Halloween

I just put a pumpkin pie in the oven.  Later I will make chili.  It’s Halloween.  How about a ghost story, uh, poem?

Ghost Story

 

The rain had quenched the roaring campfire,

destroying all hopes of roasting marshmallows,

 

but the sounds that would follow were simply October.

Stormy clouds arrived before the wind blew in—

then rain that fell in horizontal sheets.  Hail came last,

destroying the objects grouped by the door,

bruising carved pumpkins, un-potting the yellow

chrysanthemums, scattering freshly-baled hay,

 

skinny, funny scarecrows, dried black corn.  And while

the pounding storm shook the house on the hill,

 

several small children, wearing feet pajamas

and holding fuzzy bears, were huddled together,

giddy with fear, still

swapping  tales of the Hornet Spook Light,

that swings, by way of legend, in the hand of

a headless man, far, far away—

 

or the man down Third Street , behind Safeway,

whose “dog is really a wolf.”  They chattered about

Ol’ Henry, who’s nothing but a ’bo pushing a cart,

and had more fun fearing him than bobbing,

 

later, for the crunchy red apples in the tub on

the Pullium’s screened-in back porch.

first published in Cracked Lenses

Poem in Blue Fifth Review

My poem, “To Be,” (scroll down to find it) from my current project Windows Toward the World, is included in the Autumn issue of Blue Fifith Review. 

Also included are poems by my friends, Jessicca Vidrine (second from top) and two by Evie Shockley (again scroll down.) 

Thanks to editor Sam Rasnake.