Grackles cackle! It’s Halloween 2015!!!

Grackles cackle. Crows glow. Ghouls drool.

It’s Halloween 2015!
(If you are seeking the Poetry Friday link click-clack, scit-scat over to
Check It Out’s post, which beautifully looks ahead to Veteran’s Day.)

My favorite goblin-night reading for teens & adults is a privately
printed poetry chapbook, ON ANY DARK AND SPOOKY NIGHT.
It was a gift to me in 1992 from the poet author, Audrey Parente. It
is one of the first orange items I reach for each year to decorate
the house.

ON ANY DARK AND SPOOKY NIGHT c.1992 Audrey Parente, read by woman with ghost-color legs!

The spine-tinglers in Audrey’s collection are creepy
& kooky & make adults shiver.

Here is a less-ghoulish poem for the wee ones.

When Goblins Sing
by Audrey Parente
in the chapbook, ON ANY DARK AND SPOOKY NIGHT

Oh, when the goblins sing,
your skin begins to crawl
with bumpy, goosey flesh
which drives you up a wall.
But scary as this is,
if they seem down the hall,
don’t you worry dear,
for they’re not there at all!
©1992 Audrey Parente

I love how I always go back & read it again to see what
she did there! Her Halloween poems are perfect presents.

Fortunately we held a Halloween poetry partee last weekend,
before All Hallow’s Eve. This way we would be free this weekend to enjoy
some of the many bubbling cauldrons of festivals & treats our town puts on.
But this year we are both under a sick spell (bad sore throats, etc.) now
at Halloween & feel fortunate to have these pre-Halloween memories.

c.2015JanGodownAnnino, all rights reserved

The first set of images are from the partee.
Outdoors images in the second group were
made at our nearby park. It provides a naturally ghostly atmosphere
with rugged live oaks, swaying Spanish moss (not truly a moss but an
epiphyte) & an annual scarecrow row. The artists who create them
are local folks who love Halloween.

My Halloween picture books for young readers can fill a bottomless caludron but include –
TRICK OR TREAT, SMELL MY FEET by Lisa Desimini, TRICK OR TREAT, OLD ARMADILLO, by Larry Dane Brimner, with illustrations from Dominic Catalano, THE MONSTORE by Tara Lazar & HAMPIRE by Sudipta Bardhan Quallen.