By Dean Kuch
| Author Note: | Halloween Horrors: A Multi-Authored book of Halloween Poetry by FanStory contibutors |
| Author Notes |
I've created this book for all of you fine Fanstorians out there who would like to, or might like to, post your Halloween and dark-themed poetry.
Not that you couldn't post it anyhow, but it's my hope to have a wide range of topics from this very diverse community in what will eventually become "our collection." Any lengths and all styles of poetry are welcome. From children's poetry to funny and frightening; if it has to do with Halloween or horror, you're more than welcome to post your work here. In fact, I sincerely hope you will! Happy Halloween, y'all. Pleasant Screams! Heh-heh-heh... ~Dean |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Notes |
4/8/4 haiku
kigo is winter My deepest thanks to our beloved Dean Kuch for sharing his ''Halloween Horrors" with us. Thank you all for reading. Gypsy 
art by expo exclusive |
By Dean Kuch
By Dean Kuch
All Hallows' Eve is almost here,
What makes you jump, what do you fear?
Late night snacks breed fetid dreams,
Of howling wolves and ghostly screams.
Hags and ghouls, bugs in your ears,
What will promote your deepest fears?
Nighttime falls, gravest shadows grow,
Skulking scepters, and blackened crows.
Halloween, all don festive gear,
What will they choose, what do they fear?
Things that bump and torment the night,
Tarantulas pursue and bite?
Witches, warlocks draw ever near,
To make your heart replete with fear?
Medusa with a head of snakes,
Dark vampires stabbed with wooden stakes.
Hallow-tide, creeping, skulking, drear,
What will it do to build your fear?
The veil between two worlds is rent,
And at the end, grim souls are spent.
All Saints' Day, nightly specters clear,
The dark is past, and so's the fear.
What did you learn as death drew near?
And are you stronger for your fears?
| Author Notes |
A special thanks for the artwork, "Are you scared jet?" by cleo85
The "bugs in ears" reference comes from a poem Dean posted over a year ago that still makes me scratch at my ears. Thanks a lot Dean! Also thanks for creating this book of scary Halloween fun! |
By Dean Kuch
Beneath his tree by Woodbury
the mad commando stands,
and any night you still can see
the rifle in his hands.
By day a windswept hawthorn’s seen
where went that night the mad marine,
to stand his watch, 'twas Halloween.
Was ever sentry damned?
At witching hour, long years ago,
when Britain was at war,
he came, his two hours sentry-go
to stand, but there he saw
such ghastly sight by that hawthorn,
in pale moon light before the dawn,
with madness quite, from senses torn.
So spoke in words no more
of what to him had been revealed
alone by pale moonlight,
nor any words, lips ever sealed,
struck dumb by such a fright.
The evening of his funeral,
leaning on that hawthorn tall,
his ghost appeared just at nightfall,
and does so, every night.
| Author Notes |
Woodbury Common in Devonshire is a training area for recruits at CTCRM (Commando Training Centre Royal Marines). During WW2 the camp was situated at Dalditch on the Common. The mad commando tree is still pointed out to recruits as an example of how the night can play tricks on vision. By day it is just an old gnarled hawthorn but by night the silhouette strongly resembles a sentry armed with a rifle. All sorts of creative NCOs have made up tales of the Mad Commando as he is universally known. This is mine.
|
By Dean Kuch
| Author Note: | We're all a little broken... |
| Author Notes |
We are all just a little bit broken, whether we want to admit it or not.
As always, thank you for reading my morbid musings. 
|
By Dean Kuch
| Author Notes | Quatrains, 10 syllables per line, aabb rhyme scheme |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Note: | Huh...hello? |
| Author Notes |
Was it just me, or were any of you afraid to allow your arms, legs or feet to poke out from beneath your blanket in the dark as a child? Did you also make sure your closet door was closed, and that your bedroom door was left slightly ajar?
Just wonderin'... As always, thank you very much for reading my morbid musings. ~Dean |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Notes |
Thanks so much for reading!
|
By Dean Kuch
| Author Notes |
Ekphrastic poetry--a friend in my writing group brought back postcards from a recent vacation. This one inspired my rhyming quatrains
poem. SS Native American folkloreEdit A sign informs visitors of the Native American heritage. According to the Native American tribes of the Kiowa and Lakota, a group of girls went out to play and were spotted by several giant bears, who began to chase them. In an effort to escape the bears, the girls climbed atop a rock, fell to their knees, and prayed to the Great Spirit to save them. Hearing their prayers, the Great Spirit made the rock rise from the ground towards the heavens so that the bears could not reach the girls. The bears, in an effort to climb the rock, left deep claw marks in the sides, which had become too steep to climb. (Those are the marks which appear today on the sides of Devils Tower.) When the girls reached the sky, they were turned into the stars of the Pleiades. Another version tells that two Sioux boys wandered far from their village when Mato the bear, a huge creature that had claws the size of tipi poles, spotted them, and wanted to eat them for breakfast. He was almost upon them when the boys prayed to Wakan Tanka the Creator to help them. They rose up on a huge rock, while Mato tried to get up from every side, leaving huge scratch marks as he did. Finally, he sauntered off, disappointed and discouraged. The bear came to rest east of the Black Hills at what is now Bear Butte. Wanblee, the eagle, helped the boys off the rock and back to their village. A painting depicting this legend by artist Herbert A. Collins hangs over the fireplace in the visitor's center at Devils Tower. In a Cheyenne version of the story, the giant bear pursues the girls and kills most of them. Two sisters escape back to their home with the bear still tracking them. They tell two boys that the bear can only be killed with an arrow shot through the underside of its foot. The boys have the sisters lead the bear to Devils Tower and trick it into thinking they have climbed the rock. The boys attempt to shoot the bear through the foot while it repeatedly attempts to climb up and slides back down leaving more claw marks each time. The bear was finally scared off when an arrow came very close to its left foot. This last arrow continued to go up and never came down.[16] Wooden Leg, a Northern Cheyenne, relates another legend told to him by an old man as they were traveling together past the Devils Tower around 1866�¢??1868. An Indian man decided to sleep at the base of Bear Lodge next to a buffalo head. In the morning he found that both he and the buffalo head had been transported to the top of the rock by the Great Medicine with no way down. He spent another day and night on the rock with no food or water. After he had prayed all day and then gone to sleep, he awoke to find that the Great Medicine had brought him back down to the ground, but left the buffalo head at the top near the edge. Wooden Leg maintains that the buffalo head was clearly visible through the old man's spyglass. At the time, the tower had never been climbed and a buffalo head at the top was otherwise inexplicable.[17] The buffalo head gives this story special significance for the Northern Cheyenne. All the Cheyenne maintained in their camps a sacred teepee to the Great Medicine containing the tribal sacred objects. In the case of the Northern Cheyenne, the sacred object was a buffalo head.[18] Recent historyEdit Ponderosa Pine forest east of Devils Tower Fur trappers may have visited Devils Tower, but they left no written evidence of having done so. The first documented Caucasian visitors were several members of Captain William F. Raynolds' 1859 expedition to Yellowstone. Sixteen years later, Colonel Richard I. Dodge escorted an Office of Indian Affairs scientific survey party to the massive rock formation and coined the name Devils Tower.[19] Recognizing its unique characteristics, Congress designated the area a U.S. forest reserve in 1892 and in 1906 Devils Tower became the nation's first National Monument.[20] The 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind used the formation as a plot element and as the location of its climactic scenes.[21][22] Its release was the cause of a large increase in visitors and climbers to the monument.[23] ClimbingEdit Main article: Durrance Route (Devils Tower) The Devils Tower Trading Post in 2003 In recent years, climbing Devils Tower National Monument has increased in popularity. The first known ascent of Devils Tower by any method occurred on July 4, 1893, and is accredited to William Rogers and Willard Ripley, local ranchers in the area. They completed this first ascent after constructing a ladder of wooden pegs driven into cracks in the rock face. A few of these wooden pegs are still intact and are visible on the tower when hiking along the 1.3-mile (2.1 km) Tower Trail at Devils Tower National Monument. Over the following thirty years many climbs were made using this method before the ladder fell into disrepair. The man most famous for climbing the tower is Fritz Wiessner, who summited with William P. House and Lawrence Coveney in 1937. This was the first ascent using modern climbing techniques. Wiessner led the entire climb free, placing only a single piece of fixed gear, a piton, which he later regretted, deeming it unnecessary. In 1941 George Hopkins parachuted onto Devils Tower, without permission, as a publicity stunt resulting from a bet. He had intended to descend by a rope dropped with him, but this failed to land on the tower summit. Hopkins was stranded for six days, exposed to cold, rain and 50 mph winds before a mountain rescue team finally reached him and brought him down.[24][25] His entrapment and subsequent rescue was widely covered by the media of the time.[26] Today, hundreds of climbers scale the sheer rock walls of Devils Tower each summer. The most common route is the Durrance Route, which was the second free route established in 1938. There are many established and documented climbing routes covering every side of the tower, ascending the various vertical cracks and columns of the rock. The difficulty of these routes range from relatively easy to some of the hardest in the world. All climbers are required to register with a park ranger before and after attempting a climb. No overnight camping at the summit is allowed; climbers return to base on the same day they ascend.[27] The Tower is sacred to several Plains tribes, including the Lakota, Cheyenne and Kiowa. Because of this, many Indian leaders objected to climbers ascending the monument, considering this to be a desecration. The climbers argued that they had a right to climb the Tower, since it is on federal land. A compromise was eventually reached with a voluntary climbing ban during the month of June when the tribes are conducting ceremonies around the monument. Climbers are asked, but not required, to stay off the Tower in June. According to the PBS documentary In the Light of Reverence, approximately 85% of climbers honor the ban and voluntarily choose not to climb the Tower during the month of June. However, several climbers along with the Mountain States Legal Foundation sued the Park Service, claiming an inappropriate government entanglement with religion.[28] |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Notes |
Quatrains abcb rhyme, 7 syllables/line, alliteration in each line
SS |
By Dean Kuch
just sitting here reviewing
my son went out of town
left his shirt on the chair
saw it when I turned around
I thought I saw a shadow
from the corner of my eyes
turned my chair, looked that way
much to my surprise
had to take a second look
not believing what I see
A shadow in my son's shirt
sitting with his back to me
I saw him drop his head
on the table he put it down
he stood up with the shirt on
placed his feet upon the ground
turned and looked right at me
his face was dusty gray
eyes were sunk in his head
couldn't think of what to say
with every step that he took
ashes floated to the floor
wanting to run, or even move
forgot what my feet were for
smelling like a burning corpse
my heart it missed a beat
as he moved in closer
could feel his body heat
reaching out with his arms
his hand he touched my face
tried to walk away from him
just to get out of this place
at that very moment
A banging on the door
came to me right away
what my feet were truly for
turned the knob, there he was
son was standing there
couldn't reach for his keys
sorry he gave me a scare
he walked into the kitchen
nothing on the ground
shirt was hanging on the chair
no one there to be found
retired to his bedroom
he climbed right into bed
decided not to tell him
the story of the walking dead
thought about it through the night
things like that aren't true
reading Halloween poems
written to me from you
washing my face in the morning
wondering about this place
couldn't wash the black mark off
that was burned on the side of my face
By Dean Kuch
I figured momma never prayed.
Oh, she tilted her grey head and closed her eyes
until Amen in church.
She brushed my hair for high school and said,
"I was so old when you came along...
nothing but dry crusts in there to feed you.
And now you're slim and small
almost but not quite pretty
This world feeds well on such as you."
Never once did she say I love you.
There wasn't any need.
I think she was praying.
Head unbowed, hands together.
She said, "This will be your memory of me."
A silver crucifix on a silver chain.
"Wear it in the darkest night.
Angels come at a terrible price."
I wore it always. And when I walked home
through windy hills by penlight or by moon
It kept the yellow eyes at bay.
The eyes of a doe, perhaps a wolf
but so big, and hard and yellow.
I feared those eyes, so burning mean
I held up my cross, and kissed it.
The eyes never stepped into the moonlight
but in the blackest shadows watched and waited.
I feared the world, I feared the devil
but I really feared those eyes.
I found an evening job and went away to school.
Momma died. I wept by her cheap casket and
thought to put the cross on her breast to protect her
from that darkest night of all.
I did not. Momma was never ever afraid.
I saw the yellow eyes once, on a woodsy
road in a park when my date was a jerk and I walked
back to my room. The cross held them at bay.
My Momma's creed, paddle your own honeybarge,
stayed with me. I finished school and found a job
and visited the old shack where Farmer Hames
let me and Momma live...now rotting down...
The sun was setting. In the thickets by the weedy
drive I saw the yellow eyes.
Unblinking, icy cold, pitiless, watching me
and waiting.
My new sports car gave up the ghost
heading for my condo.
The nearest way home was through
that part of town a little white girl
in a dress too short
damn well better fear to tread.
My cell was dead.
You can't make much time in four inch heels
when you're walking alone.
The voices in the alley were thick and deep.
"Hey, Bitch Wha y'all goin'?"
They'll get my silver cross, I thought, and my
half-maxed credit cards. The winos will find me
behind the dumpster naked bloody crotched.
"Come heah, hunky bitch." a voice roared
as I did my best to run.
They laughed they whooped they chased
and then their screams began.
I stopped and held my silver cross
from the alley's depths flew ropes of blood
the smell was sickly I saw flying body parts
And terrible yellow eyes that shone.
Sometimes now I walk the night
and wear my silver cross and look
for momma's angel
with the yellow eyes
and I do not feel alone.
By Dean Kuch
| Author Notes | hehehe just a dark poem to add to Dean's collection of poems. ( No one has been buried ) :-) |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Note: | to the tune of 'The Addams Family' tv show |
| Author Notes |
Google image
***Think of the tv show 'The Addams Family' to get the 'meter' in your head. **catacomb--noun--[dictionary.com] Usually, catacombs. an underground cemetery, especially one consisting of tunnels and rooms with recesses dug ut for coffins and tombs. ***** The Addams Family They're creepy and they're kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They're altogether ooky, The Addams Family. Their house is a museum. When people come to see 'em They really are a screa-um. The Addams Family. Neat. Sweet. Petite. So get a witch's shawl on. A broomstick you can crawl on. We're gonna pay a call on The Addams Family. This song was originally posted at: http://bussongs.com/songs/addams-family-tv-show-theme.php ***** spelling of Capuchin is correct--this is acceptable care' flee = carefully mi-l-es = miles de-ni-ial = denial **The original song was written with a couple of the words like I have done: screa-um see-um poetic license on histories, mysteries, inquiries as all have 1 or more syllable(s) than original song Capuchin Catacombs [background info from Wikipedia]] Historical background] Palermo's Capuchin monastery outgrew its original cemetery in the 16th century and monks began to excavate crypts below it. In 1599 they mummified one of their number, recently dead brother Silvestro of Gubbio, and placed him into the catacombs. The bodies were dehydrated on the racks of ceramic pipes in the catacombs and sometimes later washed with vinegar. Some of the bodies were embalmed and others enclosed in sealed glass cabinets. Monks were preserved with their everyday clothing and sometimes with ropes they had worn as a penance. The catacombs contain about 8000 corpses and 1252 mummies (as stated by last census made by EURAC in 2011) that line the walls. The halls are divided into categories: Men, Women, Virgins, Children, Priests, Monks, and Professionals. Some bodies are better preserved than others. Some are set in poses; for example, two children are sitting together in a rocking chair. The coffins were accessible to the families of the deceased so that on certain days the family could hold their hands and they could "join" their family in prayer. Tourism The catacombs are open to the public and taking photographs inside is supposedly prohibited. However, the bodies have been on film in Francesco Rosi's "Cadaveri Eccellenti" ["Illustrious Corpses"}, and television programmes such as the Channel 4 series Coach Trip, BBC TV series Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe, Ghosthunting With Paul O'Grady and Friends on ITV2 in 2008 and The Learning Channel in 2000. Iron grills have been installed to prevent tourists tampering or posing with the corpses. |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Note: | Nightmares aren't all bad... |
| Author Notes |
**Mephistopheles is a demon featured in German folklore. He originally appeared in literature as the demon in the Faust legend, and he has since appeared in other works as a stock character.
**The word psyche is pronounced as sigh-kee Thank you for reading. |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Note: | Never fear, it's almost here... |
| Author Notes |
**Limited punctuation used to adhere to the acrostic form**
antediluvian (adjective) 1) very old or old-fashioned lycanthrope/lycanthropy (noun) plural lycanthropies 1) a delusion that one has become or has assumed the characteristics of a wolf I hope everyone has a very safe and happy Halloween. Be careful out there... |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Notes |
Just a poem to get me (and hopefully everyone else) in the mood for the upcoming Halloween season...as if I needed a reason, heh-heh.
It also pays homage to two wonderfully talented performers who are no longer with us; singer Michael Jackson and the immortal Vincent Price. Both collaborated on the most successful, most watched short music video of all time, THRILLER. One line in my poem has been shamelessly borrowed (slightly) from them to pay tribute to their memories, respectively. Thank you very much for reading, as always! ~Dean |
By Dean Kuch
| Author Note: | Halloween's Last Hurrah |
| Author Notes |
Google image
***triolet--abaaabab--lines 1 4 7 same / 2 8 same Only 2 rhymes/ 8 syllables per line |
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