Halloween Poems
It's Halloween!
Michael R. Burch
If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;
if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads
uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!
If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;
if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams
of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!
If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise
to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise
while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the Devil's lies...
it's Halloween!
Thin Kin
Michael R. Burch
Skeleton!
Tell us what you lack...
the ability to love,
your flesh so slack?
Will we frighten you,
grown as pale & unsound,
when we also haunt
the unhallowed ground?
The Witch
Michael R. Burch
her fingers draw into claws
she cackles through rotting teeth...
u ask "are there witches?"
pshaw!
(yet she has my belief)
Vampires
Michael R. Burch
Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we dread the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross: such common things.
Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we shrink from his voice.
Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.
We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he prays to find us...
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.
Revenge of the Halloween Monsters
Michael R. Burch
The Halloween monsters, incensed,
keep howling, and may be UNFENCED!
They’re angry that children with treats
keep throwing their trash IN THE STREETS!
You can check it out on your computer:
Google says, “Please don’t be a POLLUTER!”
The Halloween monsters agree,
so if you’re a litterbug, FLEE!
Kids, if you’d like more treats this year
and don’t want to cower in FEAR,
please make all the mean monsters happy,
and they’ll hand out sweet treats like they’re sappy!
So if you eat treats on the drag
and don't want huge monsters to nag,
please put all loose trash in your BAG!
Pale Though Her Eyes
Michael R. Burch
Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot
born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,
dreaming of blood,
her fangs, white, baring,
revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring...
Like Angels, Winged
Michael R. Burch
Like angels: winged,
shimmering, misunderstood,
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.
They are as they are...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full
and dream of us by day.
Their eyes, hypnotic, alluring,
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather...
to see, to touch, to feel.
Held in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, so old!,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.
Solicitation
Michael R. Burch
He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging
my presence with a tip of his hat, always the gentleman,
and his eyes are on mine like a snake’s on a bird’s:
quizzical, mesmerizing.
He cocks his head as though something he heard intrigues him
(although I hear nothing) and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense;
his words are full of desire and loathing, and while I hear everything,
he says nothing I understand.
The moon shines, maniacal, *****, as he takes my hand whispering
"Our time has come"...And so we stroll together creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.
Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.
He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared.
His teeth are long, yellow and hard, his face bearded and haggard.
A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp.
My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly.
He likes it like that.
Siren Song
Michael R. Burch
The Lorelei’s
soft cries
entreat mariners to save her...
How can they resist
her faint voice through the mist?
Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.
The Wild Hunt
Michael R. Burch
Near Devon, the hunters appear in the sky
with Artur and Bedwyr sounding the call;
and the others, laughing, go dashing by.
They only appear when the moon is full:
Valerin, the King of the Tangled Wood,
and Valynt, the goodly King of Wales,
Gawain and Owain and the hearty men
who live on in many minstrels’ tales.
They seek the white stag on a moonlit moor,
or Torc Triath, the fabled boar,
or Ysgithyrwyn, or Twrch Trwyth,
the other mighty boars of myth.
They appear, sometimes, on Halloween
to chase the moon across the green,
then fade into the shadowed hills
where memory alone prevails.
Nevermore!
Michael R. Burch
Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea:
the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore,
mark her passing again.
And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her breasts and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.
The waves will never rape her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure...
She sleeps, forevermore!
She sleeps forevermore,
a virgin save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely smothered
by the restless, surging sea.
And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way...
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.
He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea...
their skeletal love, impossibility!
Copyright © Michael Burch | Year Posted 2020
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