24+ Featured and Famous Halloween Poems

Halloween, with its creepy atmosphere and playful spookiness, has inspired poets for centuries to craft haunting verses that capture the essence of this mysterious holiday. Famous Halloween poems delve into the darkness of the night, exploring themes of fear, supernatural phenomena, and the supernatural. Imagine a man being visited by a talking raven that echoes the sorrowful words ‘Nevermore.’ The sense of dread and despair it creates is immeasurable. Or imagine a picture of the Scottish Halloween traditions: burns captures the superstitions, rituals, and folklore associated with the holiday, weaving them into a poetic tapestry of celebration and mystery. These featured and famous Halloween poems below will immerse readers in the ancient customs of divination, apple-bobbing, and bonfires, preserving the essence of Halloween’s historical roots.

Additionally, there are some other featured and famous Halloween poems that offer a lighter perspective on Halloween, highlighting the playful side of the holiday. Through playful language and clever rhymes, they easily capture the joy and excitement of Halloween night, making them a favorite among children and adults.

In conclusion, these featured and famous Halloween poems, each unique in their style and tone, contribute to the rich tapestry of Halloween literature, showcasing the holiday’s diverse themes and inspiring readers to embrace the spooky spirit of this season.

1, Halloween © Robert Speights

Celebrate darkness
But we are the light
Double mindedness
Halloween fright
“It’s just a fall festival”
Thoughts in a fight
Justify our actions
When we know its not right
Fall lasts 3 months
Why celebrate this night?
Cognitive dissonance
The devils delight
Claim Sola scriptura
But the scripture we slight
Children of God
Acting canaanite
Open spiritual doors
Giving legal right
Just a warning poem
You can call me uptight
I was raised in the darkness
Christ washed me white
No compromise
Steady shine bright
God dwells inside
His hand I won’t bite
For man’s traditions
There is no appetite
Yes I know grace
Not here to indict
But grow in grace
Peter did write
2 Peter 3:18
For more insight
Now is your choice
Unfriend or ignite

2, Hello Halloween © Grenon Sheila

Witches speeding by
Don’t ask me why…
Must be Halloween time
Curiosities peak as they begin to hear the stairs creek and one falls into the pit of horror
My friend is quite the explorer
Holloween humor or trickery
At its finest…Hello Halloween
The ghoulies, goblins, rolling
pumpkin heads and creepy jagged teethed scarecrows up high on their perches
Signifies it’s time… To scare
To make aware, to treat with dares, climb through my sticky spider web I dare you to, I have something special
waiting for you, if YOU do…
I supplicate you must go in two’s
Please!! As clanging chains clash and bang in the front foyer and through the antechambers, the hollowness echoes
Screams and terror without error is heard echoing through the dark ghostly halls
The sinister ghoul sitting at the kitchen table, with his leg and arm disabled cannot grab our treats, notice the deep gashes of cuts on his cheeks where a friend was no longer able to speak, hollowed voices sound so bleak.

3, Old Hallows Eve © Sher Ali Khan

Old Hallows Eve
Under the sickle of a blood moon .
Made my way to the graveyard
For I heard that’s where the action is
Not long before I was in a jammin groove
There was skeletons jiving
Witches were flying
A real sexy minx
Gave me a wink
From her breast
A filling drink
Big breasts , narrow waist
Black panties , haunting face
Spun and spun in a reverie
At the break of dawn
I cracked a lid
Only to behold
That I was lying under a tombstone
That said —
Here lies Me.

4, One Night A Year (Gothic) © James F. Cunningham

Jack comes alive one night a year,
His skeletal body is coming alive.
He’ll feast on your unknown fear,
For one night all the dead revive.

The darkness is Jack’s real domain,
A skeleton between life and death.
Although only his bones now remain,
It’s been years since he drew a breath.

His lover was stitched together,
From the pieces that were found.
On a night with dismal weather,
Every creature gathered around.

Ghosts and goblins haunt the night,
The Witches are casting their spell.
Tonight has become an evil delight,
Jack will open the gates of hell.

Jack has always lived in nightmares,
Tries to make hard to get any sleep.
Into your sanity, Jack slowly tears,
Suddenly, into your reality, he creeps.

Overwhelming thoughts of death,
Jack laughs as fear takes a hold.
He longs to feel that last breath,
At that moment he won’t feel cold.

The dawn will soon be approaching,
His time has nearly come to an end.
The power of the grave encroaching,
To the realm of the dead, they descend

5, Halloween Delight © James F. Cunningham

The sun shines through the window,
On this place turning dark and cold.
In a world being fueled by innuendo,
Here pieces of life have been sold.

The peace you had here is now gone,
There is nothing left here to be found.
You were cast away just like a pawn,
Within their lies, you began to drown.

This place turned into an empty shell,
The good times you had slipped away.
In a terrible way, it became a living hell,
The price became too high for you to pay.

Where you went nobody really knows,
Simply vanished one night in the dark.
In the fields, the Deadman flowers grow,
At night the ghostly black dogs still bark.

The cabin is a monument to shadows,
Filled with darkness and deep despair.
Your every fear begins to transpose,
Feelings of death are always there.

The Season of the Witch is coming,
Most others call it Beggars’ Night.
Inside you, your fears are humming,
A few will call it Halloween Delight.

6, The Raven © Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!

7, Haunted © Siegfried Sassoon

Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had sucked the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.

Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,
His face a little whiter than the dusk.
A drone of sultry wings flicker’d in his head.

The end of sunset burning thro’ the boughs
Died in a smear of red; exhausted hours
Cumber’d, and ugly sorrows hemmed him in.

He thought: “Somewhere there’s thunder,” as he strove
To shake off dread; he dared not look behind him,
But stood, the sweat of horror on his face.
He blunder’d down a path, trampling on thistles,
In sudden race to leave the ghostly trees.
And: “Soon I’ll be in open fields,” he thought,
And half remembered starlight on the meadows,
Scent of mown grass and voices of tired men,
Fading along the field-paths; home and sleep
And cool-swept upland spaces, whispering leaves,
And far off the long churring night-jar’s note.

But something in the wood, trying to daunt him,
Led him confused in circles through the thicket.
He was forgetting his old wretched folly,
And freedom was his need; his throat was choking.
Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs,

And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps.
Mumbling: “I will get out! I must get out!”
Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom,
Pausing to listen in a space ‘twixt thorns,
He peers around with peering, frantic eyes.
An evil creature in the twilight looping,
Flapped blindly in his face. Beating it off,
He screeched in terror, and straightway something clambered
Heavily from an oak, and dropped, bent double,
To shamble at him zigzag, squat and bestial.

Headlong he charges down the wood, and falls
With roaring brain–agony–the snap’t spark–
And blots of green and purple in his eyes.
Then the slow fingers groping on his neck,
And at his heart the strangling clasp of death.

8, Halloween © Bryon Richard Smith

Orange and black for Halloween
The time of year to howl and scream

Monsters are loose our safety is gone
A deadly time from dusk till dawn

Black cats, ghosts and skeletons too
All are brought forth by a witch’s brew

A silvery moon will shine on us all
Together we’ll come before nightfall

As icy fingers of cold black death
Begins to choke and take our breath

We all turn around and come to find
They’re everywhere it’s zombie time

Autumn’s our favorite time of year
We all stay close to quell our fear

9, A Child’s Nightmare © Robert Graves

Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, “Cat!… Cat!… Cat!…”

That one word was all he said,
That one word through all my sleep,
In monotonous mock despair.
Nonsense may be light as air,
But there’s Nonsense that can keep
Horror bristling round the head,
When a voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, “Cat!… Cat!… Cat!…”

He had faded, he was gone
Years ago with Nursery Land,
When he leapt on me again
From the clank of a night train,
Overpowered me foot and head,
Lapped my blood, while on and on
The old voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, “Cat!… Cat!… Cat!…”

Morphia drowsed, again I lay
In a crater by High Wood:
He was there with straddling legs,
Staring eyes as big as eggs,
Purring as he lapped my blood,
His black bulk darkening the day,
With a voice cruel and flat,
“Cat!… Cat!… Cat!… Cat!…” he said, “Cat!… Cat!…”

When I’m shot through heart and head,
And there’s no choice but to die,
The last word I’ll hear, no doubt,
Won’t be “Charge!” or “Bomb them out!”
Nor the stretcher-bearer’s cry,
“Let that body be, he’s dead!”
But a voice cruel and flat
Saying for ever, “Cat!… Cat!… Cat!”

10, What Shall I Be This Halloween? (One For The Kids) © Dominic Windram

What shall I be on this most dreaded night
Of Halloween? Shall I look ghostly white?
What mask or costume shall I choose to wear?
Should I copy a werewolf’s weird stare
Or perhaps I could look like an evil clown?
Or dress in Dracula’s long, flowing gown?
I’d also need a set of sharpened teeth
And would have to dye my hair black it seems.
Could I be a cold eyed vampire bat;
With deadly wings that continually flap?
Could I be a lost, wandering zombie,
Or a terrible, wailing banshee queen?
Or how about Frankenstein’s ungodly
Creature or maybe a bandaged Mummy?
Or a cackling witch with broomstick and spells?
Or a wild demon from the depths of hell?
Or The Grim Reaper with hourglass and scythe?
Or a shrieking scarecrow with bloodshot eyes?
Or a devil: with fork, horns and face painted red?
Perhaps, I could put on a creepy pumpkin head?
Whatever I wear on that dreaded night,
I’m certain to give someone such a fright!

11, The Vampire © Conrad Aiken

She rose among us where we lay.
She wept, we put our work away.
She chilled our laughter, stilled our play;
And spread a silence there.
And darkness shot across the sky,
And once, and twice, we heard her cry;
And saw her lift white hands on high
And toss her troubled hair.

What shape was this who came to us,
With basilisk eyes so ominous,
With mouth so sweet, so poisonous,
And tortured hands so pale?
We saw her wavering to and fro,
Through dark and wind we saw her go;
Yet what her name was did not know;
And felt our spirits fail.

We tried to turn away; but still
Above we heard her sorrow thrill;
And those that slept, they dreamed of ill
And dreadful things:
Of skies grown red with rending flames
And shuddering hills that cracked their frames;
Of twilights foul with wings;

And skeletons dancing to a tune;
And cries of children stifled soon;
And over all a blood-red moon
A dull and nightmare size.
They woke, and sought to go their ways,
Yet everywhere they met her gaze,
Her fixed and burning eyes.

Who are you now, —we cried to her—
Spirit so strange, so sinister?
We felt dead winds above us stir;
And in the darkness heard
A voice fall, singing, cloying sweet,
Heavily dropping, though that heat,
Heavy as honeyed pulses beat,
Slow word by anguished word.

And through the night strange music went
With voice and cry so darkly blent
We could not fathom what they meant;
Save only that they seemed
To thin the blood along our veins,
Foretelling vile, delirious pains,
And clouds divulging blood-red rains
Upon a hill undreamed.

And this we heard: “Who dies for me,
He shall possess me secretly,
My terrible beauty he shall see,
And slake my body’s flame.
But who denies me cursed shall be,
And slain, and buried loathsomely,
And slimed upon with shame.”

And darkness fell. And like a sea
Of stumbling deaths we followed, we
Who dared not stay behind.
There all night long beneath a cloud
We rose and fell, we struck and bowed,
We were the ploughman and the ploughed,
Our eyes were red and blind.

And some, they said, had touched her side,
Before she fled us there;
And some had taken her to bride;
And some lain down for her and died;
Who had not touched her hair,
Ran to and fro and cursed and cried
And sought her everywhere.

“Her eyes have feasted on the dead,
And small and shapely is her head,
And dark and small her mouth,” they said,
“And beautiful to kiss;
Her mouth is sinister and red
As blood in moonlight is.”

Then poets forgot their jeweled words
And cut the sky with glittering swords;
And innocent souls turned carrion birds
To perch upon the dead.
Sweet daisy fields were drenched with death,
The air became a charnel breath,
Pale stones were splashed with red.

Green leaves were dappled bright with blood
And fruit trees murdered in the bud;
And when at length the dawn
Came green as twilight from the east,
And all that heaving horror ceased,
Silent was every bird and beast,
And that dark voice was gone.

No word was there, no song, no bell,
No furious tongue that dream to tell;
Only the dead, who rose and fell
Above the wounded men;
And whisperings and wails of pain
Blown slowly from the wounded grain,
Blown slowly from the smoking plain;
And silence fallen again.

Until at dusk, from God knows where,
Beneath dark birds that filled the air,
Like one who did not hear or care,
Under a blood-red cloud,
An aged ploughman came alone
And drove his share through flesh and bone,
And turned them under to mould and stone;
All night long he ploughed.

12, The Little Ghost © Edna St. Vincent Millay

I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked.

And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone—
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on.

By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown’s white folds among.

I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do—and oh!
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!

She bent above my favourite mint
With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled—there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.

She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go.

And where the wall is built in new
And is of ivy bare
She paused—then opened and passed through
A gate that once was there.

13, The Haunted Oak © Paul Laurence Dunbar

Pray why are you so bare, so bare,
Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
Runs a shudder over me?

My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
And sap ran free in my veins,
But I saw in the moonlight dim and weird
A guiltless victim’s pains.

I bent me down to hear his sigh;
I shook with his gurgling moan,
And I trembled sore when they rode away,
And left him here alone.

They’d charged him with the old, old crime,
And set him fast in jail:
Oh, why does the dog howl all night long,
And why does the night wind wail?

He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath,
And he raised his hand to the sky;
But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear,
And the steady tread drew nigh.

Who is it rides by night, by night,
Over the moonlit road?
And what is the spur that keeps the pace,
What is the galling goad?

And now they beat at the prison door,
“Ho, keeper, do not stay!
We are friends of him whom you hold within,
And we fain would take him away

“From those who ride fast on our heels
With mind to do him wrong;
They have no care for his innocence,
And the rope they bear is long.”

They have fooled the jailer with lying words,
They have fooled the man with lies;
The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,
And the great door open flies.

Now they have taken him from the jail,
And hard and fast they ride,
And the leader laughs low down in his throat,
As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black,
And the doctor one of white,
And the minister, with his oldest son,
Was curiously bedight.

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now?
‘Tis but a little space,
And the time will come when these shall dread
The mem’ry of your face.

I feel the rope against my bark,
And the weight of him in my grain,
I feel in the throe of his final woe
The touch of my own last pain.

And never more shall leaves come forth
On the bough that bears the ban;
I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead,
From the curse of a guiltless man.

And ever the judge rides by, rides by,
And goes to hunt the deer,
And ever another rides his soul
In the guise of a mortal fear.

And ever the man he rides me hard,
And never a night stays he;
For I feel his curse as a haunted bough,
On the trunk of a haunted tree.

14, The Spider and the Fly: A Fable © Mary Howitt

I.
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said a spider to a fly;
” ‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I have many pretty things to shew when you are there.”
“Oh no, no!” said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”

II.
“I’m sure you must be weary, with soaring up so high,
Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the spider to the fly.
“There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin;
And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in.”
“Oh no, no!” said the little fly, “for I’ve often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!”

III.
Said the cunning spider to the fly, “Dear friend, what shall I do,
To prove the warm affection I’ve always felt for you?
I have, within my pantry, good store of all that’s nice;
I’m sure you’re very welcome – will you please to take a slice?”
“Oh no, no!” said the little fly, “kind sir, that cannot be,”
I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.”

IV.
“Sweet creature!” said the spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise.
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf,
If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”
“I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say,
And bidding you good morning now, I’ll call another day.”

V.
The spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew, the silly fly would soon come back again:
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner, sly,
And set his table ready, to dine upon the fly.
Then he went out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
“Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple – there’s a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead.”

VI.
Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue:–
Thinking only of her crested head, poor foolish thing! – At last
Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast.

VII.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlour – but she ne’er came out again!
– And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed:
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart, and ear, and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.

15, It’s a FUNNY! Happy © Anonymous

The Bra Brigade

They do exist
The work misfits
Anger with it twists
The radio said, it persist

Looking…
INCONSPICUOUS
Thinking it is
TOTALLY RIDICULOUS
Thought this convo was ageless

The well-known bra
Would be a subject
Of any ridicule parlayed
With it or without one
The subject of today, begun

Bra brigades in tow
Stand around, criticizing
Even if nothing will show
To make a ‘point’ of what THEY know

Option is ones own
I would say without delay
If not hurting anyone in any way
Why say anything it’s just a cliche.

16, Happy Hallowen © Hippie Sonnenberg

Ghouls and Goblins will walk tonight,
The Ghosts will haunt from out of sight.
The Headless Horseman shall ride again,
It’s Halloween, let the fun begin.

Decaying Zombies, return from the dead,
The Boogieman crawls into your bed.
Werewolves stalk you on the street,
Hey ! It’s Halloween, let’s Trick-or-treat.

The Mummies rise up from the tomb,
And Freddy Krueger is in your room.
Frankenstein will make you scream,
Oh, one more thing…….. Happy Halloween!

17, Halloween © Liesbeth Gregory

Walking through life with blinders on
you just don’t want to see
About all the pain and suffering
that goes on around you and me

You just don’t want to hear it all
the night that holds the screams
So you try to block it out that call
For you were so scared it would come for you

You know the bloodbaths that are there
You just walked very fast
Because you thought that if you walked slower
they would get you in their grasp

Oh how this all is just a nightmare here
you didn’t know what to do
The only thing that you then hear around
was just a heap of fear

You just wish that this would stop
your nerves were fragile through all this
you hoped they wouldn’t see
That you were on the streets then too

And knew you had no business being there
For they were roaming through the streets
they needed new blood to feed
it all seems just too real you went on

You were so very scared
for just this night, this Halloween
it all seems just too real
the screaming and the smell of blood

was just a fantasie then
but this was how it all feels.
was just a fantasy then

18, Halloween © Bob Taub

I have always been keen
With the Coming of Halloween
Seeing the children in their costumes
Like witches and goblins and ghosts

With bags in their hands
Calling out trick or treat
But there were those that threw eggs
At some poor souls house

Then there’s Guy Fawkes night
In England to be found
Who wanted to burn down
The parliament Houses

But did not succeed
Now each Guy Fawkes night
His effigy they burn
But it all comes down as Halloween

When candies and things fill the bags some nasty folks put in pins
And razors and things
Into apples and oranges as well
So each parent must inspect the bags

But even then Enjoy Halloween
The excitement on the children’s faces
Is so wonderous to see
That’s why Halloween is exciting to me.
“Keep checking those bags to keep your child safe”

19, The Night Wind © Eugene Field

Have you ever heard the wind go “Yooooo”?
t‘T is a pitiful sound to hear!
tIt seems to chill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear.
‘T is the voice of the night that broods outside
When folk should be asleep,
And many and many’s the time I’ve cried
To the darkness brooding far and wide
Over the land and the deep:
“Whom do you want, O lonely night,
That you wail the long hours through?”
And the night would say in its ghostly way:
“Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!
Yoooooooo!”

20, Hallowe’en © Joel Benton

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite
All are on their rounds to-night,—
In the wan moon’s silver ray
Thrives their helter-skelter play.

Fond of cellar, barn, or stack
True unto the almanac,
They present to credulous eyes
Strange hobgoblin mysteries.

Cabbage-stumps—straws wet with dew—
Apple-skins, and chestnuts too,
And a mirror for some lass
Show what wonders come to pass.

Doors they move, and gates they hide
Mischiefs that on moonbeams ride
Are their deeds,—and, by their spells,
Love records its oracles.

Don’t we all, of long ago
By the ruddy fireplace glow,
In the kitchen and the hall,
Those queer, coof-like pranks recall?

Every shadows were they then—
But to-night they come again;
Were we once more but sixteen
Precious would be Hallowe’en.

21, Haunted Houses © Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

22, Mr. Macklin’s Jack O’Lantern © David McCord

Mr. Macklin takes his knife
And carves the yellow pumpkin face:
Three holes bring eyes and nose to life,
The mouth has thirteen teeth in place.
Then Mr. Macklin just for fun
Transfers the corn-cob pipe from his
Wry mouth to Jack’s, and everyone
Dies laughing! O what fun it is
Till Mr. Macklin draws the shade
And lights the candle in Jack’s skull.
Then all the inside dark is made
As spooky and as horrorful
As Halloween, and creepy crawl
The shadows on the tool-house floor,
With Jack’s face dancing on the wall.
O Mr. Macklin! where’s the door?

23, Halloween © Arthur Peterson

Out I went into the meadow,
Where the moon was shining brightly,
And the oak-tree’s lengthening shadows
On the sloping sward did lean;
For I longed to see the goblins,
And the dainty-footed fairies,
And the gnomes, who dwell in caverns,
But come forth on Halloween.
“All the spirits, good and evil,
Fay and pixie, witch and wizard,
On this night will sure be stirring,”
Thought I, as I walked along;
“And if Puck, the merry wanderer,
Or her majesty, Titania,
Or that Mab who teases housewives
If their housewifery be wrong,

Should but condescend to meet me”—
But my thoughts took sudden parting,
For I saw, a few feet from me,
Standing in the moonlight there,
A quaint, roguish little figure,
And I knew ’twas Puck, the trickster,
By the twinkle of his bright eyes
Underneath his shaggy hair.

Yet I felt no fear of Robin,
Salutation brief he uttered,
Laughed and touched me on the shoulder,
And we lightly walked away;
And I found that I was smaller,
For the grasses brushed my elbows,
And the asters seemed like oak-trees,
With their trunks so tall and gray.

Swiftly as the wind we traveled,
Till we came unto a garden,
Bright within a gloomy forest,
Like a gem within the mine;
And I saw, as we grew nearer,
That the flowers so blue and golden
Were but little men and women,
Who amongst the green did shine.

But ’twas marvelous the resemblance
Their bright figures bore to blossoms,
As they smiled, and danced, and courtesied,
Clad in yellow, pink and blue;
That fair dame, my eyes were certain,
Who among them moved so proudly,
Was my moss-rose, while her ear-rings
Sparkled like the morning dew.

Here, too, danced my pinks and pansies,
Smiling, gayly, as they used to
When, like beaux bedecked and merry,
They disported in the sun;
There, with meek eyes, walked a lily,
While the violets and snow-drops
Tripped it with the lordly tulips:
Truant blossoms, every one.

Then spoke Robin to me, wondering:
“These blithe fairies are the spirits
Of the flowers which all the summer
Bloom beneath its tender sky;
When they feel the frosty fingers
Of the autumn closing round them,
They forsake their earthborn dwellings,
Which to earth return and die,

“As befits things which are mortal.
But these spirits, who are deathless,
Care not for the frosty autumn,
Nor the winter long and keen;
But, from field, and wood, and garden,
When their summer’s tasks are finished,
Gather here for dance and music,
As of old, on Halloween.”

Long, with Puck, I watched the revels,
Till the gray light of the morning
Dimmed the luster of Orion,
Starry sentry overhead;
And the fairies, at that warning,
Ceased their riot, and the brightness
Faded from the lonely forest,
And I knew that they had fled.

Ah, it ne’er can be forgotten,
This strange night I learned the secret—
That within each flower a busy
Fairy lives and works unseen
Seldom is ’t to mortals granted
To behold the elves and pixies,
To behold the merry spirits,
Who come forth on Halloween.

24, Theme in Yellow © Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

25, Dusk in Autumn © Sara Teasdale

The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches likes an eye.

And thro’ the nursery window-pane
The witches have a fire again,
Just like the ones we make,—
And now I know they’re having tea,
I wish they’d give a cup to me,
With witches’ currant cake

26, Halloween Confession © Anonymous

During the month of October we manipulate our spiders.
Usually the house is ours and the arachnids are outsiders.
But at this time of year we let them stay in for a vacation.
In exchange for heat and board, they make our Halloween decorations.
Each corner will be hung with a one off bespoke web,
Crafted by our beasties from all natural organic thread.
The slugs are also welcome for this limited period of time.
We invite them to criss-cross our kitchen with a stylish pattern of slime
“Oh wow” our friends exclaim when they see the decor at our party,
“So great for the environment, but yet beautiful and arty!”
Listening from the shadows, our mini lodgers go berserk.
They are shocked at how immoral we are, taking credit for their work.
When the spooky celebration is over, all human guests have left,
This is when our little artists see just how mean we get
We slap them with an eviction notice, their contract has expired
We no longer require their products, all spiders and slugs are fired.
There is a minor twinge of guilt as we escort them out the door
And destroy their unique creations by scrubbing the walls and floors.
We sometimes worry they’ll take revenge by night when we’re in bed,
But, meh, they only live a year, soon they’ll all be dead!