All Hallows Eve

Besides, the pumpkin's un-jack-o'lanterned
and the grog's unspiced. Nice to devour
a spider's leg brew or two. Have you a keg
of newt's tooth beer, or have I come here
misinformed? What looks like an eye I'll pop
from your forehead and eat. What do you
most wish to hide? Does your pride hurry
home with a smile or does it beat you
with a broom? What loom will you weave
your story on? Your ghoulish fate's revealed
there'll be no healing here and what's
begun will too soon end in corridors too-
bright with chlorox. Your wig's askew
and no one will ask you to the ball.
Venice sinks as we speak though every day
they play damp-booted and cellars non-
existant. In an instant the pageantry
is moot. What is more destitute than hope?
All that glitters is not a thing a ghoul
can hold. The empty chair,the hair
that lenghtens, nails, teeth, ears
and nose that grow grotesque and
pendulous. Oh crones, envelope us in
wax lips and dollop our throats with
sugar blood. A candy kiss in a paper bag,
a pumpkin's sunken smile. Ah mold
is black art too, and potions not all
that set in motion spells that crackle
upwards in the night. Sweets tribes ring
our bell who smell of nougat. They wear
ills they do not feel - a bloody wound
half-peeled from shiny face,vampire-fangs,
lipsticked mark by reddened lips, black goo
for absent tooth, witches' brew of licorice
and lungwort, fort of fern fronds down
the trail. Life entails too few performances-
shout and carry on, we're too soon gone -
what beauty lies where there be dragons?
Drink your flagons, pull snot-tied seeds
from pumpkins before they sink
another season you may not share. Care
that those who follow are already here.
Why should they climb to your spider-webbed
lair when the caramel apples melt down here?
They walk forward with lanterns, we founder
in marshmallow goo, heads whirled
like sugar on a paper cone. There's
a home inside the darkest wood. The finger
gnawed to bone chills us for a coin,and
grisly goblins leap and lear - our neighbors
gotten up and if you won't be taken in
or played the fool then lie down here
and let the hatchet snatch the squash
from off your neck, oh Ichabod no horse
to ride where Sasquatch claims mountains
tangled with ghostly lore, rivers swim
with corpses and our beaches slap with icy
fingers to rip away your scream and bury
you in sand. Not wit to say we cannot
stand like Ozymandias, visage vast
as rock can make it - look on my works
ye mighty - but they never will,
so drink this beetle-beer and scuttle out
like one who's died. I'll YES paste a pearl
beneath my eye. Was that a wolf? We be
ruthless as babies all hallow's eve.

New York Times Daily Crossword Poem Draft

Pounding corn for masa on the mesa
we watched sun rise, set, the staple
crop in the diorama at your expo.

We women want rhythm and no terror
to speak and not be branded hag
ah men, we say, you and what army.

the wildest of us joined the orders
faced their fill of stones and styx
it takes no balls to follow leaders

Readers, what ever, the ova
wins no matter the make of your car
or how Maya worshipped jaguar

cenote under full moon, an early
riffle, dart into your heart
easiest to fall apart.

New York Times Crossword Poem Draft

Is all fair foul or fowl my brother in my
father's basement that comes with troll
who stole whose sanity for I've a code
to break and trails I'd rather take
than these. Photos on a stick no Bond girl
dreamed and I've a job to do so help me
sooth my father's woe and so to work
I oughta for blood etceteras to water.

--

you're maple leaves and I'm the raker
you're the target, I'm the dart

New York Times Crossword Poem Draft

Awe and alleluia tucked away, the alcove's
dark and safe. Who now will wield crop
on each? To reach with wit and sting
oh anything can make me cry, and why
this ugly leaving, calendars damp
with grieving, and noone I can call
no matter how you whipped me rageful
I miss your laugh at my expense, at
yours, and dad can hardly move without
your chiding. We abide and toss and turn.
It's weird to yearn for you who wound
yourself so close I hardly breathed.

New York Times Crossword Puzzle Poetry Draft


A new week dawns, we're out of Q-tips
the crosswalk yawns with apes.
A passing car, a lofted glob
oh autumn rain, ah puddle jump
it's new, the raincoat isn't rote.

A note: my uncle's 92 no end
approaching. His belly's open
suctioned by a pump, his
daughter home to help. Removed
the hanging fly strips from his view.
Oh purple purple eggplant in
my arms, the plums and pears
and peaches bend the trees as we
load another box and pick, eye
watermelon, cleave beets from soil
and carrots from the silt
what lilt this action gives my eye.
We say good bye, head east, auto
full of dinner and dessert.