Halloween Summoning
I summon ye, spirits and spooks and sprites
and tip-tapping branches on moonless nights
Arise headless horseman and grisly ghouls
and bleak haunted houses where terror rules
Awaken ye witches, ye wizards and djinns
and mad-grinning pumpkins aglow from within
Come forth ye black cats and specters and crows
and clink-clanking chains from dank caverns below
I summon ye, yearning for simpler days
When you were the frightening things on parade
When you were the terrors that filled my young head
that kept me awake and that filled me with dread.
Rise spectors! Rise phantoms! Rise foul-smelling fiends!
Come, take back the night from our nightmarish dreams
Come, banish the darkness, the stygian gloom
the madmen now flirting with chaos and doom
and whipping up festering cauldrons of hate.
Come vanquish these forces before it’s too late.
For I’d rather face phantoms loose on the streets
than cowardly spirits who hide beneath sheets
and slow melting glaciers and nuclear threats
pollution, mass murders and civil unrest
And mad spinning storms of apocolypse size
and leaders who bully and taunt and despise
So, rise all ye spirits of Halloween night
Come devil us all to your black hearts’ delight
Tis better by far to have monsters aprowl
than these man-made disasters that haunt us now.
Molly Hogan (c) 2017
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by the multi-faceted Linda Baie at her blog, Teacher Dance. Among other things she shares a plethora of informative and entertaining book reviews, thoughtful reflections and wonderful slices of life. While you’re enjoying the poems and her blog, be extra thankful for electricity and internet connections!
Nix the comfort zone 
Viral worthy!
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Thanks, Dan! All the Halloween festivities got me thinking…
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Wow, fabulous and powerful!! Brava!
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Thanks, Jama!
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Wow, and wow again, Molly. This is fabulous, great rhythm & marvelous sentiment right now! Thanks! “So, rise all ye spirits” and humanity, too!
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Thanks, Linda. You’re so right—“and humanity, too!”
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Yes, WOW! Those long ago specters and haunts seem so tame to the nightmares we face now. May we all rise to the challenge to defeat them.
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There are days that challenge does seem insurmountable.
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Yes, yes, yes.
Put this book on your to-read stack: FROGKISSER! by Garth Nix. There are definite allusions to the current political state of the world as the young princess sets out on her quest.
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I’ll definitely check it out, Mary Lee. Thanks for the recommendation.
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Oh, agreed – there are far, far, far scarier things popping up every day on the news each day than anything you could see on Halloween. 😥
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Fabulousness! I love that last line. Perfect punch to the pres.
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Thanks, Brenda. I am no fan of the President (understatement!), but I was trying not to focus too much on him. To my mind, he’s just a symptom– albeit a dangerous one–of an underlying disease. I actually cut out a lot of this poem because I thought it referred too directly to him (“the terror that lives in DC, spouting his lies and his pomposity…”) and my concerns (while abundant about him and rant-worthy!) are broader. These are unsettling times.
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I caught a whiff of it, Molly, but only because it’s on my mind, too. The problem is that Fox news and other conservative commentators are making it “popular” to be angry trolls. To heap hate on a woman, as if attacking a woman has become the new manners. They created and now they prop up our pres. They feed him lies and self-love-candy-commentary. I am on the side of the country, and I hope we make it through these unsettling times safely.
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Ye have summoned up some powerful badness. Hope all these spooks and sprites have left you unharmed.
Such a clever poem with lovely vocabulary, rhythm and rhyme. Extra points for finding a place for “stygian.”
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Thanks, Violet. I’m partial to “stygian” as my son taught me that word. I don’t think I’ve ever used it before though!
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Fantastic “spirits and spooks and sprites,” Molly! And quite a message you slipped in with our mad leader at that. Thanks for sharing I’m hoping and working still for change.
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