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?).
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
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.
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 cakesare 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.
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!
For lyrics and translation to the song, click here.
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 Poetryasks 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!