As I walk through the graveyard on Halloween
I shall think on how witches and ghouls
Are only by fools
Seen.
The learned well understand
That there is no ghostly hand
To their progress stop
As they pass the graveyard plot.
Yet I shall quicken my pace
Just in case …
There was a young man named Keith
Who met a witch on a blasted heath.
Her name it was Joan
And she lived all alone
Until she went and married Keith!
There was a young man called Mitch
Who married a beautiful witch.
They where happy together,
Whatever the weather
And she owned a cat called Stich.
—
There was a young man called Mitch
Who married a very old witch.
She gave him a love potion,
Which caused quite a commotion
As it really made him itch!
All was still in the church.
No lurch
Of sudden fear
To chill
My heart
As I passed the stones where the dead sleep.
Should I create, for the sake of art
A devil with horn?
No, I am forlorn
For this year
Neither scheming demon
Nor the obscene
Fingers of the dead
Troubled my boring Halloween!
In honour of Halloween, here are links to some of my poems, and other writings with a Halloween and/or a supernatural theme. Enjoy!
Light fades.
Shades
In forgotten graves
stir.
Black cats purr.
Despair
On a broomstick travels.
Joy unravels
As hope dies
And the vampire
Glides
Through pitch black skies.
Why do you ask
If I wear a mask?
Do you suppose my expression benign
Conceals some hideous crime?
Look in the glass
And rather ask
About your own mask.
Put away the stones
For bones
Are brittle
And friend’s opinions fickle
As the witches in Macbeth
Who promise much, then leave him bereft.
Midnight, black as pitch.
No scheming demon, ghost nor witch
Only the darkness which in the human heart resides, manifests itself in cruelty and pride.
Halloween is just so much hokum, a trick designed to part the gullible from their money. The fansy dress industry does well. Fake blood and vampire’s fangs fly off the shelves while kids pester the neighbourhood with Trick Or Treat.
At the dead of night we are not so sure. What is that shadow which keeps pace as we walk home from that Halloween Party? That unearthly scream setting the hairs on the back of your neck astir is, surely a cat yowling for it’s mate, isn’t it? You quicken your pace just in case.
Cutting through the churchyard will knock 5 minutes off your journey. In the brightness of day you would have no hesitation so why now do you hesitate to enter? The dead after all can not hurt you, “tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil”.
You enter the churchyard resisting the almost overwhelming temptation to glance over your shoulder. Laughter in the darkest corner of the graveyard. Oh sweet Jesus why did I walk through here. Logic tells you it is merely an amourous couple who, unable to contain their desire have chosen this place to satiate their lust but, still you run blindly tripping over gravestones until at last the gate is reached. Locked! Desperately you climb, trousers rip on the gate’s spiked top, you are beyond caring. You jump down on the other side and with heart racing run the last few hundred yards to home.
Come the bright morning you laugh at yesterday’s escapades. My imagination ran riot but still, somewhere deep in your subconscious the nagging doubts remain.
K Morris - Poet 