as a child i was frighten, as an adult, i am weary when i walk the forest’s edge, a real and imaginary line between night and day, light and dark, life and death, the delineation of my tamed civilized world, and the chaos of the savage wilds.

i remember walking along the edge as a child, holding my mother’s hand, looking into the darkness, hoping to see something magical, to justify my fears, dismiss my suspicions, anything to alleviate the mundane, monotonous, insipidness of my bleak, desolate quotidian life.

i imagined mythical creatures in the forest, with the thrill and horror of an occasional siting of a real wolf trotting along the tree line, stopping at the site of me, making eye contact for a moment before slipping back into the darkness of the forest, feeling like prey, a rabbit in the middle of a meadow, hyper vigilant, knowing death is an instant away

Come hither, Dear Hallows Eve
and covet these sickly sweets  
till porcelain heaves
poor uvula cleaved,
by Sir Grim Reaper’s teeth—

till eyes do burst
like pop rocks cursed
upon the ghost’s white sheets.


Come hither, Dear Hallows Eve.


Come forth, This Villain’s Night,
fair ghouls, you need not hide
and spectres: don’t be shy!
deliver your joyous frights
the witches do abide—

unearth your tombs;
prepare the brooms

and sweep across the sky


on this Villain’s Night.


Come now, Halloween!
hear October’s screams;
the heart’s curdled beat
against my haunted dreams
from which the darkness seeps.

You call me sick
you cry out “trick”

but still I stick to treat—

Yes!

Come now, Halloween!

A full throated howl
as the dark returns
keening as witch or warlock
at their organised religions
their doctrines and strictures

I’ll gather the hemlock
and the red cap
to lace their tea and platitudes,
their pious attitudes
of bell ringing shame

in my mind’s eye
the rictus grin that takes them
is sweet as autumn fruit

Three rings of a bone punched with knives
Hangs from fang trees,
Replacing the once solid trees.

Each ring echoes through the air;
Each dripping of a substance, unknown;
Turned inside out.

Each one, a white surface.
Veins filled of crimson delight,
Running down slowly, but surely.

Underneath a raining sky,
Sometimes dreams
Turn it into blood.

Each tree, perfectly fine one morning,
Until screams echo through the air,
On the first of the month of Halloween.

on the charted floor of souls
fire heats twelve iron bowls
rafters echo devil screams
arms and legs hang from the beams

roast the skin with castor seeds
hair of crone and spice of weeds
stir and mix the flesh and blood
till the supper looks like mud

splintered skulls of fresh-chopped heads
each laid out on nightshade beds
plates of bone and knives of steel
sharpened for the midnight meal

who will choose the honored seats?
who will serve the roasted meats?
who will **** the sockets dry?
who will live, and who will die?

if you serve the master's will
every wish of his fulfill
if you heed the master's call
he might eat you last of all

Perched along a limb
in the darkening, mercurial eve,
the trickster hovers in mania.

Wingspan iridescent in the shadows,
he stands sharp in his observation
blending in to the dark night.

An indomitable eye in focus,
unceasing with his hoarse call -
Bitter and biting in sound.

He balefully takes flight
gliding over his bounteous kingdom,
secure in the wily, swindling con.

A harbinger of evil,
an omen follows his glide:
the reaper is soon to follow.

The sudden silence provokes
a chill down the spine
curling 'round in stirring fright.

Taking a warlike stance,
he circles over his unsuspecting prey.
Venomous in his feast and descent.

A scythe, sharpened steel,
gripped tightly in bloodless hands;
a lone cloaked being whispers commands.

Rumbles strike open the dirt
in the graveyard beside the oak.
Silhouettes manifest, crawling through the night.

The trickster surveys the siege,
as screams rent through the sky.
The eve of madness is upon us.

As I go trick or treating
I see when pumpkin
That looks like it
Has fire version of the chicken pox
Or ance
With its perfect circular dots
Of sizes
What a unique jackolantern
I hope the flames don’t die out on
My speckled friend

In the Halloween
You seensome creepy pumpkins
That make
You wonder if the haves
DID
dissociative identity disorder
Don’t worry
It’s just their faces that
Are Cracked

There under a
Full moon
Some teens plat with a oujia board
In the cemetery
They hear howling
From a wolf but they
Ran of at the howling thinking
It was a demon
It was dark and full of
Terrors that night