Three Halloween Poems


By Godfrey Davenport

Bubonic Tonic

Death stalked

              as it often does through mindless streets it roamed

Death talked

              as it often does and sent its men on home

Death walked

              as it often does and sang a mindless tune

Death balked

              as it often does, diverted by the runes

                            One penny, two penny, three penny, pence

                            Four pound, five pound, six pound men,

                            Give a quid, take a quid, move a quid along

                            Toss a copper, drop a copper, listen to the deathsong

                            Make a wish for luck, pluck your finger on a thistle

                            Drink a drop of blood, dance to the pennywhistle

The flies, drop dead, there’s a burning in your head

              Go away, Go away

                              Fall away

                              stay.

Some Mad God’s Dream

If our time is nothing but some mad god’s dream

then here we sit on a forlorn shore

while in his sleep, he laughs at our plots and schemes

We will stumble, wondering what it all means

drawing breath, then dying, nothing more

if our time is nothing but some mad god’s dream

Mortal hopes and desires crushed in the stream

of the sound of his merciless snore

while in his sleep, he laughs at our plots and schemes

An ironclad sky reflects desperate screams

as we pound helplessly on the door

if our time is nothing but some mad god’s dream

Teetering on the edge of life’s balance beam

grasping, wondering, what it’s all for

while in his sleep, he laughs at our plots and schemes

So, take whatever meaning that you can glean

share with me and we’ll face the horror

if our time is nothing but some mad god’s dream

while in his sleep, he laughs at our plots and schemes

Writers, Writings, and Some Such Things

Scribblings and dribblings,

schoolings and droolings,

mind droppings, thought drippings, and some such things

Idea mongers and fair throwers,

paper scratchers and soul whores,

painters no plainer than English may be

Splatters and splinters,

crashes and “TIMBERRR!”s

smashes and limber the fingers of these

Giggles and cackles,

hee-hees and crackles,

like some long coated flasher of ideas too deep

And you are the vampires,

sucking in the inner cores,

of such willing victims as we may be

Mosquitoes and leeches,

tapeworms and screeches,

the world is made up of some such things