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Writer's pictureCreative Writing Committee

Poetry by Evelyn Sprague - Halloween Writing Competition Second Place

The Night of All Hallows


The night of all hallows is hallowed indeed

There's romance and danger down in the weeds

The deadmen are dancing with lost lady loves

And the monsters are singing like lone mourning doves

I’ve never seen freedom like those devils achieved

As they spun through the darkness and whistled on reeds

The music was haunting and the shadows were deep

But there was something calming that put me to sleep


There’s terror in waking to strangers and ghouls

Less so when they’re laughing and joking like fools

Strange is the sunrise after such a soiree

But an end must come to even such a timeless display

T’will be a year until this night comes again

All these creatures will slink away until then

I wonder what occupies their hearts and their minds

Before their bare restrained wildness once more unwinds


***


The Ashen Vampire


They say that color’s disappearing from the world

Slowly being leached by modern tastes

There was nothing modern about the theft of my hues

Stolen by a beast as old as shadow

They are little more than that now

Ghostly in more than the tint of their skin

I have not seen them in a millennia but every concrete wall painted in gray over graffiti reminds me I will bever be free of the gift they forced upon me

I wander through places that everyday become more like what I despise most about myself

A long life becomes longer when every moment is monochrome

When I cannot admire the sunsets that free me

Even blood turns brown when exposed to the bitter air I no longer need but still force myself to breathe

I rinse the red quickly from my hands so I do not have to see it fade

But let it sit on my lips for a guilty moment

Allowing myself to remember what it was to feel warmth there


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