Halloween Challenge

UnderYourSpell

Gerund Whore
Joined
May 20, 2007
Posts
15,794
It's that time of the year for ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night! :eek:
So your Challenge is to write about anything to do with Halloween. Whatever takes your fancy, form or not, erotic or just plain scary! As many or as few as you like is acceptable but post in this link without sending them to me as time is getting on.
Ready, Steady, Go!!
You don't have to write to participate (although I hope you do!!) :) but comments on the posted poems is encouraged, especially those keeping to the theme!
 
Well I'm glad someone does .......

I can't remember the last thing I wrote. It's prolly been weeks, feels like months. Not enough sleep, family with health problems, Winter swiftly approaching up here in Wisconsin ....... uggh. I've momentarily lost the plot.
 
I can't remember the last thing I wrote. It's prolly been weeks, feels like months. Not enough sleep, family with health problems, Winter swiftly approaching up here in Wisconsin ....... uggh. I've momentarily lost the plot.

Yeah, I'm with you...lost my car in Matthew and now my laptop is in the shop. Nothing as pressing as family health issues, but it screws with my routine and makes my mind unsettled so that it's hard to develop thoughts into words and then to poems/stories.

But it'll sort itself out eventually. *crossing fingers, knocking on wood* :)


:cool:
 
I can't remember the last thing I wrote. It's prolly been weeks, feels like months. Not enough sleep, family with health problems, Winter swiftly approaching up here in Wisconsin ....... uggh. I've momentarily lost the plot.

I hope your family health problems are sorted soon, very selfishly I need you to make me laugh :rose:

I''m making changes to an old poem. Is that acceptable?

Yes please do :)

Yeah, I'm with you...lost my car in Matthew and now my laptop is in the shop. Nothing as pressing as family health issues, but it screws with my routine and makes my mind unsettled so that it's hard to develop thoughts into words and then to poems/stories.

But it'll sort itself out eventually. *crossing fingers, knocking on wood* :)


:cool:

I'm as bad, apart from the odd American sentence, I've started and not finished anything. Worrying about other people puts a dampener on muses Worldwide.
 
John Donovan's Dream on Hallowe'en

His treat was a jigger of Beefeater gin,
ice cubes and tonic with a twist,
well, maybe two to help him sleep,
for hot summer nights with Maeve still seared
burning in him as she appeared
in the fog bottom night of Hallowe'en.

“I may be a ghost or maybe a dream.
You'll find either way debauchery
is in my deep green eyes.” said she,
"Besides, Dear Heart, I need a good foin."

Perhaps the mind coins words in a dream,
and ghosts do too or so it seems
when they hovered above his wingback chair
and she moaned as she rode John Donovan.
 
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Dies Irae

As if the pumpkin carver's hand had slipped
And put the glowing apertures awry,
Inconstant flickering betrays a soul
Malformed, a show-biz golem on display.
And in my ears a ghastly cackle rings,
Malignant glee at having sent too soon
Entire nations to the underworld --
It is a woman's voice; should I be moved?
Two awful beings, looming in the night
To haunt our screens with horrid frequency,
And after all the youngsters with their bags
Of candy and their dilettantish frights
Have gone to bed, their parents grimly turn
To face the greater horror, one that preys
Upon the hapless voter in five days.
 
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broke-necked pigeon
on chain linked mesh
sundials away

maggots drop from split ripe flesh
fresh death scents the air pollen allergies flare
retch the wretched sounds that spill
from blackened blood thick as tree sap

It feels real as steel
mahogany and gold plated
handles
pall bare the strip mined
concrete compound-eyes
of a maggots final form

Cycles continue
in the rot of not more
than here ever wasn't

fades to grey
matter the presence
lingers

all I want
is to
s
l
e
e
p......
 
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Breakfast in Plato's Café

Mommy who scotch-taped two Rice Krispies
on her nose to look like warts,
asks Peg, the waitress at Plato's Café,
for another pot of witch's tea
and a cup of cocoa for Princess Kate
who hardly could wait for Halloween
to wear her happily ever after
costume that comes with a magic wand

she waves over her cereal bowl
to make it snap, crackle, and pop
when all of a sudden-Snap, Crackle, Pop!
I see my shadow lifting on the wall
with the morning sun and it dawns on me
the trick is in knowing what is the treat.
 
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Since we didn't go the whole anonymous submission/scheduled revelation route, I am assuming that we may start commenting whenever the spirit moves us? GM, your second poem is very amusing. It seems like there is some substance abuse embedded in that second stanza -- am I off base on that?
 
Noob to poems and contests. First poems ever. Anonymous submission? I posted first. Was I supposed to do something different?

Nope. UnderYourSpell said in the first post to just post, not to send them to her.


Sometimes, we do anonymous challenges, where the poems are sent to the person hosting the challenge, who then posts them. That information will be in the challenge instructions when we do it that way.
 
Nope. UnderYourSpell said in the first post to just post, not to send them to her.


Sometimes, we do anonymous challenges, where the poems are sent to the person hosting the challenge, who then posts them. That information will be in the challenge instructions when we do it that way.

That's a cool way of doing it. I will have to look for that if I keep this up.
 
Samhain

The fairies and spirit dead whirled,
Between this world and Otherworld.
Make offerings and go in guise,
When the veil 'tween worlds thinner lies

Mark this festival of the dead
With a great carved pumpkin head.
Make offerings to bless your home
For ghouls, goblins and witches roam.
 
Since we didn't go the whole anonymous submission/scheduled revelation route, I am assuming that we may start commenting whenever the spirit moves us? GM, your second poem is very amusing. It seems like there is some substance abuse embedded in that second stanza -- am I off base on that?

Interesting interpretation, AH, but no, it's an allusion to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," maybe a little too much of a reach to pack into 6 lines. The narrator's "shadow" has been lifted by the rising "sun" for him to see what's truly important, in this case the playful innocence of love between a mother and her child.
 
Interesting interpretation, AH, but no, it's an allusion to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," maybe a little too much of a reach to pack into 6 lines.
Possibly. I'm very familiar with Plato's allegory, but what I got from the poem was you had a nip of witch's brew, bit into a suspicious cookie, and the next thing you knew it was morning and you had no memory of your Halloween revels. ;)
 
Interesting interpretation, AH, but no, it's an allusion to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," maybe a little too much of a reach to pack into 6 lines. The narrator's "shadow" has been lifted by the rising "sun" for him to see what's truly important, in this case the playful innocence of love between a mother and her child.

Possibly. I'm very familiar with Plato's allegory, but what I got from the poem was you had a nip of witch's brew, bit into a suspicious cookie, and the next thing you knew it was morning and you had no memory of your Halloween revels. ;)

Changed "brew" to "tea."
 
I needed to futz with this a little. For one thing, I got the date of the election wrong - d'oh. Also, I thought that "too soon" didn't really work in line 6.

Dies Irae

As if the pumpkin carver's hand had slipped
And put the glowing apertures awry,
Inconstant flickering betrays a soul
Malformed, a show-biz golem on display.
And in my ears a ghastly cackle rings,
Malignant gleefulness at having sent
Entire nations to the underworld --
It is a woman's voice; should I be moved?
Two awful beings, looming in the night
To haunt our screens with horrid frequency,
And after all the youngsters with their bags
Of candy and their dilettantish frights
Have gone to bed, their parents grimly turn
To face the greater horror, one that preys
Upon the hapless voter in eight days.
 
latest


Wendigo

As nights grow long on Lac la Biche,
the lake it freezes, the snow it falls
and the wind she always blows.
Wolves howl through long cold dark,
and prowl neath Aurora's flicker,
yet fearsome more than
winter and wolves
there comes a man,
no longer man,
they call the
Wendigo.

The waning moon rose over
a frigid land and I feared
I’d met my end.
The handful of hares
which fell to my snares
filled stomach but wasted flesh.
As strength and wit grew dim,
by hunger driven mad,
I longed for sweet bone marrow.

Late that night as the fire grew low
a shuffling tread drew nigh
the air was dank with beastly rank
and split by ghostly cry.
I rolled right to miss the blow
and grabbed my axe to counter.
Time stood still, I felt a chill
as iron vanquished bone.

All that morn, I gathered bush
to make the funeral pyre
at stroke of noon, I struck the flint
to cleanse the beast by fire.
Orange flames leapt high
and black smoke higher
till only ash remained
but there amidst the cinders
lay a roasted marrow bone.

In the silver moon of the Boreal night
beware one who walks alone.
Stay in your cabin with fire ablaze
and venture out not till dawn.

 
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