I too enjoyed both Gluck and Sexton. It’s been over 30 years since I’ve read Anne’s one! I especially love how you titled your poem. I love the whole thing!
Great group of poems, Maya. The Gluck poem has always been one of my favorites and seems to me to be one of the quintessential Gluck poems with its suggestion of a fairy or folk tale, the spare but intense images, the expert use of sound and rhythm with the elongated vowels and variation of stresses to slow the poem. Those spondees! In every way, “toothed moon” is so unforgettable. And the last line set apart with its long vowel sounds, it’s anapest/iamb/anapest bringing the poem to a perfect close, both in image and sound. So brilliant!
The Gluck and Sexton poems especially spoke to me today.
And thank you for the prompt! Here goes:
“Jaywalkers”
Those who fear the dead
have certainly not met
The Living.
Nothing scares the bejesus
out of me more
than bumping into
one of those sugared-up bags,
all chill and no fulfill,
costumed-up for a customary life,
as they walk by, dim-lamped,
forgetting to look
the dissolving hour
directly in the eye.
🎃
Love it!
Wow wow wowwwww!!!
I too enjoyed both Gluck and Sexton. It’s been over 30 years since I’ve read Anne’s one! I especially love how you titled your poem. I love the whole thing!
The Spirit Speaks
I wake to find the window open again.
Nudged, pushed, shoved, flung -
Your rage escalated. Eighteen months.
I know what comes next.
It’s Halloween. Can’t you wait?
Tomorrow’s all yours: Day of the Dead
When you get to do your worst.
Today, just let me drink my coffee first.
I absolutely LOVE that third stanza and the very subtle clever chime between “worst” and “first” 👏🏼✨
Thank you, Maya!
I totally missed the prompts! See how badly he’s messing with me? 😱😱😱👻
No costume…you ain’t
Living unless fear
Has captured more
Waiting.
Unanswered doubt, soul chilling
November 5
No need, sugar doesn’t
Fix this now, please.
Loved this!!!
Susan, you nailed it. Where we live now.🙏
The living room window, nearest the kitchen, keeps opening on its own.
Over the summer I didn’t notice, much.
Now I’m clearly on notice. Your message
Escalates, window thrown open wider
Always when I’m turned away from you.
The chill I feel. It’s fear, fear itself
No matter how much sugar I spin
However much I try to sweeten the pot
It’s your recipe. And the pink bouffant
Beehive hair I wear: you see through me:
It’s a costume. I melt, a witch, and not the one you married.
So good—and that last line!!!!
🙏🫶
I have enjoyed both poems, especially knowing about your poltergeist. Stay safe!
Readying for this night – a tease of fear
more sugar fills my pantry than any day this year.
One night so many years ago
my oldest child ignored my warning of too much candy
learned the hard way – the lesson of overdoing.
The costume long forgotten, the chill of the memory
of my oldest child crumbled on the floor
living to greet another day.
Who Will I Be Today?
Every day I put on a costume
To reflect some aspect of my personality
I am a living example of my wardrobe choices
Some days I am sweet as sugar
Other days I seem to be more chill
Hiding behind my fear that
You may not like me anyway
My costume breeds fear
a living sugar skull.
Chill, bones!
And of course, it’s got to be Heaney 🎃
It's that time of year
The elderly fear
Children in costumes
Children in costumes
Night air has a chill perfume
Children wanting treats
Children wanting treats
Sugar and sweets
The one night they know, it's worth living!
🎃🔥🪄🎃
Great group of poems, Maya. The Gluck poem has always been one of my favorites and seems to me to be one of the quintessential Gluck poems with its suggestion of a fairy or folk tale, the spare but intense images, the expert use of sound and rhythm with the elongated vowels and variation of stresses to slow the poem. Those spondees! In every way, “toothed moon” is so unforgettable. And the last line set apart with its long vowel sounds, it’s anapest/iamb/anapest bringing the poem to a perfect close, both in image and sound. So brilliant!
Turnip In Limbo
Poor Jack, shivering
coatless with candled neep
to light his memory of living.
He cannot stay but wanders
smelling wax perfume.
Costume in tatters,
still he remembers
bite of sugar on the hill.
Here goes my little Halloween poem :)
Day of the Dead / Night of the Living
On All Hallows Eve I think of destruction,
real and imagined, manmade and
nature’s thumbprint, flooded streets,
bombed church shells. Holy desecration
leaves only the buried and gone safe.
Record highs the day before snow
dampens the children’s parade,
it’s frightening how the seasons swirl
together, like blood and mud, when
the veil between the breathing and
the dead is as sheer as a ghostly bedsheet—
and soon we will we greet neighbors,
exchange smiles, share sweets,
treat one another as members of
the living troupe, ring doorbells,
knock raw knuckles against sturdy
wood, traipse through the trees, shiver with
enjoyment because today we love to feel
fear, the sugary, artificial kind, a distraction
from the cape of horror, thick as October fog
hovering above slick brick, then ceasing
to exist. Let us strip off these costumes, bare
to the bone, chilled skin against radiant
skin, a different sense of dread entirely.
Gorgeous, Cate!!! Wow!!!!
Thank you for the inspirational nudge! Happy Samhain/Halloween/Day of the Dead to all!
In costume daily,
I swallow candy
by the handful,
tricking myself
with sugar and fear,
acting chill while
avoiding the mirror.
For the poems, love Charles Simic always.
My biggest fears
surrounding All Hallows Eve
is that any costume I wear
will look too much like myself
and that any sugar I swallow
will not be sweet at all, but rather,
something icy and cold,
leaving me chilled
to the bone.
All Hallows gave me a cholly when "the soul crept out of the tree." All Hallows Night seems familiar because of the house cleaning and the haunting.
oh Keats ❤️
A Diabetic's Addiction
I live in fear of sugar's sweet attraction,
Its deadliness costumed as tempting
candy, pie, or cake. The chill, the thrill,
abandonment to pleasure,
blots out the blast to living longer.
Who cares if I go blind or lose a limb
when now it tastes so good?