Three Halloween Poems I Have Dashed Off

The Fire

I stoked the fire

Until the wood turned blue

And it was hot enough for you.

The Beastie

Spiky furred, razor teeth clacking like typewriter keys

You rolled through the old forest through the dense briars

Under the dead leaves over the hollow skulls

Searching for drowsy prey fat from its own conquests.

You’d appeared in the forest centuries ago.

Different from any other earthly creature,

You were the unwelcomed wickedness

The forest had dreamt up.

Because life in the woods isn’t hard enough,

I guess. Not desperate not clawing not howling enough.

No. Even in the most desolate backwoods,

I suppose the Devil will have his say.

The Skull

Nothing but bone without a face

Without skin, without the warm

Mask of blood.

The skull lies abandoned in a clearing

Staring up at the bright stars

It cannot see.