This is Halloween: Hooting and Howling Poetry Prompts

Hello, poetry-bussing people, congratulations on keeping going with the weekly writing, I confess to having fallen by the wayside a while back, poetry-wise,but am doing some picking-myself-up and some dusting-myself-down, but gently does it.... ; ) So enough banter and on with the poetry prompts.... I'm a bit early with the prompts but thought it best to give as much time as possible in case we get caught up in Halloween itself and run out of poetry writing time.... ; )

Autumn's here, the clock's are about to move back, scariness in its many shapes and forms is loose and on the run amongst us and yes, it's Halloween in all its ghoulishness and what I want you to do is dig deep and come up with something to bring us back to the apples and nuts of our childhood Halloweens or/and scare the living daylight out of us and to do this here are a two suggestions to choose from...

1) Write a Triolet Halloween poem(either light-hearted or scary). The triolet is a French poetic form. It consists of:

*8 lines (often in iambic tetrameter--daDum daDum daDum daDum)
*The rhyme scheme is ABaAabAB
*Lines 1, 4, and 7 are the same
*Lines 2 and 8 are also alike

There is often a change of viewpoint in the second half, and the refrain (last two lines)is frequently a play on words or a pun.

EXAMPLE: (8 lines of 8 syllables with ABaAabAB rhyme)

DOPPELGANGER

Line 1: I'm a ghostly double of you, A
Line 2: which amuses me to no end. B
Line 3: The devil tells me what to do; a
Line 4: I'm a ghostly double of you. A
Line 5: My crimes I'll pin on you-know-who, a
Line 6: and I'll drag you to Hell, my friend. b
Line 7: I'm a ghostly double of you, A
Line 8: which amuses me to no end.


OR

2) Choose one (or more) of the following prompts (or please feel free to freewheel with your own prompt ; )) and write your Halloween poem based on it....

Prompts:

Candlelit Eyes; A Jack-o-Lanterns Point of View
Memories of a Halloween Character
The Night I Dressed As A________
Excuse Me, Is That Your Broomstick?
Bewitch Me, Please
Thrills and Chills
Pardon Me While I Scream
Big Halloween Moon
Fun With Apples and Nuts

Hope there is something there to suit everyone! I'll leave you to get into the 'spirit' of things and eat, drink and be scary...looking forward to reading your poems, leave a message in the comments box to lead me to your poetry... ; )


(Add on: I had forgotten that I am away Sunday and Monday so I am putting up the poems now as they come in and the others I'll put up on Monday night when I get back....)


The Poems

Susan's Triolet

Karen's Unspoken

Dick's Big Halloween Moon

Peter's Triolet

Jeanne's Triolet

120socks and the Deadly Hold

Rachel's 'the night she dressed as a....'

Kat's taking liberty with a Triolet

TFE being spooked by King of the Cats

The Bug and her night as a Pirate

Dave's Pardon Me While I Scream

Museswings and the shambling werewolf triolet

Enchanted Oak's Pardon before screaming

Carolina and Why I Believe

Emerging Writer and She Stoops to Conker

Mrs Trellis and Grow It With Music

Jinksy and A Hard Day's Night

Titus and The Vampire Triolet

Argent and A Witch's Lament

Lucy's Halloween Haiku

(Sat. 30th - another add on: with so many poems coming this way, I got smitten and got something poem-like down too...it's been an age so no great shakes or anything....I'll paste it here at the end, cheers)

(Monday 1st - back from trip away...just uploaded everyone's links, I hope I haven't forgotten anyone...let me know, if so. And well done, one and all, on the triolets and poems of every sort... keep it up!; ))

Hints of Halloween

I watched 'Driving Miss Daisy' last night, home alone,
with someone else's Jack O' Lantern sitting
outside on the garden table. It is not exactly the stuff of bumps
in the night, or so I thought. She, a stubborn old lady wants
to drive her own car, he, an insistent old man, compares his
task of making her accept him as her chauffeur to the time
it took him two days to wrestle a hog to the ground. In the last
scene he is feeding her pumpkin pie. With each swallow she gives
one of those grins that happens when you know
you are giving in but not minding in the least. This whole
week in one shape or other evolved around Marilyn Manson's
'This is Halloween'. My students and I tried to keep up
with the speed of his song, mostly ending up breathless
with tearful laughter stinging our eyes. I explained
'Hail to the Pumpkin' unwittingly letting slip the example
of both 'Hail Caesar' and 'Hail Hitler.' We moved on,
and I discovered that Spanish ghosts do
not say 'Boo' (but woo!) when the answer to a riddle
on where ghosts go on holiday is Maliboo. The joke about what
one calls a witch who goes to the beach was not booed
out of it. On the contrary, for a fleeting instant,
someone answered 'mother-in-law' and I took it upon myself
to stress the word `sand-wich' way beyond necessity. The lady
who wears bright colours is having a party for her husband
whose birthday falls on All Saints' Day. She said he is no saint.
She is having the party on the night of the dead. She said she is
not providing chairs. On the night of the dead, ghosts sit,
or so I remember my father saying, as he
pulled the most hard-backed chair towards the hearth.