don’t rue the last days
of October’s calendar
when little goblins
seeking candies door-to-door
run, as parent lanterns glow
I remember taking our kids to Halloween parties hosted by people we knew, but only once or twice taking them trick or treating in our neighborhood, always hovering in the background, half-trepidatiously (is that a word?).
For Carrie's The Sunday Muse #184 -Join in!
A penny shiny from the gutter
she stoops to pick
places auspice in her pocket
passing people on the pavement
like a ghostly apparition
passing through an open door
escapes into the vellichor*
of shadowed selves in memory’s mist
who greet her on Halloween
at Harry’s Magic bookshop.
*vellichor: The wistfulness of a second-hand bookshop.
Eugi's Weekly Prompt - "Halloween" Punam's RDP Saturday - "Apparition" Sammi's WWP #233 - 48 words exactly, ""Vellichor" Top Image credit: sergio omassi from Pexels Bottom Image Credit: RDP Saturday
Rochelle, Happy 9th Anniversary of hosting FFs!Genre: Science Fiction Word count: 100 Come along and join in with Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle asks that we use the photo prompt (© Brenda Cox) and limit our words to 100 or less. Click on the frog to read more stories.
The violent shuddering of masonry and the collapse of the great cathedral had left a thick cloud of dust like a shroud over the city. It settled like particles of mist coating every moving creature, turning everything a sinister gray. Here, the dead had numbered 750,000.
We eyed them from the Adviser, the multi-dimensional-intergalactic space lab, Commander Fauci. His otherwise pristine white lab coat was covered with beagle hair as he emerged from his I-CNN studio. He looked unconcerned. The interview had gone well.
Had we made the right choices? Only time would tell. Meanwhile, we needed to cover our tracks.
He’s got no heart
that’s plain for us to see
yet adamantine
chains of our own greed
mocking bind our flesh
permission securing to multiply
lies that his desires ours would circumscribe
She’s got no heart
that we all clearly know
obscure it we must
the voters to con
paid consultants we
diabolical masters creating
sly illusions to blind our client’s tribe
Lisa at dVerse: Poetics -- "Halloweeny Humans" asks us to write about a dislikable human trait. She also introduces us to a new poetic form, the Duodora, which we can choose to use. Duodora Form a quatorzain made up of 2 septets. syllabic, 4/6/5/5/5/10/10 syllables per line. rhymed Axxxxxb Axxxxxb L1 is repeated as a refrain that begins the 2nd stanza. x is unrhymed. Enjoy more at Mr. Linky.
Autumnal severance
season’s flashing tonality
present past present future
the shin hurt of childhood quarrel
aging fruit and jarring tumbler
last year’s fashion muffler, tomorrow’s cinder
moth-eaten “do my bones look big in this?” sweater
witch’s brew of prescription medicines
growing old is time’s obscurer
a flash of autumnal red
like twinkling stars
fade and fall
For Sammi's Day 6 ("witches brew") and Day 7 ("Do my bones look big in this?")
A-Souling
“Hey ho, nobody home . . . ?”
His sing-song question fell on no ears but hers,
deaf all others to its celebratory tones
the night of All Hallow’s Eve.
Tenor voice attuned to hearth,
lights in hands they enter
to find soul cakes laid on barrels,
beer and apples.
None heard him but her,
would never leave her
till her heart stopped, like his:
a toast before departing,
as midnight strikes.
“I will come and sing no more
’til this time next year.”
Soul cakes? A-souling? Unfamiliar with these terms are you, like I was? According to wikipedia, soul cakes are spicy shortbread-like biscuits given out to “soulers” who come round during the days of Allhallowtide singing and saying prayers, a’souling, in fact.
One traditional song, “A-Souling,” was made familiar to us by Peter, Paul, and Mary who sung it as a Christmas song, which for most parts of England it has become. The group Lothlorien sings it in the traditional mood of Allhallowtide.
Click here for the lyrics.
Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt: "question," exactly 84 words Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain -- Day 4: "soul cakes" Punam's RagTag Daily Prompt: "celebration"
Along the rolling hills I hear
your mournful singing haunting clear
yet windblown.
Under the moon’s vapid eye
how can I, elf, to you deny
your windsongs?
I’ll keep you under lock and key
lest you flee and escape from me
as windstorm.
The elvish king shall have you back
when he returns the one I lack
now windbound.
On Hallow’s Eve we’ll make a swap
my child returned, you with your harp,
— home windward.
Grace at dVerse challenges us today to write a Compound Word Verse, an unfamiliar form to most ous I daresay. She writes: "The Compound Word Verse is a poetry form invented by Margaret R. Smith that consists of five 3-line stanzas, for a total of 15 lines. The last line of each stanza ends in a compound word and these compound words share a common stem word which is taken from the title. (In the first example below the stem word is “moon” from the title “Moonlighting”; the compound words related to the title are moondust, moonbeams, moonsongs, etc.) The Compound Word Verse (3 lines) has a set rhyme scheme and meter as follows: Rhyme Scheme: a,a,b Syllable/Meter: 8, 8, 3 Click on Mr. Linky to read more and join in!
Strange the tale of an elven king’s son
Who lured a maid into the land of the young.
There she took tea, fated never to return
To the land of the living where hopes reigned.
Once she escaped her besom buddies of elven-land
But euphoria died when her long black locks turned white
As haunting memories of the land of the young
Made her yearn for the revelry of elven friends.
On the steps of a cathedral she stood skyward gazing
Behind her from the woods the elven king’s son stood imploring
But she had found a love beside which earthly magic paled
A love eternal from her Maker that over all prevailed.
“I cannot go with you, sweet heir of elven halls
Though surely will I miss you and all your kith and kin.
I have chosen wisely with wisdom from above
To live and die a daughter of the God who does me love.”
The elven lords and ladies left behind remained wondering
Their days of wine, their nights of dance, youth forever blooming
Thrown aside by a poor maid as if they all were nothing
Impressed them not, sincere or not, and soon she was forgotten.
Crimson's Creative Challenge #154 prompt: Image credit Crispina Kemp RagTag Daily Prompt Thursday: "Euphoria" Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain vol ii: Day 2 – "Besom Buddies" Eugi's Weekly Prompt: "Haunting"
Six little kittens on the graveyard shift
On the factory floor in a corner quilt
Heard the clock chime midnight
Heard the place get real quiet
On Halloween.
One went to investigate
The others seemed to hesitate
Heard a “mew” from the factory floor
Where a skeleton hanging on a door
Danced on Halloween.
Two little kittens ventured forth
One to the south, the other north
Past dancing bones until a scream
From a vampire with a ghoulish gleam
Raised furs on Halloween.
Three little kittens waited a space
Then putting on their bravest face
Ran to the aid of their kin so true
When a gravelly voice shouted “Boo!”
A grinning goblin on Halloween.
Six little kittens no longer were
Kittens that scampered here and there
Now they flew in the dead of night
As bats that gave the workers fright
Purring as they slept on Halloween.
Sammi's 13 Days of Samhain vol ii: Day 1 – Graveyard Shift
I might parrot-fashion a torn heart
question short-term memory lost
far off find the Sultan’s three wives
above the flame trees
satiated, muffled by autumns
roots wounded in the woods
snaking whisper: find
a cracked bell
voice of the rain
under my tongue
wandering scent
Go nowhere: red fox, intrepid
a straight man with name
that fails to show, lost and found
on the Kansas Prairie
I stalk: ragweed, Calvin Coolidge
missing persons, prize peacock,
around the breakfast table, hot
air in the mirror-testing
home, little fool
‘And the lost were found,’ select:
response, resolution, finding,
return to re-write or even reorder
visiting gatherings of fourteen
poker hands, under the unturned stone,
hidden deep, secret, wakening,
to the rain crying.
What is a found poem? Click here. Laura at dVerse Poetics: Lost Poems and Found Poetry asks that we pick one of two options, of which I picked "finding a poem within a poem or prose." Instead of selecting only one of the ‘lost poems’ (or one of your own finding where something or someone is lost ) and re-writing it is as a ‘Found poem’. I stretched the rule to include all of Laura's prompt, prose and poetry, to compose my found poem.So I encourage you to go to the dVerse poetics prompt to see the text used, containing Susan Rich, Pablo Neruda, Peter Schneider, Maxine Chernoff, and Laura Bloomsbury's prose. Read more at Mr. Linky and join in!
This Jolly Beggar 