Helen Langs
from Good Housekeeping magazine
| (prob 1960s)
The night is moonless, moody, proper haunt
Of the small spooks and spacemen
Who were your children.
False faces under thatches of unlikely hair
Sprout whiskers, lumpish noses,
paintbrush brows, ferocious fangs –
but mouse-bright eyes and chubby hands
and little feet that scamper
Belie the bravest of these ghastly,
Vastly sheeted figures.
They scuttle up the garden paths, the curious wind
Catching at their precariously pinned
and cobbled costumes.
They pant damply though slipping masks, and shout
"Shell out!" …"Anything for Halloween?"
…and "Trick or treat!"
Bracing expectant baskets
for the neighborly rain of cookies,
Toffee apples, peanuts, bubble gum,
jelly beans, popcorn, candy kisses –
Awful, lawful loot that's sampled on the run
As skeletons, pirates Indians,
ghosts and gypsy queens,
Cowboys and clowns, beatniks,
Witches and wobble-winged angels
Mingle in the mist, briefly bewitched and parent-free.
It's Halloween!
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07-Nov-2011 11:42 PM