Halloween Ditty 2018

Autumn is my favorite season, but I could take or leave Halloween. (Aside from the treats, I mean.) There’s something about the way Americans celebrate this quasi-holiday that bothers me. (And I don’t mean the tricks.)

I think my disdain for it comes from the overindulgent-- if not decadent-- splurging on costumes alone. I don’t really mind allowing children to dress up as their favorite characters, but I’m less sanguine about the $1.2 billion spent last year on costumes – for adults! As long ago as 1997 Kurt Anderson wondered about our delayed maturity in a New Yorker article entitled “Kids Are Us.” One would have thought that we would have all grown up by now.

And don’t get me started on the $440 million spent on costumes for pets!

Even so, there’s something comforting about recalling authentic swatches of time-honored folklore. Hence, the following ditty, a mash-up of Gaelic and Teutonic motifs we like to call


Out of Our Gourds

To the front door’s truncated porch -–
the threshold Dutch folks call a “stoop” --
flock frights: electioneers, zealots,
at times a flaming bag of poop.

But when the sun starts slumping low,
naive minds twist to thoughts macabre,
reining nigh the tide of Samain
(unpronounceable, like Brett Favre.)

The Celts, we know, have a hard “k,”
along with the tale of Shaggy Jack.
He slyly slid from Hell’s cold grasp;
from Heaven came no welcome back.

So Jack and auld souls of his ilk
betwixt two realms are doomed to roam;
by chance upon one night a year
could land like moths on our safe home.

Unless deterred by wispy lights
hidden within the hollow shells
of finished products from nearby fields
gleaned before the last leaf fell.

Would that these fruits were made of wax:
rutabaga (that rock-hard swede),
turnip, mangelwurzel, pumpkin.
What knife? An ax is what we need.

To think such concrete flesh would deign
freely to yield itself to cuts
for carving out a gruesome face:
we’d have to be some kind of nuts.

Hi Auntie,

There are times when I would really like to party, and, had I the resources, I'd enjoy throwing one that allowed for a bit of dressing up. Halloween has a nice witchy theme, and ghosties and Goolies and long legetty beasties, are expected to put in an appearance. However, what this has to do with pirates, Donald trump or the Texas chainsaw massacre, is beyond me. Iron man doesn't even enter into it, rather like the Norwegian blue's plumage.

Halloween has always been an excuse for adults to indulge in some good old honest to goodness (or badness) child abusing fun. My mother was perfectly happy to bundle me into the oven or torture me with bizarre and sadistic party games. One of her favourites was to blindfold her victims and make them taste various substances, like raw cocoa, mustard powder and custard powder! Then, of course, there was the locking in the cupboard under the stairs! Then there was the terrifying incident of the face pack... At the tender age of about three, I caught a glimpse of her wearing one. I was on the terrace outside the house, and saw her peering creepily from behind the bedroom curtains. Scared the sh1t out of me. Having seen the truth of her soul in that moment, nothing which came after should have surprised me, really... The true secret of Halloween is to find the terror lurking in plain sight amid raw reality. This is free at the point of use, and should never require a corporate fleecing to facilitate it.

I enjoyed your poem. Glad you can still scribble out an occasional ditty for our edification.

Live long and prosper - H

Enjoyed.

My only dalliance with Halloween costumes is when I was a child we cut holes in old bedsheets to see through and go about as ghosts in Seattle (NW 107th) back in the day. I don't get the dress up shtick for adults at all and am grateful I live in an area where children don't go about on All Hallows' Eve.

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
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Good stuff Auntie.

Reminded me of when my sister carved a Halloween lantern from a swede. It took her so long she missed Halloween and Mum wouldn't let her display it on All Hallows (the day after) or All Souls (the day after that). We finally got to light it on bonfire night.

Loved your witty ditty, Auntie!

When I was a wee, my brother and I went out trick or treating, and by the end of it all, we had a pillowcase each FULL of goodies. Mine was so heavy that I lagged behind my brother … when all of a sudden, my sack of treats was whisked out from behind me, and the thief ran to beat hell. I cried all the way home...

Good news for me (but bad for brother) was that mom forced my bro to share his take with me.

After that, I wasn't so keen on trick or treating anymore....

I hope that the teenager (looked like one when I turned around in shock to see a larger person fleeing with MY GOODS) got a horrid case of purple acne from eating all my candy....

When I was a child the only way of knowing it was Halloween was that the monster mash would be played on the radio and there would be talk of bobbing for apples. Then we followed the US of A and the supermarkets now have a whale of a time selling plastic ****e to kids who go on the streets to bribe sweets that their cupboards are full of. It’s a load of wank.