(Click on any photo to enlarge all.)
https://weeklyprompts.com/2018/10/27/photo-challenge-halloween/
This flower was so tiny that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been on my knees! Those are blades of grass around it if you need a basis for scale. It was smaller in diameter than a dime.
“I Spy with My Little Eye. . .”
(A Walk Around Town)
(Click on first photo to enlarge images and read their story.)
Witches’ Brew
Stir the cauldron, stir it well
until its contents start to jell.
Don’t have a look or you will shiver
over gnat eyes, bat wings, liver.
A witch’s curse and zombie’s howl
season this concoction foul.
Want to have a little sip?
Bring close your tongue. Thrust out your lip
toward this putrid, icky treasure.
Here’s a spoonful for your pleasure.
Now that you’ve had a little dose,
don’t look so startled and morose.
Such behavior’s never seen
in witches’ houses on Halloween.
Put away your groans and pouts.
It’s not as bad as brussels sprouts!!!
https://susannahill.com/2018/10/27/the-8th-annual-halloweensie-contest-aahhhrrrooooooooo/
This shadow of a potential hibiscus flower now long dead creates the interest for me in this photo taken months ago in Mexico.
For Cee’s FOTD.
Short Vacation
Just for today, repress advice
that the world is not so nice.
For just one day, forget the slime.
Pretend the world’s once more sublime.
Let’s hop aboard our little dingy,
grab that picnic hamper thingy
and simply sail our fears away.
Escape the news, just for today.
Prompts today are sublime, dingy, repress and advice. Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/rdp-monday-sublime/
http://FOWC with Fandango — Dingy
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/29/repress/
https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/daily-addictions-2018-week-43/advice
Click on any photo to enlarge all.
Microcosm
Solace from this angst-filled world can best be found at home.
It wraps around me snuggly under my protective dome.
Prioritizing calm and peace, I have a little chat
with a dog or bird or two, or maybe with a cat.
I lie snug in my hammock and survey the too-long grass
of my private little meadow where no evil comes to pass
short of combat between possums and dogs too poorly trained
to entertain these welcome guests in manners more restrained.
Their battles are, alas, short lived. The dogs always the winners.
As in the world, the bounty here goes to the biggest sinners.
The possum’s only infraction? It’s not a dog or cat
and its physical resemblance is too close to a rat.
And so the world injects itself into my little nest,
insisting the familiar is what we accept best.
These battles happen when I’m gone or when I’m fast asleep,
too lost to this too-conscious world, lost in a world more deep.
As things are on the outside, I fear they’re also here.
My world is not a perfect world, but simply a small mirror
to what is happening all around. It is without a doubt
those who have most everything keeping others out!
Matt is turning Halloween on us, demanding that we imagine being turned into a vampire for the month of October for the rest of our lives. I just wrote a vampire poem for another prompt, Matt, but oh well, here I go again!!!
On the Wagon
(A Vampire’s Lament)
I’m facing a whole month of sober
now that it’s almost October.
Passing up my gin and tonic
for a drink more histrionic.
Need I say I merely ask
liquid refreshment from a flask?
All said and done, I much prefer
to drink from glass and not from her.
I find this other way of curbing
my addictive thirst disturbing.
All that blood that sucking draws
is neater when it’s done through straws.
Alas, I find this vampire curse
most distressing. Nothing worse
could be my fate except perhaps
karma so far kept under wraps.
An Easter curse would be the dregs—
to spend all April sucking eggs!
image from the public domain
Incubus
The barker at the Carnival was handsome, dark and winning.
One hand signaled passersby, the other hand was spinning
round and round a roulette wheel covered with glassware jars
around them, painted pentagrams of circles around stars.
“Throw a penny in the jar and win your ticket in.
A Mephistophelian experience—a masquerade of sin.
An excruciating onslaught of abominable sights.
Scenes of hair-raising evil and abnormal delights.”
He pitched a hall of horrors with carriages to carry
all the thrill-seekers who might freeze in fear or tarry
too long before each spectacle of blood-curdling fright
set up to fill the need for fear this All Hallows’ night.
One maiden threw her penny and he drew her in with charm,
folding a gentle prodding hand around her virginal arm.
“My adorable mortal darling, please heed well my advice.
The hawks of evil here are set to feed on you like mice.
Get ready for their onslaught—the excruciating shock
of these All Hallows’ creatures who closely watch the clock
as its hands sweep close to midnight and that hour that decrees
that all the creatures of the night may frolic as they please.
A blood-letting bonanza, a nerve-wracking display
will unleash as midnight calls us to the fray.
So climb into my carriage to begin the eerie trip
that will take you through the fun house. I will keep you in my grip.
See these shadowy images careening through my globe?
they say they see your fortune flashing here beneath my robe.
The dagger that I carry seeks a home in thee,
but I have you in my power. I know you will not flee.
You scurry across the meadow with my shadow far above.
I swoop at thee, my pretty, my quarry and my love.
Some passion’s writ in flowers and some passion’s writ in blood.
I feel your life flow out from you and toward me like a flood.
I’ll drink it like the sweetest wine. With it I’ll take thy soul.
To keep it with me always will be my evening’s goal.
Life is a wicked carnival, my dear, now can you see?
When you threw your penny in the jar, the prize you won was me.”
The prompt words were: Mephistophelian, Adorable, Masquerade, Meadow, Advice, Globe, Signal, Bonanza, Excruciating and Onslaught, Nerve-wracking, Eerie, Abominable, Hair-raising, Evil, Abnormal. For extra brownie points, the scene was to be set in a carnival and to qualify as the Monster Mash Halloween Basher, to have as the main character a Vampire or a Phantom. Phew!!! Hope I can find all the links.
Prompters were: A Guy Called Bloke
https://aguycalledbloke.blog/2018/10/14/the-monster-mash-halloween-bash-challenge-15th-october-31st-october-2018/
https://aguycalledbloke.blog/2018/10/27/m-m-h-b-challenge-spooky-tales-10/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/mephistophelian/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 