HALLOWEEN

by Anna Aragon

Halloween! that time of year

When things quite stranger do appear

The time that zombies eat your brain

And leave an awful zombie stain

Black cats hisssss with yellow eyes

And witches brooms fill up the skies

If’n a sign sez, “Bat for hire”

Beware the spooky VAMP-a-pire

You may see a scary mummy

With too much candy in your tummy

But when it all is said and done

Halloween is a lot of fun!!

THE WITCH

by Bob Henssler

There was once a witch from Khartoum

Who set off to Cairo on her broom

Her compass and gyro weren’t synced 

A gnat hit her eye and she blinked

Resetting her course to the moon

WHAT DO WE FEAR?

by Mary Rose Henssler

There’s nowhere to hide. Evil lurks around the world.

Innocent people cower in their basements, hide in their fields,

clutching their children close to their chests

while bombs and fire rain down on them.

Even here, when gathering to listen to music or watch a movie,

or hear God’s word on a snowy Sunday, to teach children to bowl

or to have a beer with your pals and play a friendly game of pool,

evil stalks and strikes and ends or changes lives.

Where do you live? Old houses creak for no reason we can see.

New houses settle and groan. Bats and rats take over the attics

while mice and bugs skitter and chatter between walls

and bees and wasps and spiders invade eaves with nests and webs.

Before midnight, go to bed. Pull the blankets over your head

so you can’t hear the footsteps coming slowly down the dark hall.

The dogs lie quiet in the kitchen and the cat sleeps in the chair,

so you know no one’s there. But your heart thuds with every step you hear.

Sometimes you hear a voice call your name when you know you’re alone

and you hear breathing from another room. A branch taps on the window.

You laugh at yourself for being afraid but you check the locks on the doors

and windows and call a friend who will talk for a while.

Skeletons scare you. Look around you. Everyone here is a bag of bones

covered with meat. All of us, and the people passing by on the street,

Nothing but skeletons covered with bacteria inside and out,

Making their homes on our bones.

Bacteria building their shelters and communities and living their lives

in our organs, our flesh and no escape from them possible. How many

of our decisions are influenced by a bacterium’s desire to redecorate

or to throw a party for all of their glutinous friends.

Ghosts frighten you. And yet we are all inhabited by spirits we can’t see

that direct our thoughts, emotions, what we eat for lunch, who we love

and who we cross the street to avoid. This spirit directs our actions for good

and for evil and for shivering in the dark in fear.

Look around. Everything you fear is here or could arrive at any moment.

We are all skeletons and ghosts interacting, reading poetry and stories

and wondering whether this old building is haunted. It is.

It’s haunted by us. Sleep well tonight. It’s almost Halloween.

BOO TO YOU

by Sharon Vander Meer

Hootie tunes and shrieking screams

scary thingies in your dreams.

On this haunted, hunted night

what next on tap will give you fright?

Creeping, leaping, jumping, sneaking

is that a ghost at whom you’re peeking?

Tiptoe back, slither down the hall

when spooky phantoms on you call.

Get into a warm and comfy bed,

pull the covers o’er your head.

Sweet visions conjure into being,

ignore the specter on the ceiling.

Come out and play, he moans,

Halloween lasts but a day, he groans.

Laugh, laugh away your silly fear,

the pumpkin grin will bring you cheer.

Gliding ghouls are hosts to you

waiting, waiting, and then – BOO!

(Read more Halloween poetry by Sharon at this link.)