OctPoWriMo Day 31. The Last Halloween

OctPoWriMo Day 31. Happy Halloween

Here we are, Halloween. Congratulations!! I hope you’ve felt inspired and had a lot of fun.

Example Poem: “All Hallows Eve” by William Baer from Poems Dead and Undead(Aal)

All Hallows Eve

Standing above her open coffin,
within that pestilent place,
he stared at her colorless corpse
and stared at her lovely face.

Sensing a sense of accusation,
“Leave us alone,” he said,
and the others left the mausoleum
and left him with the dead.

He placed his hand at the top of her gown
and broke the clasps apart,
staring down at the purple scar
above her silent heart.

Then he bolted the lid, locked the door,
and saw in the lightning’s light
three ghouls who craved her rotting flesh
in the blackness of the night.

Maggots who dig up and eat the dead
in the pits of no-man’s-land,
who scented the scent of the newly-dead,
who lunged and scratched his hand.

But he smashed them back with his walking stick,
and they staggered from the shock,
then slithered away from the dead one’s tomb,
as he double-checke the lock.

But wwaiting near the graveyard gate,
under the hemlock tree,
a seuctive vampyr smiled and sid,
“Come away with me.”

He saw the fangss and famished eyes
of the tempting whore of pain,
who swiftly moved into his path
and touched his jugular vein.

But he lifted a hand of garlic flowers,
and the creature jerked and hissed
into the winds of the coming storm
and vanished in the mist.

At the ege of town, he saw the monster
nearing the torch-lit gate,
looking for its human god,
looking for its mate.

Enraged by the thunder’s thunder,
it stepped away from its place,
but calmly he grabbed the flaming torch
and burned its ugly face.

Later he heardd the werewolves howl,
up along the ridge,
as suddenly they blocked his path
before the wooden bridge.

Ravenuos, they moved to strike,
but it was far too late;
he lifted up a silver bullet,
then his .38.

He fired at the alpha-wolf,
hittinng the vicious gray
and blowinng apart its little brain
as the others ran away.

Nearing his gate, he saw the daemon,
but never broke his stridde,
and when it saw his hollow eyes,
it nodded, and stepped aside.

At last, the storm fell from the night,
as he entered the house of pain,
it fell in torrents, flashed and crashed,
and pounded sheets of rain.

Upstairs he found the silent ghost
sitting alone, undressed,
with the sharp and bloodless knife
protruding from her chest.

Being the one he’d just entombed,
his daughter, the jilted bride,
who’d come back home to nothinng
but a shocking suicide.

The specter poinnted at her heart,
but he stared across the room,
into the mirror, into his eyes,
each an empty tomb.

No wonder the creatures had cowered away,
and surely they were right,
those predators of human flesh,
those vermin of the night.

For they could only murder the body,
the part but not the whole,
but he was a far more deadly thing:
the assassin of his soul.

The storm fell down from the blackest night,
over the house of pain,
the torrents flashed and thunder-crashed
and pounded the slashing rain.

~William Baer

Prompt: Write a narrative poem about a Halloween Night.

Possible Form: Quatrain stanzas with an XAXA rhyme scheme, or Freeverse.

~

The Last Halloween

At dusk, the windows whispered grief,
 the jack-o-lanterns grinned;
a brittle moon hung low and sick,
 like bone beneath the skin.

He walked the road to Hollow Glen,
 its gravel speaking lies;
behind him, distant children laughed,
 a chorus thin as sighs.

The churchyard gate was open wide,
 a gesture half-polite;
the yews bowed down like ancient priests
 who’d long abandoned light.

A single grave, fresh-turned and neat,
 awaited candle’s gleam;
he set one down and its trembling wick
 less flame than fractured dream.

The wind rehearsed a nameless hymn,
 no saint had ever sung;
he felt it thread behind his ribs,
 where all his secrets clung.

Her name was carved in hurried script,
 the letters cracked and worn;
he pressed his palm against the stone,
 so cold it felt like scorn.

“Forgive,” he said, though silence reigned;
 the night refused reply.
Just then, the leaves began to stir,
 as if they asked him why.

A shape arose; no ghoul nor ghost;
 but memory re-arranged;
her face, still soft, yet edged with ache,
 the same, and yet so changed.

She did not breathe, yet somehow spoke
 without a tongue or breath:
“You buried what was still alive,
 and called it love, not death.”

He staggered back, his lantern fell,
 its shard of flame set free;
a moment’s spark, then darkness; pure
 and black as memory.

The earth beneath his feet seemed thin,
 a seam to worlds below;
he felt the graves sigh open wide,
 like lungs that learned to grow.

From hollows deep, the quiet rose:
 no claws, no fangs, no roar;
just every truth he’d locked away
 come marching to the door.

They circled him: the nights he lied,
 the words he never said;
the gentle hands he failed to hold,
 the tears he left for dead.

He tried to run, but time had snapped;
 the road dissolved to bone.
The moon watched on; unchanged, unmoved;
 a still, indifferent throne.

She reached again, her spectral eyes
 not cruel, but grave and wise;
he saw within them all he’d lost
 to fear he’d dressed as pride.

“Come home,” she said. “No punishment...
 just truth without disguise.”
He bowed his head, and stepped toward her,
 beneath the hollow skies.

And though no monster stalked that night,
 nor wolf nor vampire fed,
the living learned to fear his name,
 the man who walked with the dead.

By dawn, the grave was sealed once more,
 the lantern soot and stone;
but villagers still swear they hear
 two footsteps, not one, home.

Some hauntings are not chains or screams,
 nor curses etched in bone;
the worst are those of choices made,
 and made again alone.

~ Oizys.