Happy Halloween
Luanne Castle's grandson
Trick or Treating Duo Noah DeBonis and dog Sage
A Pandemic Full Moon Halloween, 2020 by Laurie Kuntz
The full moon on Halloween arrives every 19 years,
the last one, when you were 13
You went out with boastful costumed boys
and took Sage, our fretful dog,
sniffing out dangers around the orange lit streets
your protection against goblins.
When you came home,
and I grazed through your bevy of treats,
we made a pact, believers of full moon lores,
the next full moon Halloween, wherever in the world
we might be, we'd spend it together.
And here we are, hugging opposite coast lines
but still in the world, still watching the moon
and living in all its phases and pandemics,
which keep us apart despite pacts
made between a mother and son.
As we hug over zoom links,
all I can do is recall your 13th year
when your world was Halloween happy,
and you and the dog went into the night
seeking those shareable treats.
A Pandemic Full Moon Halloween, 2020 by Laurie Kuntz
The full moon on Halloween arrives every 19 years,
the last one, when you were 13
You went out with boastful costumed boys
and took Sage, our fretful dog,
sniffing out dangers around the orange lit streets
your protection against goblins.
When you came home,
and I grazed through your bevy of treats,
we made a pact, believers of full moon lores,
the next full moon Halloween, wherever in the world
we might be, we'd spend it together.
And here we are, hugging opposite coast lines
but still in the world, still watching the moon
and living in all its phases and pandemics,
which keep us apart despite pacts
made between a mother and son.
As we hug over zoom links,
all I can do is recall your 13th year
when your world was Halloween happy,
and you and the dog went into the night
seeking those shareable treats.
New cashier at the grocery,
tired eyes. Bony, gaunt.
But lovely silver hair, shiny in a red ribbon.
Trying to brighten her day
I offer as a compliment:
“Wow, I hope my hair
looks that good
when I’m that old.”
She’s shocked.
“You know it’s Halloween?
It’s a costume. A wig.
I’m thirty-nine.”
And now she looks sad.
Yikes!
Speaking through foot in mouth I offer:
“You’ll be a great-looking old lady.”
She smiles. Sparkles. Says
“That’s so sweet.”
Whew.
She hands me change and says
“You made my day.”
Note: True story. I’m rarely quick in social situations
but this time I survived…
pillowcase poor by j.lewis
i knew, almost before i could talk
that october was doubly special
first there was my birthday,
quite near the start of the month
candy and presents and cake
so much attention for a little tyke
then a whole month to forget that
and focus on the big night
goblins and ghosts and such
i wasn't old enough to be jealous
of the kids who wore store-bought
costumes, masks, and everything
my costume was always homemade
limited only by my imagination and
mother's level of enthusiasm for
dressing up three or four of us
but when it came to "the bag", well
others may have had their cute buckets
but i had something they didn't
i had a pillowcase, ghostly white
and the endurance to try to get it
too full to carry back home
two brothers and little me scoured
the neighborhood, block by block
our "twick or tweet" growled or giggled
as the grown-ups requested
three pillowcases lugged home at last
where we poured them onto the rug
dividing our spoils, setting aside
the biggest bars "for later"
you always save the biggest bars
hiding them for later
i knew, almost before i could talk
that october was doubly special
first there was my birthday,
quite near the start of the month
candy and presents and cake
so much attention for a little tyke
then a whole month to forget that
and focus on the big night
goblins and ghosts and such
i wasn't old enough to be jealous
of the kids who wore store-bought
costumes, masks, and everything
my costume was always homemade
limited only by my imagination and
mother's level of enthusiasm for
dressing up three or four of us
but when it came to "the bag", well
others may have had their cute buckets
but i had something they didn't
i had a pillowcase, ghostly white
and the endurance to try to get it
too full to carry back home
two brothers and little me scoured
the neighborhood, block by block
our "twick or tweet" growled or giggled
as the grown-ups requested
three pillowcases lugged home at last
where we poured them onto the rug
dividing our spoils, setting aside
the biggest bars "for later"
you always save the biggest bars
hiding them for later
To the Lady Who Gave Out Pencils on Halloween by Paul Hostovsky
I would like to say thank you,
because I don’t think I said thank you
once in all those years
that I climbed your steep front steps
in my mask or sheet or wig or witch’s hat
and held up my opened pillow case
among the other opened pillow cases
like so many straining baby-bird mouths
in the hope that you would finally come around
to our sweet-tooth point of view. Which you never did.
So we mocked you, and we spurned you,
and we littered your lawn with our candy wrappers,
our chewed gum the sweet had gone out of,
the rinds and sticks of the much-lauded,
much-coveted candied apples your neighbor
Mrs. Schachtel gave out each year—the syrupy
antithesis to your dry and austere
number two pencils. But they survived,
it needs to be said—when all that sugary
frivolity melted away, your stiffly formal
wooden gifts remained, like so many horizontal
soldiers standing at attention at the bottom
of the bag. Deployed in kitchen drawers,
desk drawers, jars jammed with pens, pencils,
brushes, penknives, magic markers, emery boards,
they were mostly overlooked, forgotten. Some of them
probably outlived my entire childhood. A few
probably outlived you. It’s entirely possible
that one or two—this one, for example,
which feels as sharp as the day it was first
sharpened—could outlive me, too.
From The Bad Guys
Trick or Treat by Marilyn Zelke Windau
First a mouse came to my door,
then a duck,
next a dog demanding treats,
followed by an elephant.
A parade of animals
all ringing the bell
in the late fall sunshine.
Almost done with saving time,
I was not done with saving chocolate.
I said to the dog. “You can’t have chocolate.
It will kill you.”
He protested that he was a strong dog,
a wise dog, could even take
chocolate through an IV, if need be,
and need there was.
He muzzle-nuzzled me for a Nestle.
Halloween, a time of year, a time of mind,
when serotonin levels swell
at just the thought of candy.
Sugar keeps those little legs pumping,
down streets, up steps, over sidewalk cracks.
Lights on porches draw them in like moths.
Some are reluctant to say the magic words.
Some are brash and grab their own choice
from the bowels of the bowl.
They turn, after three small words,
stumble down to mothers,
fall into waiting strollers
pushed by fathers, who extract their toll
with a snicker, to the next yard.
First a mouse came to my door,
then a duck,
next a dog demanding treats,
followed by an elephant.
A parade of animals
all ringing the bell
in the late fall sunshine.
Almost done with saving time,
I was not done with saving chocolate.
I said to the dog. “You can’t have chocolate.
It will kill you.”
He protested that he was a strong dog,
a wise dog, could even take
chocolate through an IV, if need be,
and need there was.
He muzzle-nuzzled me for a Nestle.
Halloween, a time of year, a time of mind,
when serotonin levels swell
at just the thought of candy.
Sugar keeps those little legs pumping,
down streets, up steps, over sidewalk cracks.
Lights on porches draw them in like moths.
Some are reluctant to say the magic words.
Some are brash and grab their own choice
from the bowels of the bowl.
They turn, after three small words,
stumble down to mothers,
fall into waiting strollers
pushed by fathers, who extract their toll
with a snicker, to the next yard.
From Momentary Ordinary
It’s Halloween by Barbara Crooker
and my pumpkin cat is sitting in the sun.
How does she know how to fold
herself into the window’s square ligatures,
or drape over the one piece of furniture
that best shows off her amber eyes? I want
to be this cat, have nothing more to do
than follow the sun around the house
all day, let its heat warm my fur, my bones.
I don’t need to think about hunger; soon,
shredded chicken or tuna will appear
in my bowl. I don’t care that night
is coming, dark as a cauldron. I don’t know
some day I’ll die. Someone’s switched
on the fire; the room turns all flicker and light.
My tail twitches, my claws retract. A low
slow rumble begins in my chest,
blooms into a furious flower.
from Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series, 2019)
and my pumpkin cat is sitting in the sun.
How does she know how to fold
herself into the window’s square ligatures,
or drape over the one piece of furniture
that best shows off her amber eyes? I want
to be this cat, have nothing more to do
than follow the sun around the house
all day, let its heat warm my fur, my bones.
I don’t need to think about hunger; soon,
shredded chicken or tuna will appear
in my bowl. I don’t care that night
is coming, dark as a cauldron. I don’t know
some day I’ll die. Someone’s switched
on the fire; the room turns all flicker and light.
My tail twitches, my claws retract. A low
slow rumble begins in my chest,
blooms into a furious flower.
from Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series, 2019)
Ode to Halloween by Joanne Durham
The Crayola crayon box on skinny legs
squeezes close to the patch-eyed pirate
on my doorstep, goodie bags outstretched
like ours were long ago—We knew
we were the lucky ones, living
in the apartments, where we scored more
M&Ms and Snickers bars in twenty minutes
than the kids in fancy houses did in an hour.
But it wasn’t the candy that enticed us,
most of mine forgotten on the kitchen shelf
for months after the initial gorging.
It was the whole town complicit
with superheroes and monsters, my sister
morphed into a frog in Mom’s t-shirt and
green socks, Mr. Carson dressed in fluorescent
skeleton bones we dashed past to reach
the fairy godmother at the front door,
our faces upturned and open—
We forgot if we were a kid who couldn’t spell,
a boy sprouting acne at nine. We just fastened
a lion’s fuzzy face over our own and roared.
First appeared on Whale Road Review
Masked strangers toss
multiple rolls of toilet paper
up into the black sky
and it unrolls like ribbons
and wraps around the house
of the principal and his wife
dressed as Ike and Maimi
as they stand next to me
disguised as Lois Lane
with Clark Kent at my side
as we serve Hawaiian punch
at the high school Halloween
party in the gymnasium.
The babysitter and neighbors
spot under the streetlight
the muscular Robin Hood,
lanky Lone Ranger, burlesque
bumblebee and plump pumpkin
before they vanish
like aliens in a spaceship.
Some of us speculate
the culprits are students
who had felt the principal’s
paddle on their backside
but no one snitches.
The whole school suffers
the consequences as it takes
time to untangle the toilet
paper and return it to bathroom
stalls where it had been stolen.
From My Grandfather is a Cowboy
The Queen of Division by Joan Leotta
Sometime in my early years
I caught what they called the “Asian flu.”
During the three weeks
erased from my schooling
the nuns taught the rest of the class
the intricate secrets of long division.
I never did catch up.
However, my distinct lack of skills
with divisor and dividend
never held me back on Halloween
where I was the undisputed Queen
of cousinly candy divisions, long and short.
On finishing our separate rounds
of sugary beggary in our
separate neighborhoods
we seven gathered at Grandma’s.
While the grownups talked of
who knows what,
we spilled out our loot
onto her red wool oriental rug.
We stacked our holdings
into categories—in front of us like chips—the
chocolates, the popcorn balls, the nut things.
the boxes of jellied things
good and plenty and the rest.
I knew each cousin’s favorites
and played one against the other
until the chocolate began to flow my way.
By dividing their interests, I conquered.
I am still shaky with long division,
but when my children
come home with pumpkins full
of chocolate bars, my trading instincts
kick in. My current, hidden stash of candies
attests to the fact that I am still
the Queen of Division, long and otherwise —
when it counts.
From Languid Lusciousness with Lemon
The Hungry Spiders by Abha Das Sarma
Masked as witches, cloaks running under their feet,
my granddaughters stand stirring
the earthworm eggs, the ant heads, lizard tails and the snake skin.
Blending in wild roots, buried leaves for the seasoning.
Masked as witches, cloaks running under their feet,
my granddaughters stand stirring
the earthworm eggs, the ant heads, lizard tails and the snake skin.
Blending in wild roots, buried leaves for the seasoning.
Singing They are coming, they are coming.
In a pit full of mud turning into green slush to be fed
to the army of spiders guarding the porch,
their web spread over the door.
Woken from sleep as the ghosts of The Hungry Caterpillar.
Singing In spirit of dried blood, they return to this earth,
Trick or treat, they carry our sins and good deeds.
The grandfathers, the grandmothers, their aunts, uncles and pets.
The Cheshire Cats, the Crookshanks.
All tell, Fear not death, it will be wrapped in our breath,
It is beautiful, it is beautiful to be dead.
Ripping the horizon, pouring come the kites with owl heads.
Arresting the sun, whipping a storm, blinking eyes red.
Singing Trick you perish, treat you live, dissolve fear, foster no grief,
We bestow rebirth on earthly feast.
Quickening pace, slicing the day, imploring heavens to descend on earth,
All sing.
Feed the spiders, go to bed, sweet dreams, sweet dreams,
This Halloween.
First appeared in Spillwords
The Day after Halloween by Judith Waller Carroll
A light rain is beginning to fall
as we take down the three witches
to pack them away for another season.
The girls, we call them, a trio of black gauzy
tall-hatted figures that hold hands and sway
with each gust of wind as if casting a spell.
We leave the pumpkins on the steps,
the ghost hanging from the eave.
too high to reach without a ladder.
The wind has whipped it around
so it is peering in our bedroom window,
its drawn-on mouth in a Munch scream.
Orange is everywhere you look—
maple and oak leaves drifting to the ground,
persimmons ripening on the tree
The dwarf willow an explosion of burnt umber,
one layer after another cascading down
like feather boas discarded by exotic dancers.
Darkness lasts longer each morning
but when sunlight arrives it is golden as honey
as if it knows this is its last hurrah.
Spooky Choice by Wilda Morris
Would it be worth
being a witch
were it true
you could sweep
through the sky
on a broomstick?
Are you so jealous
of the jaunty
jack-o-lantern
you could jump
on the porch,
pour your own light
into the shadowy night?
What would you give
to be a ghost
if ghosts gather
in graveyards
moonless midnights
and are fearless?
Would you shriek
to be a skeleton
if you would never
again skin
a knee when skating
straight into a tree?
If you choose
to be a spook,
which spook will you be?
Would it be worth
being a witch
were it true
you could sweep
through the sky
on a broomstick?
Are you so jealous
of the jaunty
jack-o-lantern
you could jump
on the porch,
pour your own light
into the shadowy night?
What would you give
to be a ghost
if ghosts gather
in graveyards
moonless midnights
and are fearless?
Would you shriek
to be a skeleton
if you would never
again skin
a knee when skating
straight into a tree?
If you choose
to be a spook,
which spook will you be?
Samhain Eve by Laurie Byro
Snow-white birches bend low to the ground,
begging to be stripped of yellow leaves. In my head,
I am reading a poem to Geordie. You spread
your black pea-coat on damp earth, invite me
near the bonfire you have made. You cup
your hands as if around a match, enter me as easily
as breathing in—releasing oxygen, dispelling
strength. Smoke snakes around our ankles. A sooty
leaf rises, a black-ghost smudges a cross on
my forehead. I carry my shoes across a stream,
stepping barefoot on stones warmed by the sun.
Hemlock boughs are flattened soft from rain.
In England, a woman washes nappies, rinses out
piss while composing a poem in her head. There
are scars where electricity scorched her temples.
If you call me by her name, I won’t answer. I’ll trudge
through fiery leaves that late autumn trees have shed.
I tell you it looks as if someone has been bleeding.
You say it’s the time of year to be lonely. We forage
branches of gold on our way home. We place them in clay
jars to lure love to a table glittering with beads of honey.
First appeared in Spillwords
