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maxx Feb 22
I see you in the space between streetlights,
where the wind tastes like October
and the leaves whisper your name.
I told myself I wouldn’t go back there,
but memory is a cruel, old house—
doors always open, floorboards aching.

You left your sweater in my closet,
a ghost I never learned to bury.
I wear it when the air gets cold,
pretending it still smells like you,
pretending I don’t feel like the house we built
has been condemned.

It’s funny how we used to love the fall,
how we swore we’d never be like them,
the people who left when things got hard,
the people who stopped saying goodnight.
And now, I walk past strangers
wearing your face in their shadows,
and you, somewhere,
are learning how to love without me.

I don’t know what’s scarier—
the ghosts, or the fact
that I let myself become one.
inspired by halloween by noah kahan, but not incredibly obvious
pilgrims Feb 10
Now! is the time
for those loved least
A howl!
assembles the spooks, kooks, and beasts

An autumnal lense looks
at cracks between light
Be brave! Embrace inspired fright
Reach into the shadow
and we just might make friends
with the spectre called Life

We are alive! Let's celebrate this
divergent experience we co-create
Pretend this came out around October.
In the heart of the graveyard, where darkness lingers,
Trees bend and sway their dancing skeletal fingers,
Whispers of ghosts fill the midnight air,
A chilling ghostly melody, a silent prayer.

Demons lurking, their eyes aglow,
Dancing in circles where cold winds blow.
Torches on the mausoleum flame and shadows dance,
As spirits awaken from the grave with the night's advance.

The smoke rises higher, a sparkling fire,
A haunting tune from a spectral choir.
Close your eyes, stay quiet and still,
The spirits are playing, having a thrill.

In the depths of the graveyard shade,
Ghosts sing softly, a haunting serenade.
Goblins and ghouls in a flickering light,
Dancing around fires in the dark of night.

On a mid autumn's eve, when the veil is thin,
The spirits emerge and nightmares begin.
Vampires hide in the misty haze,
Their laughter echoes through a foggy maze.

The wind plays games on the fearful kind,
Graves cast eerie shadows rising behind,
Branches reaching fingers, leaves like skin,
In the heart of the graveyard where terror begins.

Firelight dances as witches take flight,
Beckoning spirits through the stillness of night.
Flames grow higher, shadows stretch long,
A chorus of spells in a caster's song.

Flee far away and don't you look back!
For the horrors are near, red eyes turned black,
Take cover in the shadows of the fallen trees,
Feel their breath on this all hallows eve!

Midnight gloom fades, the spirits retreat,
But the forest remembers their haunting beat.
When October returns and moonlight gleams,
The witches will laugh and ghosts will scream.
All Hallow's Night inspired Poetry.
TreeGoth Dec 2024
As the vampires dance in the night

They sing a tune and that tune

Rock lobster, rock lobster

The chant until the night is done

And the belly’s full of blood

Rock lobster, motion of the oceans

He was in a Jamin a giant clam

They sing hoping to attract more

And fresher meat!

Boooooooooooooooooooo!
My container lyric from rock lobster
In a faraway place and faraway time
stood square a cabin rotted pine and bramble flue.
Once haven for old crones craven - their skins thin-skinned slivers of brine;
now nary a soot line marked a witches' brew.

In the dark, swirling silver stark and creatures would quiver
held over ***-stew thither, along hymns of damning chanted.
Waggled tongues with an evil glaze would slither,
cursing in eye, toe, and liver the bubbling broth decanted.

Oh a malkin giggled and a paddock piggled;
sniggled in a mirth-marked cauldron's rubble double bubble.
With a whoosh and a swish a bony finger had wiggled,
as papery skin withered the drubble swuddle brubble.

On those blackest of nights, when wolves would fear the moon,
howls held loomed, choked on down the throat of dusk.
Hatred uttered its sleepy breath, pitch-entombed
and justice marooned under a tar most brusque.

Shadows danced incantation
for an occultish creation, oh the devil's bidding be done!
Flamed carnation, neither here nor there god-fearing,
cackling a primrose coronation; the stirring spoon spun!

Death-catcher chimes hung close upon the entry;
a dust since turn of century marred bone;
witches’ wart-encrusted noses crinkled at gentry;
chenille voices sung with celerity a hellish praise: Divinum Occultum.

A little duende ran down the cauldron,
gloom chanting a chant come out with a hurl.
Burnt feet chasing away all ghosts ‘n goblins,
unfurling like whisper from the concoction:

Doom upon all the world.
Some notes on terms and usage:

Flue: Another word for chimney.

Malkin & Paddock: There are quite a few meanings associated with malkin and paddock; however, I use them conjunctively as a slight nod to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where a malkin and a paddock (cat and toad) were the witches’ animals.

Piggled: Nonsense word I use to mean squirmed.

Sniggled: Eel fishing. The poor toad was dunked into the cauldron.

Rubble double bubble … drubble swuddle brubble: Onomatopoeia for a boiling cauldron, starting out steady and then boiling over.

Brusque: Abrupt or rough. Used alongside tar to create a sense of wrongness as tar is slow and sticky.

Gentry: people of high social class.

Celerity: Swiftness.

Divinum Occultum: Latin for “The Divine Secret”. A perverse take on Divinum Officium, “The Divine Duty”, or the official set of prayers used in Catholicism.

Duende (Do-en-day): Spanish/Latin American version of a gnome- or dwarf-like spirit. Depending on the type, a duende may or may not be mischievous; however, used in the context of the poem, you can be sure there’s mischief afoot.

The underlying structure of the poem mostly follows a simple A, AB, A, AB rhyming format in each stanza.
bucketb0t Nov 2024
Honoring Buckethead Halloween
romaniac bucketb0t love

De la asta am plecat,
De aceea am continuat
Fără sa am vreo așteptare
De faptul ca am fost invitat,
De unde doar am menționat

Jason and Nick, Faustian Echoes dialogues my thoughts in regards to ours, lips my feelings.

"They lie outside the boundaries that words can address; and man can only grasp those thoughts which language can express."

In eggphrastic way, I end and say
The sun gets its own shadow under Buckethead's light.
My poem to I Hate Music podcast after inviting me to talk about my muse Buckethead, hosted by Agalloch's Jason Walton and Nick Wusz. Link:
https://youtu.be/g6N0hqpwDkc?si=91Uqoo3eQXLTfc-T
Gerry Sykes Nov 2024
No one saw the hooded man
in the grain of the wood:
every night I slept face down
so I didn't have to look at him.

I'm grown up:
there are no figures
on wardrobe doors,
but some people make me hide
under the bed sheets.
I was just watching an halloween movie and it brought to mind my childhood fear of a figure I was in the grain of the wood of my wardrobe.
beth fwoah dream Nov 2024
she wore a dress of silk that day
a coral comb set in her hair
to dress her curls a dark array
all black as night, as cold as air.

a sweet seductress so beware!
no man could ever win her charms
her beauty was a vision fair
a hellish haunt that death disarms.

she walked towards her lover's house
her soul was calling out to him
as quiet as a timid mouse
her pounding heart all silent sin.

for he was flesh and he was bone
and she a ghost, a cold temptress
and in her hair she wore a comb
to match the silk of her blue dress.

so how could any man resist
her ghostly spirit, cold as night
as if the very moon that kissed
the soulful sky that shone so bright

was hunting, searching night for him
her lover waited, knew her near
her ruby lips, the lanterns dim
in distant dreams she would appear.

she wore a dress of silk that day
a coral comb set in her hair
how could she so her love betray?
i'll tell the tale and climb the stair...

the moon a phantom all despair
he shook and then a deathly cry
she cut his throat, this vision fair
and flew from him across the sky.

they buried him beneath a tree
his life that languished at her hand
and now i'll end this fantasy
of ghoulish love in spirit land!

beware the witch, beware the knell
where ghosts do flaunt the midnight cold
for devil's pave the way to hell
and steal the souls that darkness sold.
a little fun for halloween/bonfire night!
SomebodyProbably Oct 2024
Cloaked in a tapestry of evening sky
I dim my light to hide amongst the masses
If only for one night
Jack Groundhog Oct 2024
In this dim night
before the dawn of All Saints,
no need to take fright
of the spirits you acquaint —
for they are merely the ones who went on before.

Beloved dead whom we miss
reenter the world of the quick
and blow us a kiss
with a treat but no trick —
as we celebrate their return from the dark shore.
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