Marilyn Stalder-Burke

October Fall Fest

The Call of the Weird

Orange and black stores stuffed with

Gummy eyeballs, blood-dripping fangs

Bones, attached and un-

Skulls, wax fingernails

Masks, so many masks!

Domino, half-face plastic

Full head hiding hair and ears

One can transform into a pretty

Witch or ugly princess

Beautiful or repulsive

Sexy or grotesque

As a child, simplicity ruled. 

A bum, a gypsy, a ghost

Utilizing available home items

Occasionally a boxed store-bought

Cheese cloth costume, once worn

Losing its magic.

Adults invest more to reveal

An alter ego

Complete transformation relying

On surprise disclosure as the trick

Or treat of the evening.

In the redolence of scorched Jack-o-lanterns,

Children hustle from house to house

With plastic pumpkins or paper

Sacks screeching “Trick ‘r Treat”. 

While teens lumber up in

Undisguised thuggishness thrusting

Pillowcases, demanding candy.

With shouts, screams and howls

People move through the darkness.

The goblins will get you

If you don’t look out.

Now on the weekly walk on the weird

Side with vampires, zombies and 

Assorted story-book villains, the 

Fear of what’s out there, is broken

By commercials for cars, cat food

And pharmaceuticals to return

Us to normalcy.  

The senses miss

The Candy Corn, Wax lips,

Apples, cider and cinnamon.

But even “smell-o-vision” would not

Be able to recapture the mystique of

All Hallow’s Eve. It’s weird.