The Night Before Halloween

By Christina Zila, Textbroker Editor

It's Halloween time, and we have a special treat for all of our authors. No tricks here, just an old poem I dug up for you from the crypts of my high school years. Enjoy!

My apologies to both Clement Clarke Moore and Tim Burton.

The Night of Halloween

Twas All Hallows' Eve, but through the haunted house
Not a soul was stirring, not even a mouse.
Cobwebs hung from the windows with flair,
In hopes that the kids would be there to scare.

We children were roving, dressed in ghoulish threads
While nightmares and horrors lurked in my head.
A dark wolf silhouette bit the full moon in the sky.
The foreboding old mansion caught my sugar-seeking eye.
At the end of the road, gray as bones covered in dust,
The house called to me; I slid through the gates of rust.

Along the dark driveway I slunk like a rat,
Snuck up the sidewalk and stepped up on the mat.
The moon on the house cast eerie shadows,
And gave the windows the look of the gallows.
When, what to my fearful eyes should appear,
But a grey form behind the window unclear.

With gulp of courage and a push of the finger
I rang the bell, and a sixth sense began to tingle.
I waited and wondered and gathered up mettle,
Then opened the threshold and felt my heart unsettle,

To the end of the room, to the end of the hall.
Now look here, look there, nobody at all!

As a man in a trance I searched for the dweller
Of this black and barren, horrid hell cellar.
So into the chambers of dust I went.
Ready at any moment to another room relent.

And then, in a moment, I heard up above
The scratching and scraping of an ancient glove.
I stalked up the stairs, and on the second floor
I saw an ashen light fade out from a door.
In the parlor all in black, sat a figure by a lamp.
His haggard visage seemed that of a tramp.
A bundle of things hung from his back
And he looked like a gravedigger about to crack.

His eyes-how they wavered! His chin- so hairy!
His cheeks were like bones, his nose sanguinary.

His thin little mouth was drawn in a grimace,
And the few teeth that he showed were a menace.
The blade of a scythe he held in his hand,
The edge thin enough to cut a grain of sand.
He had an evil face and sunken belly,
And fluid drained from his sores like jelly.
He was ominous and dreadful, a melancholy beast.
I shrieked when I saw him, knew I'd make a feast.
A leer of his eye and a twist of his hand
Showed he was to take me to the devil's land.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work.
I backed away, then turned to the stairs with a jerk,
Tumbling down the stairs of old,
And shrieking as I ran into the night's cold.
I flew down the street, to my friends gave a shout.
But they didn't hear, they seemed in doubt.
The reaper sprang up as I ended my flight.
He showed me the way to permanent night.

posted on 10/28/2010 - 08.06  |  textbroker blog  |  comments: 5