair Little Maiden"

THERE is one at the door, Wolfe O'Driscoll,
At the door, who bids you to come!
"Who is he that wakes me in the darkness,
Calling when all the world is dumb?"

Six horses has he to his carriage,
Six horses blacker than the night,
And their twelve red eyes in the shadows--
Twelve lamps he carries for his light;

His coach is a hearse black and mouldy,
Within a coffin open wide:
He asks for you soul, Wolfe O'Driscoll,
Who doth call at the door outside.

"Who let him thro' the gates of my gardens,
Where stronger bolts have never been?"
The father of the fair little maiden
You drove to her grave deep and green.

"And who let him pass through the courtyard,
Loosening the bar and the chain?"
Who but the brother of the maiden
Who lies in the cold and the rain?

"Then who drew the bolts at the portal,
And into my house bade him go?"
The mother of the poor young maiden
Who lies in her youth all so low.

"Who stands, that he dare not enter,
The door of my chamber, between?"
O, the ghost of the fair little maiden
Who lies in the churchyard green.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Here are links to two threads at PFFA; the first contains the entire text of H. P. Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth sonnet sequence (all 36 of them), the second Donald Wandrei's Sonnets of the Midnight Hours, (20 sonnets, which were Lovecraft's inspiration) and a number of other Halloweenish poems by various hands:

Fungi from Yuggoth by H. P. Lovecraft

Sonnets of the Midnight Hours by Donald Wandrei and assorted others



[This message has been edited by Howard (edited October 06, 2006).]

If anyone has access to the Robert Francis poem "Hide and Seek"--the one about children playing n a graveyard--this would be an excellent thread in which to post it. My book is at home.

Two by Elinor Wylie:


"Atavism"

I WAS always afraid of Somes's Pond:
Not the little pond, by which the willow stands,
Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands
In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond.
There, where the frost makes all the birches burn
Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines
Like a polished shell between black spruce and pines,
Some strange thing tracks us, turning where we turn.

You'll say I dreamed it, being the true daughter
Of those who in old times endured this dread.
Look! Where the lily-stems are showing red
A silent paddle moves below the water,
A sliding shape has stirred them like a breath;
Tall plumes surmount a painted mask of death.

* * *

"Madman's Song"

BETTER to see your cheek grown hollow,
Better to see your temple worn,
Than to forget to follow, follow,
After the sound of a silver horn.

Better to bind your brow with willow
And follow, follow until you die,
Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.

Better to see your cheek grow sallow
And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
After the milk-white hounds of the moon.

Yeah, but you still haven't told us about your costume!

(I'm going to a Halloween party and haven't come up with one yet, so I'm looking for ideas...)

Thomas Hood:

Mary's Ghost

'Twas in the middle of the night,
To sleep young William tried,
When Mary´s ghost came stealing in,
And stood at his bed-side.

'O William dear! O William dear!
My rest eternal ceases;
Alas! my everlasting peace
Is broken into pieces.

I thought the last of all my cares
Would end with my last minute;
But tho´ I went to my long home
I didn´t stay long in it.

The body-snatchers they have come,
And made a snatch at me;
It´s very hard them kind of men
Won´t let a body be!

You thought that I was buried deep
Quite decent like and chary,
But from her grave in Mary-bone
They´ve come and boned your Mary.

The arm that used to take your arm
Is took to Dr. Vyse;
And both my legs are gone to walk
The hospital at Guy´s.

I vow´d that you should have my hand,
But fate gives us denial;
You´ll find it there, at Dr. Bell´s
In spirits and a phial.

As for my feet, the little feet
You used to call so pretty,
There´s one, I know, in Bedford Row,
The t´other´s in the city.

I can´t tell where my head is gone,
But Doctor Carpue can:
As for my trunk, it´s all pack´d up
To go by Pickford´s van.

I wished you´d go to Mr. P.
And save me such a ride;
I don´t half like the outside place,
They´ve took for my inside.

The cock it crows - I must begone!
My William we must part!
But I´ll be yours in death, altho´
Sir Astley has my heart.

Don´t go to weep upon my grave,
And think that there I be;
They haven´t left an atom there
Of my anatomie.'

I'm The Tick. See http://www.thetick.ws/photos.html

It's only a blue nylon suit sewn by a college roommate's girlfriend & a blue hat thing with pipe cleaner antennae, but every time I've ever worn it people have cracked up. Wearing it to class is particularly funny, to the kids at least.

Chris

PARTY

I dressed up as a goblin,
but no one was afraid.
I tried to scare my friends away,
but everybody stayed.

I dressed up as a wicked witch,
with pointy hat and broom.
I cackled bloody murder,
but no one left the room.

I dressed up as a pirate
and waved my bloody hook.
I thought my friends would tremble,
but not one of them shook.

I guess I'm not that fearsome,
not frightening or mean.
Or maybe my friends were just confused.
It wasn't Halloween.

Bob, that's excellent.

Here's the one Peter referred to.

Hide-and-Seek

Here where the dead lie hidden
Too well ever to speak,
Three children unforbidden
Are playing hide-and-seek.

What if for such a hiding
These stones were not designed?
The dead are far from chiding;
The living need not mind.

Too soon the stones that hid them
Anonymously in play
Will learn their names and bid them
Come back to hide to stay.

The Tick...I shoulda known!

But if it's not well appreciated, you'll be a Ticking bomb.

There's always...

TAM O'SHANTER

by Robert Burns

"Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke."
Gawin Douglas.

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).

O Tam! had'st thou but been sae wise,
As taen thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder wi' the Miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on
The Smith and thee gat roarin' fou on;
That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday,
She prophesied that late or soon,
Thou wad be found, deep drown'd in Doon,
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld, haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!

But to our tale: Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right,
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi reaming sAats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,
His ancient, trusty, drougthy crony:
Tam lo'ed him like a very brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter;
And aye the ale was growing better:
The Landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The Landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy.
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious!

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white-then melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the Rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm. -
Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd:
That night, a child might understand,
The deil had business on his hand.

Weel-mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow'rin round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry.

By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman smoor'd;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,
Where hunters fand the murder'd bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Where Mungo's mither hang'd hersel'.
Before him Doon pours all his floods,
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods,
The lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Near and more near the thunders roll,
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze,
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle,
But Maggie stood, right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventur'd forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance:
Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. -
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw'd the Dead in their last dresses;
And (by some devilish cantraip sleight)
Each in its cauld hand held a light.
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gabudid gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' blude red-rusted:
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled:
A knife, a father's throat had mangled.
Whom his ain son of life bereft,
The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi' mair of horrible and awfu',
Which even to name wad be unlawfu'.
Three lawyers tongues, turned inside oot,
Wi' lies, seamed like a beggars clout,
Three priests hearts, rotten, black as muck,
Lay stinkin, vile in every neuk.

As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The Piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew,
The reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linkit at it in her sark!

Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans,
A' plump and strapping in their teens!
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flainen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!-
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush o' guid blue hair,
I wad hae gien them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o' the bonie burdies!
But wither'd beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,
Louping an' flinging on a crummock.
I wonder did na turn thy stomach.

But Tam kent what was what fu' brawlie:
There was ae winsome wench and waulie
That night enlisted in the core,
Lang after ken'd on Carrick shore;
(For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perish'd mony a bonie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear);
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho' sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little ken'd thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches),
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches!

But here my Muse her wing maun cour,
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewithc'd,
And thought his very een enrich'd:
Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain,
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a thegither,
And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied.
When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi' mony an eldritch skreich and hollow.

Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin!
In hell, they'll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy-utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stone o' the brig;^1
There, at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the keystane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle!
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed:
Whene'er to Drink you are inclin'd,
Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,
Think ye may buy the joys o'er dear;
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.

The McGrump’s Halloween Ball

The invites were dispatched, when McGrumps threw a ball,
to gargoyles and goblins and ghouls: “Come you all!”
To death’s-heads that rattled their chains in dank tombs,
to ugly old witches disporting on brooms.

The cards that went out were marked R.S.V.P.
meaning Rattle Snakes, Vampires and such were to be
partnered with Poltergeists packed in the hall
when the band began playing The Dead March from Saul.

Witches’ familiars were welcomed, as well
as cloven-foot devils from Lucifer’s hell,
and a ghost with her head in her hand came escorted
by a skull-faced gorilla that shrieked and cavorted.

How rare was the fare that they had for hors d’oeuvres
cold carrion cuts with sweet offal preserves,
flambé of leeches (these cooked while alive)
followed by rat á la bubonic hive.

The McGrumps had a cellar amassed with great care
with type A and type B and O negative (rare),
dispensed by decanter, or portable drips
for the communal guzzling of those lacking lips.

At the height of the ball the Grim Reaper was flailing;
to the skirling of bagpipes the Banshees were wailing;
tombstones burst open and corpses unhoused
the night the McGrumps and their family caroused.

Then at the dawn of the oncoming day,
as the horrors of Hades all shuffled away,
Grandpa McGrump turned to Grandma and said
”If you can’t have some fun there’s no point being dead!”

Jim Hayes

I may be straying far afield here but Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market" is a poem of the front rank. And if I've named that then why not Robert Browning's "Pied Piper of Hamelin"? Auden's "Dame Kind" is creepy. Comb at will through Iona and Peter Opie's "Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes". But I'll stop. This thread's not titled "Unpleasant Poems". If it were I'd mention the whole works of the late underrated, perversely imaginative Scot George MacBeth.

Mike Slipp

I second the endorsement of Browning's "Pied Piper," which, for those of you who don't know it, I hereby convey my heartiest rave. You'll be surprised, I think, since it doesn't read at all like typical Browning such as "My Last Duchess," which, by the way, is as suitable for a Halloween roundup as is "Piep Piper" (which is to say only marginally at best).

(Jim, thanks. I love McGrumps).

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited October 07, 2006).]

Probably not quite what you had in mind, Chris, but here's an alternative take on Halloween by Rhina Espaillat:

Pirates and Witches

Where have they scattered,
pirates and witches
rustling their bags
of cellophaned riches?

Some to the marketplace,
some to the law,
one to the word of God
and one to war;

Some to the labor room,
some to divorce,
one stalled and trembling
like an old horse.

Who could have told us
one Halloween
would drive the ghost away,
depose the queen,

blow them away like smoke
and leave our streets
begging at memory's door
for pennies and sweets!

This is a terrific thread. For one thing, it gives me a chance to plug CHANCE OF A GHOST: An Anthology of Contemporary Ghost Poems, which you can get from Helicon Nine Editions (www.heliconnine.com). It's full of good scary stuff. (Full disclosure: I'm in it too).

Here's an old favorite of mine from the treasury of folk poetry - very good for reading at the fireside on a cold winter night. I'm modernizing the Yorkshire dialect:

THE CLEVELAND LYKE-WAKE DIRGE

On this night, on this night,
Every night and all,
Fire and flame and candle-light,
And Christ take up thy soul.

When thou from hence away art past,
Every night and all,
To Whinny-Muir thou comest at last,
And Christ take up the soul.

If e'er thou gavest hose and shoon,
Every night and all,
Then sit thee down and put them on,
And Christ take up thy soul.

But if hose and shoon thou ne'er gave none,
Every night and all,
The whins shall prick thee to the bare bone,
And Christ take up thy soul.

From Whinny-Muir when thou art past,
Every night and all,
To Purgatory Fire thou comest at last,
And Christ take up thy soul.

If e'er thou gavest meat and drink,
Every night and all,
The fire shall never make thee shrink,
And Christ take up they soul.

But if meat and drink thou ne'er gave none,
Every night and all,
The fire shall burn thee to the bare bone,
And Christ take up thy soul.

From Purgatory Fire when thou art past,
Every night and all,
To the Bridge of Dread thou comest at last,
And Christ take up thy soul.

If e'er thou gavest silver and gold,
Every night and all,
On the Bridge of Dread thou'lt find a foothold,
And Christ take up thy soul.

But if silver and gold thou ne'er gave ane,
Every night and all,
Down, down thou fall'st into Hell's flame,
And Christ take up thy soul.

On this night, on this night,
Every night and all,
Fire and flame and candle-light,
And Christ take up thy soul.

I will sue this thread for a busted gut, if and when I can stop laughing

Another seasonal poem, this one by Stevie Smith.
Her explanation is that the cats in this poem belong
to a witch:

MY CATS

I like to toss him up and down
A heavy cat weighs half a Crown
With a hey ho diddle my cat Brown.

I like to pinch him on the sly
When nobody is passing by
With a hey ho diddle my cat Fry.

I like to ruffle up his pride
And watch him skip and turn aside
With a hey ho diddle my cat Hyde.

Hey Brown and Fry and Hyde my cats
That sit on tombstones for your mats.

This is a great collection. Thanks so much to everybody for posting! & if you have more, by all means, keep them coming.

Here's another from Wilbur.

The Undead

Even as children they were late sleepers,
Preferring their dreams, even when quick with monsters,
To the world with all its breakable toys,
Its compacts with the dying;

From the stretched arms of withered trees
They turned, fearing contagion of the mortal,
And even under the plums of summer
Drifted like winter moons.

Secret, unfriendly, pale, possessed
Of the one wish, the thirst for mere survival,
They came, as all extremists do
In time, to a sort of grandeur:

Now, to their Balkan battlements
Above the vulgar town of their first lives,
They rise at the moon's rising. Strange
That their utter self-concern

Should, in the end, have left them selfless:
Mirrors fail to perceive them as they float
Through the great hall and up the staircase;
Nor are the cobwebs broken.

Into the pallid night emerging,
Wrapped in their flapping capes, routinely maddened
By a wolf's cry, they stand for a moment
Stoking the mind's eye

With lewd thoughts of the pressed flowers
And bric-a-brac of rooms with something to lose,--
Of love-dismembered dolls, and children
Buried in quilted sleep.

Then they are off in a negative frenzy,
Their black shapes cropped into sudden bats
That swarm, burst, and are gone. Thinking
Of a thrush cold in the leaves

Who has sung his few summers truly,
Or an old scholar resting his eyes at last,
We cannot be much impressed with vampires,
Colorful though they are;

Nevertheless, their pain is real,
And requires our pity. Think how sad it must be
To thirst always for a scorned elixir,
The salt quotidian blood

Which, if mistrusted, has no savor;
To prey on life forever and not possess it,
As rock-hollows, tide after tide,
Glassily strand the sea.

And apropos of Jim's recent explanatory post on GT, this from Michael Longley:

Hallowe'en

It is Hallowe'en. Turnip Head
Will soon be given his face,
A slit, two triangles, a hole.
His brains litter the table top.
A candle stub will be his soul.

[This message has been edited by Chris Childers (edited October 19, 2006).]

Another thread that has Halloween poems:
http://p197.ezboard.com/fthesonnetboardsonnetwriting.showMessage?topicID=4 258.topic

Duncan

COURAGE

One Halloween I saw a ghost
and though I do not like to boast
I felt no fear and did not flinch
nor did I back away an inch
but gazed at him till I could see
the poor ghost was afraid of me.

Dick Morgan's painting The Laughter and the Silence just about perfectly complements Robert Francis's "Hide and Seek" poem, above.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtm...ML/000587.html

PLAYTIME


Asphodel, mild and meek,
excelled at playing hide-and-seek.
She’d crouch for hours beneath the bed,
or hide for days in the garden shed.
Once, in a cellar underground,
she spent a month and wasn’t found.

Her parents now think something’s wrong;
she’s gone a year – that’s rather long.
Asphodel can hear them chiding;
“It's high time that you gave up hiding!”
But she, in darkness, sticks to her plot;
and soon will seek them, ready or not!

A Ballad of Hell
by John Davidson

'A letter from my love to-day!
Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!'
She struck a happy tear away,
And broke the crimson seal.

'My love, there is no help on earth,
No help in heaven; the dead-man's bell
Must toll our wedding; our first hearth
Must be the well-paved floor of hell.'

The colour died from out her face,
Her eyes like ghostly candles shone;
She cast dread looks about the place,
Then clenched her teeth and read right on.

'I may not pass the prison door;
Here must I rot from day to day,
Unless I wed whom I abhor,
My cousin, Blanche of Valencay.

'At midnight with my dagger keen,
I'll take my life; it must be so.
Meet me in hell to-night, my queen,
For weal and woe.'

She laughed although her face was wan,
She girded on her golden belt,
She took her jewelled ivory fan,
And at her glowing missal knelt.

Then rose, 'And am I mad?' she said:
She broke her fan, her belt untied;
With leather girt herself instead,
And stuck a dagger at her side.

She waited, shuddering in her room,
Till sleep had fallen on all the house.
She never flinched; she faced her doom:
They two must sin to keep their vows.

Then out into the night she went,
And, stooping, crept by hedge and tree;
Her rose-bush flung a snare of scent,
And caught a happy memory.

She fell, and lay a minute's space;
She tore the sward in her distress;
The dewy grass refreshed her face;
She rose and ran with lifted dress.

She started like a morn-caught ghost
Once when the moon came out and stood
To watch; the naked road she crossed,
And dived into the murmuring wood.

The branches snatched her streaming cloak;
A live thing shrieked; she made no stay!
She hurried to the trysting-oak—
Right well she knew the way.

Without a pause she bared her breast,
And drove her dagger home and fell,
And lay like one that takes her rest,
And died and wakened up in hell.

She bathed her spirit in the flame,
And near the centre took her post;
From all sides to her ears there came
The dreary anguish of the lost.

The devil started at her side,
Comely, and tall, and black as jet.
'I am young Malespina's bride;
Has he come hither yet?'

'My poppet, welcome to your bed.'
'Is Malespina here?'
'Not he! To-morrow he must wed
His cousin Blanche, my dear!'

'You lie, he died with me to-night.'
'Not he! it was a plot' ... 'You lie.'
'My dear, I never lie outright.'
'We died at midnight, he and I.'

The devil went. Without a groan
She, gathered up in one fierce prayer,
Took root in hell's midst all alone,
And waited for him there.

She dared to make herself at home
Amidst the wail, the uneasy stir.
The blood-stained flame that filled the dome,
Scentless and silent, shrouded her.

How long she stayed I cannot tell;
But when she felt his perfidy,
She marched across the floor of hell;
And all the damned stood up to see.

The devil stopped her at the brink:
She shook him off; she cried, 'Away!'
'My dear, you have gone mad, I think.'
'I was betrayed: I will not stay.'

Across the weltering deep she ran;
A stranger thing was never seen:
The damned stood silent to a man;
They saw the great gulf set between.

To her it seemed a meadow fair;
And flowers sprang up about her feet
She entered heaven; she climbed the stair
And knelt down at the mercy-seat.

Seraphs and saints with one great voice
Welcomed that soul that knew not fear.
Amazed to find it could rejoice,
Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.

Halloween

The children’s room glows radiantly by
The light of pumpkins on the windowsill
That fiercely grin on sleeping boy and girl.
She stirs and mutters in her sleep, Goodbye,

Who scared herself a little in a sheet
And walked the streets with devils and dinosaurs
And bleeping green men flown from distant stars.
We sit up late, and smoke, and talk about

Our awkward, loving Frankenstein in bed
Who told his sister that it isn’t true,
That real men in real boxes never do
Haunt houses. But the King of the Dead

Has taken off his mask tonight, and twirled
His cape and vanished, and we are his
Who know beyond all doubt how real he is:
Out of his bag of sweets he plucks the world.

--Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Roger-Bob - Thanks for posting A Ballad of Hell. I like that one.
Mary

Mr. R. S.--

I think Mary, with a little tweaking, has bestowed unto you a new nickname... all hail "Roger-Bobby"!

Dr. Whup-Ass (a/k/a Quincy Lehr)

Tell


I dreamt I met our buddy Ted,
Who asked what news I had to tell
And grinned to hear I’m on the mend
And better, since I married you.
He roared when I pronounced him fit
And said I hadn’t changed a bit —
To quirky visions, ever true!
But then informed me, as my friend,
That he had died, you never wed,
And I am very far from well.

-- Frank

Chris, thanks so much for posting that one by Schnackenberg -- I'd never seen it before. I love this celebration. Perhaps it's my pagan Celtic blood, but my birthday is the day before, and always, always growing up, the cake was black and orange, with bats or cats, or the like. I don't know if Millay wrote this with anything of Halloween in mind, but if she didn't, she could have:

How healthily their feet upon the floor
Strike down! These are no spirits, but a band
Of children, surely, leaping hand in hand
Into the air in groups of three and four,
Wearing their silken rags as if they wore
Leaves only and light grasses, or a strand
Of black elusive seaweed oozing sand,
And running hard as if along a shore.
I know how lost forever, and at length
How still these lovely tossing limbs shall lie,
And the bright laughter and the panting breath;
And yet, before such beauty and such strength,
Once more, as always when the dance is high,
I am rebuked that I believe in death.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Costumes... I haven't decided yet. The kids and I will be making rounds of area churches and civic groups who don't get too awful with their celebrations. It's either my long black wig and the Oriental empress disguise, or my long blonde one, black boots and vest, and pink "Pirate Barbie" disguise!

Jennifer

The Original version of a poem posted up the thread by Gail White.


BANNED POSTA Lyke-Wake Dirge
BANNED POSTBANNED POST
THIS ae nighte, this ae nighte,
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
BANNED POST
BANNED POST.....BANNED POSTAnd Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
When thou from hence away art past,
BANNED POSTBANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
To Whinny-muir thou com'st at last;
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....And Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
Sit thee down and put them on;
BANNED POST
BANNED POST.....And Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
BANNED POST
BANNED POST.....BANNED POSTAnd Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
From Whinny-muir when thou may'st pass,
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last;
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....And Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
From Brig o' Dread when thou may'st pass,
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last;
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....And Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
If ever thou gavest meat or drink,
BANNED POSTBANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
The fire sall never make thee shrink;
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....And Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
If meat or drink thou ne'er gav'st nane,
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,

The fire will burn thee to the bare bane;
BANNED POST
BANNED POST.....And Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
BANNED POST
BANNED POSTBANNED POST.....—Every nighte and alle,
BANNED POST
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,

BANNED POST.....BANNED POSTAnd Christe receive thy saule.
BANNED POST
BANNED POST