DirgeThomas Lovell Beddoes

We do lie beneath the grass In the moonlight, in the shade Of the yew-tree. They that pass Hear us not. We are afraid They would envy our delight, In our graves by glow-worm night. Come follow us, and smile as we; We sail to the rock in the ancient waves, Where the snow falls by thousands into the sea, And the drown’d and the shipwreck’d have happy graves.

Low BarometerRobert Bridges, 1844 - 1930

The south-wind strengthens to a gale, Across the moon the clouds fly fast, The house is smitten as with a flail, The chimney shudders to the blast.

On such a night, when Air has loosed Its guardian grasp on blood and brain, Old terrors then of god or ghost Creep from their caves to life again;

And Reason kens he herits in A haunted house. Tenants unknown Assert their squalid lease of sin With earlier title than his own.

Unbodied presences, the pack’d Pollution and remorse of Time, Slipp’d from oblivion reënact The horrors of unhouseld crime.

Some men would quell the thing with prayer Whose sightless footsteps pad the floor, Whose fearful trespass mounts the stair Or burts the lock’d forbidden door.

Some have seen corpses long interr’d Escape from hallowing control, Pale charnel forms—nay ev’n have heard The shrilling of a troubled soul,

That wanders till the dawn hath cross’d The dolorous dark, or Earth hath wound Closer her storm-spredd cloke, and thrust The baleful phantoms underground.

The Giaour [Unquenched, unquenchable]George Gordon Byron, 1788 - 1824

. . . Unquenched, unquenchable,Around, within, thy heart shall dwell;Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tellThe tortures of that inward hell!But first, on earth as vampire sent,Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:Then ghastly haunt thy native place,And suck the blood of all thy race;There from thy daughter, sister, wife,At midnight drain the stream of life;Yet loathe the banquet which perforceMust feed thy livid living corse:Thy victims ere they yet expireShall know the demon for their sire,As cursing thee, thou cursing them,Thy flowers are withered on the stem.But one that for thy crime must fall,The youngest, most beloved of all,Shall bless thee with a father’s name —That word shall wrap thy heart in flame!Yet must thou end thy task, and markHer cheek’s last tinge, her eye’s last spark,And the last glassy glance must viewWhich freezes o’er its lifeless blue;Then with unhallowed hand shalt tearThe tresses of her yellow hair,Of which in life a lock when shornAffection’s fondest pledge was worn,But now is borne away by thee,Memorial of thine agony!

All Souls’ Night, 1917Hortense King Flexner

You heap the logs and try to fill The little room with words and cheer, But silent feet are on the hill, Across the window veiled eyes peer. The hosts of lovers, young in death, Go seeking down the world to-night, Remembering faces, warmth and breath—And they shall seek till it is light. Then let the white-flaked logs burn low, Lest those who drift before the storm See gladness on our hearth and know There is no flame can make them warm.

Sonnet 100Lord Brooke Fulke Greville

In night when colors all to black are cast,Distinction lost, or gone down with the light;The eye a watch to inward senses placed,Not seeing, yet still having powers of sight,

Gives vain alarums to the inward sense,Where fear stirred up with witty tyranny,Confounds all powers, and thorough self-offense,Doth forge and raise impossibility:

Such as in thick depriving darknesses,Proper reflections of the error be,And images of self-confusednesses,Which hurt imaginations only see;

And from this nothing seen, tells news of devils,Which but expressions be of inward evils.

Mr. Macklin’s Jack O’LanternDavid McCord

Mr. Macklin takes his knife And carves the yellow pumpkin face: Three holes bring eyes and nose to life, The mouth has thirteen teeth in place. Then Mr. Macklin just for fun Transfers the corn-cob pipe from his Wry mouth to Jack’s, and everyone Dies laughing! O what fun it is Till Mr. Macklin draws the shade And lights the candle in Jack’s skull. Then all the inside dark is made As spooky and as horrorful As Halloween, and creepy crawl The shadows on the tool-house floor, With Jack’s face dancing on the wall. O Mr. Macklin! where’s the door?

All Hallows NightLizette Woodworth Reese

Two things I did on Hallows Night:— Made my house April-clear; Left open wide my door To the ghosts of the year.

Then one came in. Across the room It stood up long and fair— The ghost that was myself—

And gave me stare for stare.IncantationGeorge Parsons Lathrop

When the leaves, by thousands thinned,A thousand times have whirled in the wind,And the moon, with hollow cheek,Staring from her hollow height,Consolation seems to seekFrom the dim, reechoing night;And the fog-streaks dead and whiteLie like ghosts of lost delightO’er highest earth and lowest sky;Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!

Strew the ground with poppy-seeds,And let my bed be hung with weeds,Growing gaunt and rank and tall,Drooping o’er me like a pall.Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mistAcross my brow to turn and twistFold on fold, and leave me blindTo all save visions in the mind.Then, in the depth of rain-fed streamsI shall slumber, and in dreamsSlide through some long glen that burnsWith a crust of blood-red fernsAnd brown-withered wings of brakeLike a burning lava-lake;—So, urged to fearful, faster flowBy the awful gasp, “Hahk! hahk!” of the crow,Shall pass by many a haunted roodOf the nutty, odorous wood;Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom,Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom;Till, lured by light, reflected cloud,I burst aloft my watery shroud,And upward through the ether sailFar above the shrill wind’s wail;—But, falling thence, my soul involveWith the dust dead flowers dissolve;And, gliding out at last to sea,Lulled to a long tranquillity,The perfect poise of seasons keepWith the tides that rest at neap.So must be fulfilled the riteThat giveth me the dead year’s might;And at dawn I shall ariseA spirit, though with human eyes,A human form and human face;And where’er I go or stay,There the summer’s perished grace

Shall be with me, night and day.Hallow-E’en, 1914Winifred M. Letts - 1972

“Why do you wait at your door, woman, Alone in the night?” “I am waiting for one who will come, stranger, To show him a light. He will see me afar on the road And be glad at the sight.”

“Have you no fear in your heart, woman, To stand there alone? There is comfort for you and kindly content Beside the hearthstone.” But she answered, “No rest can I have Till I welcome my own.”

“Is it far he must travel to-night, This man of your heart?” “Strange lands that I know not and pitiless seas Have kept us apart, And he travels this night to his home Without guide, without chart.”

“And has he companions to cheer him?” “Aye, many," she said. “The candles are lighted, the hearthstones are swept, The fires glow red. We shall welcome them out of the night— Our home-coming dead.”

OmensCecilia Llompart

The dead bird, color of a bruise,and smaller than an eyeswollen shut,is king among omens.

Who can blame the ants for feasting?

Let him cast the first crumb.

~

We once tended the oracles.

Now we rely on a photograph

a fingerprinta hand we never saw

coming.

~

A man draws a chalk outlinefirst in his mind

around nothing

then around the bodyof another man.

He does this without thinking.

~

What can I do about the white room I leftbehind? What can I do about the great stones

I walk among now? What can I do

but sing.

Even a small cut can sing all day.

~

There are entire nights

I would take back.

Nostalgia is a thin moon, disappearing

into a sky like cold, unfeeling iron.

~

I dreamed

you were a drowned man, crownof phosphorescent, seaweed in your hair,

water in your shoes. I woke up desperate

for air.

~

In another dream, I was a field

and you combed through mesearching for something

you only thought you had lost.

~

What have we left at the altar of sorrow?

What blessed thing will we leave tomorrow?

Haunted HousesHenry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 - 1882

All houses wherein men have lived and diedAre haunted houses. Through the open doorsThe harmless phantoms on their errands glide,With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,Along the passages they come and go,Impalpable impressions on the air,A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hostsInvited; the illuminated hallIs thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot seeThe forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;He but perceives what is; while unto meAll that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;Owners and occupants of earlier datesFrom graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of senseFloats like an atmosphere, and everywhereWafts through these earthly mists and vapours denseA vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoiseBy opposite attractions and desires;The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jarOf earthly wants and aspirations high,Come from the influence of an unseen starAn undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloudThrows o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowdInto the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descendsA bridge of light, connecting it with this,O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.BatsPaisley Rekdal

unveil themselves in dark.They hang, each a jagged,

silken sleeve, from moonlit rafters brightas polished knives. They swim

the muddled air and keenlike supersonic babies, the sound

we imagine empty wombs might makein women who can’t fill them up.

A clasp, a scratch, a sigh.They drink fruit dry.

And wheel, against feverish light flung hardupon their faces,

in circles that nauseate.Imagine one at breast or neck,

Patterning a name in driblets of iodinethat spatter your skin stars.

They flutter, shake like mystics.They materialize. Revelatory

as a stranger’s underthings found tossedupon the marital bed, you tremble

even at the thought. Asleep,you tear your fingers

and search the sheets all night.

Black CatRainer Maria Rilke, 1875 - 1926

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a placeyour sight can knock on, echoing; but herewithin this thick black pelt, your strongest gazewill be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing elsecan ease him, charges into his dark nighthowling, pounds on the padded wall, and feelsthe rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever falleninto her, so that, like an audience,she can look them over, menacing and sullen,and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,inside the golden amber of her eyeballssuspended, like a prehistoric fly.HalloweenArthur Peterson

Out I went into the meadow, Where the moon was shining brightly, And the oak-tree’s lengthening shadows On the sloping sward did lean; For I longed to see the goblins, And the dainty-footed fairies, And the gnomes, who dwell in caverns, But come forth on Halloween. “All the spirits, good and evil, Fay and pixie, witch and wizard, On this night will sure be stirring," Thought I, as I walked along; “And if Puck, the merry wanderer, Or her majesty, Titania, Or that Mab who teases housewives If their housewifery be wrong,

Should but condescend to meet me”— But my thoughts took sudden parting, For I saw, a few feet from me, Standing in the moonlight there, A quaint, roguish little figure, And I knew ‘twas Puck, the trickster, By the twinkle of his bright eyes Underneath his shaggy hair.

Yet I felt no fear of Robin, Salutation brief he uttered, Laughed and touched me on the shoulder, And we lightly walked away; And I found that I was smaller, For the grasses brushed my elbows, And the asters seemed like oak-trees, With their trunks so tall and gray.

Swiftly as the wind we traveled, Till we came unto a garden, Bright within a gloomy forest, Like a gem within the mine; And I saw, as we grew nearer, That the flowers so blue and golden Were but little men and women, Who amongst the green did shine.

But ‘twas marvelous the resemblance Their bright figures bore to blossoms, As they smiled, and danced, and courtesied, Clad in yellow, pink and blue; That fair dame, my eyes were certain, Who among them moved so proudly, Was my moss-rose, while her ear-rings Sparkled like the morning dew.

Here, too, danced my pinks and pansies, Smiling, gayly, as they used to When, like beaux bedecked and merry, They disported in the sun; There, with meek eyes, walked a lily, While the violets and snow-drops Tripped it with the lordly tulips: Truant blossoms, every one.

Then spoke Robin to me, wondering: “These blithe fairies are the spirits Of the flowers which all the summer Bloom beneath its tender sky; When they feel the frosty fingers Of the autumn closing round them, They forsake their earthborn dwellings, Which to earth return and die,

“As befits things which are mortal. But these spirits, who are deathless, Care not for the frosty autumn, Nor the winter long and keen; But, from field, and wood, and garden, When their summer’s tasks are finished, Gather here for dance and music, As of old, on Halloween.”

Long, with Puck, I watched the revels, Till the gray light of the morning Dimmed the luster of Orion, Starry sentry overhead; And the fairies, at that warning, Ceased their riot, and the brightness Faded from the lonely forest, And I knew that they had fled.

Ah, it ne’er can be forgotten, This strange night I learned the secret— That within each flower a busy Fairy lives and works unseen Seldom is ‘t to mortals granted To behold the elves and pixies,

To behold the merry spirits, Who come forth on Halloween.

Song of the Deathless VoiceAbram Joseph Ryan

‘Twas the dusky Hallowe’en —Hour of fairy and of wraith,When in many a dim-lit green,‘Neath the stars’ prophetic sheen,As the olden legend saith,All the future may be seen,And when — an older story hath —Whate’er in life hath ever beenLoveful, hopeful, or of wrath,Cometh back upon our path.I was dreaming in my room,‘Mid the shadows, still as they;Night, in veil of woven gloom,Wept and trailed her tresses grayO’er her fair, dead sister — Day.To me from some far-awayCrept a voice — or seemed to creep —As a wave-child of the deep,Frightened by the wild storm’s roarCreeps low-sighing to the shoreVery low and very loneCame the voice with song of moan,This, weak-sung in weaker word,Is the song that night I heard:

How long! Alas, how long!How long shall the Celt chant the sad song of hope,That a sunrise may break on the long starless night of our past?How long shall we wander and wait on the desolate slopeOf Thabors that promise our Transfiguration at last? How long, O Lord! How long!

How long, O Fate! How long!How long shall our sunburst reflect but the sunset of Right,When gloaming still lights the dim immemorial years?How long shall our harp’s strings, like winds that are wearied of night,Sound sadder than moanings in tones all a-trembling with tears? How long, O Lord! How long!

How long, O Right! How long!How long shall our banner, the brightest that ever did flameIn battle with wrong, droop furled like a flag o’er a grave?How long shall we be but a nation with only a name,Whose history clanks with the sounds of the chains that enslave? How long, O Lord! How long!

How long! Alas, how long!How long shall our isle be a Golgotha, out in the sea,With a cross in the dark? Oh, when shall our Good Friday close?How long shall thy sea that beats round thee bring only to theeThe wailings, O Erin! that float down the waves of thy woes? How long, O Lord! How long!

How long! Alas, how long!How long shall the cry of the wronged, O Freedom! for theeAscend all in vain from the valleys of sorrow below?How long ere the dawn of the day in the ages to be,When the Celt will forgive, or else tread on the heart of his foe? How long, O Lord! How long!

Whence came the voice? Around me gray silence fall;And without in the gloom not a sound is astir ‘neath the sky;And who is the singer? Or hear I a singer at all?Or, hush! Is’t my heart athrill with some deathless old cry?

Ah! blood forgets not in its flowing its forefathers’ wrongs —They are the heart’s trust, from which we may ne’er be released;Blood keeps in its throbs the echoes of all the old songsAnd sings them the best when it flows thro’ the heart of a priest.

Am I not in my blood as old as the race whence I sprung?In the cells of my heart feel I not all its ebb and its flow?

And old as our race is, is it not still forever as young,As the youngest of Celts in whose breast Erin’s love is aglow?

The blood of a race that is wronged beats the longest of all,For long as the wrong lasts, each drop of it quivers with wrath;And sure as the race lives, no matter what fates may befall,There’s a Voice with a Song that forever is haunting its path.

Aye, this very hand that trembles thro’ this very line,Lay hid, ages gone, in the hand of some forefather Celt,With a sword in its grasp, if stronger, not truer than mine,And I feel, with my pen, what the old hero’s sworded hand felt —

The heat of the hate that flashed into flames against wrong,The thrill of the hope that rushed like a storm on the foe;And the sheen of that sword is hid in the sheath of the songAs sure as I feel thro’ my veins the pure Celtic blood flow.

The ties of our blood have been strained o’er thousands of years,And still are not severed, how mighty soever the strain;The chalice of time o’erflows with the streams of our tears,Yet just as the shamrocks, to bloom, need the clouds and their rain,

The Faith of our fathers, our hopes, and the love of our isleNeed the rain of our hearts that falls from our grief-clouded eyes,To keep them in bloom, while for ages we wait for the smileOf Freedom, that some day — ah! some day! shall light Erin’s skies.

Our dead are not dead who have gone, long ago, to their rest;

They are living in us whose glorious race will not die —Their brave buried hearts are still beating on in each breastOf the child of each Celt in each clime ‘neath the infinite sky.

Many days yet to come may be dark as the days that are past,Many voices may hush while the great years sweep patiently by;But the voice of our race shall live sounding down to the last,And our blood is the bard of the song that never shall die.

Theme in YellowCarl Sandburg, 1878 - 1967

I spot the hills With yellow balls in autumn. I light the prairie cornfields Orange and tawny gold clusters And I am called pumpkins. On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon; I am a jack-o’-lantern With terrible teeth And the children know I am fooling.

Dusk in AutumnSara Teasdale, 1884 - 1933

The moon is like a scimitar,A little silver scimitar,A-drifting down the sky.And near beside it is a star,A timid twinkling golden star,That watches likes an eye. And thro’ the nursery window-paneThe witches have a fire again,Just like the ones we make,—And now I know they’re having tea,I wsh they’d give a cup to me,With witches’ currant cake.

Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I[Round about the cauldron go]William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

The three witches, casting a spell

Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights hast thirty one Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

All SoulsBY MICHAEL COLLIERA few of us—Hillary Clinton, Vlad Dracula, Oprah Winfrey, and Trotsky—peer through the kitchen window at a raccoon perched outside on a picnic table where it picks

over chips, veggies, olives, and a chunk of pâte. Behind us others crowd the hallway, many more dance in the living room. Trotsky fusses with the bloody screwdriver puttied to her forehead.

Hillary Clinton, whose voice is the rumble of a bowling ball, whose hands are hairy to the third knuckle, lifts his rubber chin to announce, “What a perfect mask it has!” While the Count

whistling through his plastic fangs says, “Oh, and a nose like a chef.” Then one by one the other masks join in: “Tail of a gambler,” “a swashbuckler’s hips,” “feet of a cat burglar.”

Trotsky scratches herself beneath her skirt and Hillary, whose lederhosen are so tight they form a codpiece, wraps his legs around Trotsky’s leg and humps like a dog. Dracula and Oprah, the married hosts, hold hands

and then let go. Meanwhile the raccoon squats on the gherkins, extracts pimentos from olives, and sniffs abandoned cups of beer. A ghoul in the living room turns the music up and the house becomes a drum.

The windows buzz. “Who do you love? Who do you love?” the singer sings. Our feathered arms, our stockinged legs. The intricate paws, the filleting tongue. We love what we are; we love what we’ve become.

Halloween PartyBY KENN NESBITTWe’re having a Halloween party at school.I’m dressed up like Dracula. Man, I look cool!I dyed my hair black, and I cut off my bangs.I’m wearing a cape and some fake plastic fangs.

I put on some makeup to paint my face white,like creatures that only come out in the night.My fingernails, too, are all pointed and red.I look like I’m recently back from the dead.

My mom drops me off, and I run into school

and suddenly feel like the world’s biggest fool.The other kids stare like I’m some kind of freak—the Halloween party is not till next week.

To Live in the Zombie ApocalypseBurlee Vang

The moon will shine for Godknows how long.As if it still matters. As if someone

is trying to recall a dream.Believe the brain is a cage of light& rage. When it shuts off,

something else switches on.There’s no better reason than nowto lock the doors, the windows.

Turn off the sprinklers& porch light. Save the booksfor fire. In darkness,

we learn to readwhat moves along the horizon,across the periphery of a gun scope—

the flicker of shadows,the rustling of trash in the bodyof cities long emptied.

Not a soul livesin this house &this house & this

house. Go on, stiffenthe heart, quickenthe blood. To live

in a world of flesh& teeth, you mustlearn to kill

what you love,& love what can die.

DjinnBY RAE ARMANTROUT

Haunted, they say, believing

the soft, shifty dunes are made up of false promises.

Many believe whatever happens is the other half of a conversation.

Many whisper white lies to the dead.

"The boys are doing really well."

Some think nothing is so until it has been witnessed.

They believe the bits are iffy;

the forces that bind them, absolute.

A Rhyme for Halloween BY MAURICE KILWEIN GUEVARATonight I light the candles of my eyes in the leeAnd swing down this branch full of red leaves.Yellow moon, skull and spine of the hare,Arrow me to town on the neck of the air.

I hear the undertaker make love in the heather;The candy maker, poor fellow, is under the weather.Skunk, moose, raccoon, they go to the doors in threesWith a torch in their hands or pleas: "O, please . . ."

Baruch Spinoza and the butcher are drunk:One is the tail and one is the trunkOf a beast who dances in circles for beerAnd doesn't think twice to learn how to steer.

Our clock is blind, our clock is dumb.Its hands are broken, its fingers numb.No time for the martyr of our fair townWho wasn't a witch because she could drown.

Now the dogs of the cemetery are starting to barkAt the vision of her, bobbing up through the dark.When she opens her mouth to gasp for air,

A moth flies out and lands in her hair.

The apples are thumping, winter is coming.The lips of the pumpkin soon will be humming.By the caw of the crow on the first of the year,Something will die, something appear.The Haunted OakBY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBARPray why are you so bare, so bare, Oh, bough of the old oak-tree; And why, when I go through the shade you throw, Runs a shudder over me?

My leaves were green as the best, I trow, And sap ran free in my veins, But I say in the moonlight dim and weird A guiltless victim's pains.

I bent me down to hear his sigh; I shook with his gurgling moan,And I trembled sore when they rode away, And left him here alone.

They'd charged him with the old, old crime, And set him fast in jail: Oh, why does the dog howl all night long, And why does the night wind wail?

He prayed his prayer and he swore his oath, And he raised his hand to the sky; But the beat of hoofs smote on his ear, And the steady tread drew nigh.

Who is it rides by night, by night, Over the moonlit road? And what is the spur that keeps the pace, What is the galling goad?

And now they beat at the prison door, "Ho, keeper, do not stay! We are friends of him whom you hold within, And we fain would take him away

"From those who ride fast on our heels With mind to do him wrong; They have no care for his innocence, And the rope they bear is long."

They have fooled the jailer with lying words, They have fooled the man with lies; The bolts unbar, the locks are drawn,

And the great door open flies.

Now they have taken him from the jail, And hard and fast they ride, And the leader laughs low down in his throat, As they halt my trunk beside.

Oh, the judge, he wore a mask of black, And the doctor one of white, And the minister, with his oldest son, Was curiously bedight.

Oh, foolish man, why weep you now? 'Tis but a little space, And the time will come when these shall dread The mem'ry of your face.

I feel the rope against my bark, And the weight of him in my grain, I feel in the throe of his final woe The touch of my own last pain.

And never more shall leaves come forth On the bough that bears the ban; I am burned with dread, I am dried and dead, From the curse of a guiltless man.

And ever the judge rides by, rides by, And goes to hunt the deer, And ever another rides his soul In the guise of a mortal fear.

And ever the man he rides me hard, And never a night stays he; For I feel his curse as a haunted bough, On the trunk of a haunted tree.

All Hallows’ EveBY DOROTHEA TANNING

Be perfect, make it otherwise.Yesterday is torn in shreds.Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyesRip apart the breathing beds.Hear bones crack and pulverize.Doom creeps in on rubber treads.Countless overwrought housewives, Minds unraveling like threads,Try lipstick shades to tranquilizeFears of age and general dreads.

Sit tight, be perfect, swat the spies,Don’t take faucets for fountainheads.Drink tasty antidotes. OtherwiseYou and the werewolf: newlyweds.

To The Dead in the Graveyard Underneath My WindowBY ADELAIDE CRAPSEYWritten in A Moment of ExasperationHow can you lie so still? All day I watch And never a blade of all the green sod moves To show where restlessly you toss and turn, And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees Stiffened and aching from their long disuse; I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth To take its freedom of the midnight hour. Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones? The very worms must scorn you where you lie, A pallid mouldering acquiescent folk, Meek habitants of unresented graves. Why are you there in your straight row on row Where I must ever see you from my bed That in your mere dumb presence iterate The text so weary in my ears: "Lie still And rest; be patient and lie still and rest." I'll not be patient! I will not lie still! There is a brown road runs between the pines, And further on the purple woodlands lie, And still beyond blue mountains lift and loom; And I would walk the road and I would be Deep in the wooded shade and I would reach The windy mountain tops that touch the clouds. My eyes may follow but my feet are held. Recumbent as you others must I too Submit? Be mimic of your movelessness With pillow and counterpane for stone and sod? And if the many sayings of the wise Teach of submission I will not submit But with a spirit all unreconciled Flash an unquenched defiance to the stars. Better it is to walk, to run, to dance, Better it is to laugh and leap and sing, To know the open skies of dawn and night, To move untrammeled down the flaming noon, And I will clamour it through weary days Keeping the edge of deprivation sharp, Nor with the pliant speaking on my lips Of resignation, sister to defeat. I'll not be patient. I will not lie still.

And in ironic quietude who is The despot of our days and lord of dust

Needs but, scarce heeding, wait to drop Grim casual comment on rebellion's end; "Yes, yes . . Wilful and petulant but now As dead and quiet as the others are." And this each body and ghost of you hath heard That in your graves do therefore lie so still.SamhainBY ANNIE FINCH(The Celtic Halloween)

In the season leaves should love,since it gives them leave to movethrough the wind, towards the groundthey were watching while they hung,legend says there is a seamstitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veilearth from the sky in one last palewave, as autumn dies to bringwinter back, and then the spring,we who die ourselves can peelback another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.Tonight at last I feel it shake.I feel the nights stretching awaythousands long behind the daystill they reach the darkness whereall of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touchmove with me, and when I brushmy own mind across another,I am with my mother's mother.Sure as footsteps in my waitingself, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,intimate, a waiting bounty."Carry me." She leaves this trailthrough a shudder of the veil,and leaves, like amber where she stays,a gift for her perpetual gaze.

"This living hand, now warm and capable"BY JOHN KEATSThis living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm’d–see here it is– I hold it towards you.

All HallowsBY LOUISE GLÜCK

Even now this landscape is assembling. The hills darken. The oxen sleep in their blue yoke, the fields having been picked clean, the sheaves bound evenly and piled at the roadside among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness of harvest or pestilence. And the wife leaning out the window with her hand extended, as in payment, and the seeds distinct, gold, calling Come here Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

Field of SkullsBY MARY KARR

Stare hard enough at the fabric of night, and if you're predisposed to dark—let’s say the window you’ve picked is a black postage stamp you spend hours at, sleepless, drinking gin after the I Love Lucy reruns have gone off—stare

like your eyes have force, and behind any night’s taut scrim will come the forms you expect pressing from the other side. For you: a field of skulls, angled jaws and eye-sockets, a zillion scooped-out crania. They’re plain once you think to look.

You know such fields exist, for criminals roam your very block, and even history lists monsters like Adolf and Uncle Joe who stalk the earth’s orb, plus minor baby-eaters unidentified, probably in your very midst. Perhaps that disgruntled mail clerk from your job

has already scratched your name on a bullet—that’s him rustling in the azaleas. You caress the thought, for it proves there’s no better spot for you than here, your square-yard of chintz sofa, hearing the bad news piped steady from your head. The night is black. You stare and furious stare,

confident there are no gods out there. In this way, you’re blind to your own eye’s intricate machine and to the light it sees by, to the luck of birth and all your remembered loves. If the skulls are there— let’s say they do press toward you against night’s scrim—could they not stare with slack jawed envy at the fine flesh that covers your scalp, the numbered hairs, at the force your hands hold?

Halloween in the Anthropocene, 2015BY CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ

Darkness spills across the sky like an oil plume.The moon reflects bleached coral. Tonight, let uspraise the sacrificed. Praise the souls of  black

boys, enslaved by supply chains, who carrybags of cacao under West African heat. “Trickor treat, smell my feet, give me something good

to eat,” sings a girl dressed as a Disney princess.Let us praise the souls of   brown girls who sewour clothes as fire unthreads sweatshops into

smoke and ash. “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give mesomething good,” whisper kids disguised as ninjas.Tonight, let us praise the souls of Asian children

who manufacture toys and tech until gravity sharpenstheir bodies enough to cut through suicide nets.“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me,” shout boys

camouflaged as soldiers. Let us praise the soulsof  veterans who salute with their guns becauseonly triggers will pull God into their ruined

temples. “Trick or treat, smell my feet,” chant kidsmasquerading as cowboys and Indians. Tonight,

let us praise the souls of native youth, whose eyes

are open-pit uranium mines, veins are poisonedrivers, hearts are tar sands tailings ponds. “Trickor treat,” says a boy dressed as the sun. Let us

praise El Niño, his growing pains, praise his mother,Ocean, who is dying in a warming bath among deadfish and refugee children. Let us praise our mothers

of  asthma, mothers of  cancer clusters, mothers ofmiscarriage — pray for us — because our costumeswon’t hide the true cost of our greed. Praise our

mothers of  lost habitats, mothers of  fallout, mothersof extinction — pray for us — because even tomorrowwill be haunted — leave them, leave us, leave — 

A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal SwampBY THOMAS MOORE

Written at Norfolk, in Virginia“They made her a grave, too cold and damp For a soul so warm and true; And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe.

“And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, And her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be, And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, When the footstep of death is near.”

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds— His path was rugged and sore, Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, Through many a fen where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before.

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, If slumber his eyelids knew, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep Its venomous tear and nightly steep The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake, And the copper-snake breath’d in his ear, Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, “Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake, And the white canoe of my dear?”

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright

Quick over its surface play’d— “Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!” And the dim shore echoed for many a night The name of the death-cold maid.

Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark, Which carried him off from shore; Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark, The wind was high and the clouds were dark, And the boat return’d no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp, This lover and maid so true Are seen at the hour of midnight damp To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp, And paddle their white canoe!

To -- -- --. Ulalume: A BalladBY EDGAR ALLAN POE

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispéd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul— Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. These were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that roll— As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole— That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sere— For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year— (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber— (Though once we had journeyed down here)— We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent And star-dials pointed to morn—

As the star-dials hinted of morn— At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn— Astarte's bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said—"She is warmer than Dian: She rolls through an ether of sighs— She revels in a region of sighs: She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion To point us the path to the skies— To the Lethean peace of the skies— Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes— Come up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said—"Sadly this star I mistrust— Her pallor I strangely mistrust:— Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must." In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings till they trailed in the dust— In agony sobbed, letting sink her Plumes till they trailed in the dust— Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night:— See!—it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom— And conquered her scruples and gloom: And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the door of a tomb— By the door of a legended tomb; And I said—"What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb?" She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume—

'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crispèd and sere— As the leaves that were withering and sere, And I cried—"It was surely October On this very night of last year That I journeyed—I journeyed down here— That I brought a dread burden down here— On this night of all nights in the year, Oh, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber— This misty mid region of Weir— Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber— In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Said we, then—the two, then—"Ah, can it Have been that the woodlandish ghouls— The pitiful, the merciful ghouls— To bar up our way and to ban it From the secret that lies in these wolds— From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds— Had drawn up the spectre of a planet From the limbo of lunary souls— This sinfully scintillant planet From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

Thin Kinby Michael R. Burch

Skeleton!Tell us what you lack ...the ability to love,your flesh so slack?

Will we frighten you,grown as pale & unsound,when we also hauntthe unhallowed ground?

Halloween Snapshotby George Held

That devil in red satin suitWith tail and black mask,Holding a black plastic pitchfork,Is eight-year-old me,Costumed by my mom.

Little did she know then,When conjuringMy childish deviltry,

I'd grow up practicingThat black art poetry.

Her Kindby Anne Sexton

I have gone out, a possessed witch,haunting the black air, braver at night;dreaming evil, I have done my hitchover the plain houses, light by light:lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.A woman like that is not a woman, quite.I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,closets, silks, innumerable goods;fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:whining, rearranging the disaligned.A woman like that is misunderstood.I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,waved my nude arms at villages going by,learning the last bright routes, survivorwhere your flames still bite my thighand my ribs crack where your wheels wind.A woman like that is not ashamed to die.I have been her kind.

Spirits of the Deadby Edgar Allan Poe

Thy soul shall find itself alone‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;Not one, of all the crowd, to pryInto thine hour of secrecy.

Be silent in that solitude,Which is not loneliness — for thenThe spirits of the dead, who stoodIn life before thee, are againIn death around thee, and their will

Shall overshadow thee; be still.

The night, though clear, shall frown,And the stars shall not look downFrom their high thrones in the HeavenWith light like hope to mortals given,But their red orbs, without beam,To thy weariness shall seemAs a burning and a feverWhich would cling to thee for ever.

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,Now are visions ne’er to vanish;From thy spirit shall they passNo more, like dew-drop from the grass.

The breeze, the breath of God, is still,And the mist upon the hillShadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,Is a symbol and a token.How it hangs upon the trees,A mystery of mysteries!

Revenge of the Halloween Monstersby Michael R. Burch

The Halloween monsters, incensed,keep howling, and may be UNFENCED!!! They’re angry that children with treatskeep throwing their trash IN THE STREETS!!!

You can check it out on your computer:Google says, “Don’t be a POLLUTER!!!”The Halloween monsters agree,so if you’re a litterbug, FLEE!!!

Kids, if you’d like more treats next yearand don’t want to cower in FEAR,please make all the mean monsters happy,and they’ll hand out sweet treats like they’re sappy!

So if you eat treats on the dragand don't want huge monsters to nag,please put all used wrappers in your BAG!!!

The Unreturningby Wilfred Owen

Suddenly night crushed out the day and hurledHer remnants over cloud-peaks, thunder-walled.Then fell a stillness such as harks appalled

When far-gone dead return upon the world.

There watched I for the Dead; but no ghost woke.Each one whom Life exiled I named and called.But they were all too far, or dumbed, or thralled,And never one fared back to me or spoke.

Then peered the indefinite unshapen dawnWith vacant gloaming, sad as half-lit minds,The weak-limned hour when sick men's sighs are drained.And while I wondered on their being withdrawn,Gagged by the smothering Wing which none unbinds,I dreaded even a heaven with doors so chained.

Alone by Edgar Alan Poe

From childhood's hour I have not beenAs others were; I have not seenAs others saw; I could not bringMy passions from a common spring.From the same source I have not takenMy sorrow; I could not awakenMy heart to joy at the same tone;And all I loved, I loved alone.Then—in my childhood, in the dawnOf a most stormy life—was drawnFrom every depth of good and illThe mystery which binds me still:From the torrent, or the fountain,From the red cliff of the mountain,From the sun that round me rolledIn its autumn tint of gold,From the lightning in the skyAs it passed me flying by,From the thunder and the storm,And the cloud that took the form(When the rest of Heaven was blue)Of a demon in my view.

Acquainted With The Nightby Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feetWhen far away an interrupted cryCame over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-by;And further still at an unearthly height,One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.I have been one acquainted with the night.The Vampireby Conrad Aiken

She rose among us where we lay.She wept, we put our work away.She chilled our laughter, stilled our play;And spread a silence there.And darkness shot across the sky,And once, and twice, we heard her cry;And saw her lift white hands on highAnd toss her troubled hair.

What shape was this who came to us,With basilisk eyes so ominous,With mouth so sweet, so poisonous,And tortured hands so pale?We saw her wavering to and fro,Through dark and wind we saw her go;Yet what her name was did not know;And felt our spirits fail.

We tried to turn away; but stillAbove we heard her sorrow thrill;And those that slept, they dreamed of illAnd dreadful things:Of skies grown red with rending flamesAnd shuddering hills that cracked their frames;Of twilights foul with wings;

And skeletons dancing to a tune;And cries of children stifled soon;And over all a blood-red moonA dull and nightmare size.They woke, and sought to go their ways,Yet everywhere they met her gaze,Her fixed and burning eyes.

Who are you now, —we cried to her—Spirit so strange, so sinister?We felt dead winds above us stir;And in the darkness heardA voice fall, singing, cloying sweet,

Heavily dropping, though that heat,Heavy as honeyed pulses beat,Slow word by anguished word.

And through the night strange music wentWith voice and cry so darkly blentWe could not fathom what they meant;Save only that they seemedTo thin the blood along our veins,Foretelling vile, delirious pains,And clouds divulging blood-red rainsUpon a hill undreamed.

And this we heard: "Who dies for me,He shall possess me secretly,My terrible beauty he shall see,And slake my body's flame.But who denies me cursed shall be,And slain, and buried loathsomely,And slimed upon with shame."

And darkness fell. And like a seaOf stumbling deaths we followed, weWho dared not stay behind.There all night long beneath a cloudWe rose and fell, we struck and bowed,We were the ploughman and the ploughed,Our eyes were red and blind.

And some, they said, had touched her side,Before she fled us there;And some had taken her to bride;And some lain down for her and died;Who had not touched her hair,Ran to and fro and cursed and criedAnd sought her everywhere.

"Her eyes have feasted on the dead,And small and shapely is her head,And dark and small her mouth," they said,"And beautiful to kiss;Her mouth is sinister and redAs blood in moonlight is."

Then poets forgot their jeweled wordsAnd cut the sky with glittering swords;And innocent souls turned carrion birdsTo perch upon the dead.Sweet daisy fields were drenched with death,The air became a charnel breath,Pale stones were splashed with red.

Green leaves were dappled bright with bloodAnd fruit trees murdered in the bud;And when at length the dawn

Came green as twilight from the east,And all that heaving horror ceased,Silent was every bird and beast,And that dark voice was gone.

No word was there, no song, no bell,No furious tongue that dream to tell;Only the dead, who rose and fellAbove the wounded men;And whisperings and wails of painBlown slowly from the wounded grain,Blown slowly from the smoking plain;And silence fallen again.

Until at dusk, from God knows where,Beneath dark birds that filled the air,Like one who did not hear or care,Under a blood-red cloud,An aged ploughman came aloneAnd drove his share through flesh and bone,And turned them under to mould and stone;All night long he ploughed.

Methought I Sawby John Milton

Methought I saw my late espousèd saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint.Mine, as whom washed from spot of childbed taint Purification in the Old Law did save, And such, as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,Came vested all in white, pure as her mind. Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shinedSo clear as in no face with more delight. But O, as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

The ListenersBY WALTER DE LA MARE‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest’s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret, Above the Traveller’s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time; ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken By the lonely Traveller’s call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even Louder, and lifted his head:— ‘Tell them I came, and no one answered, That I kept my word,’ he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward, When the plunging hoofs were gone.

"Dead Man's Hate" by Robert Ervin Howard"They hanged John Farrel in the dawn amid the marketplace;At dusk came Adam Brand to him and spat upon his face."Ho neighbors all," spake Adam Brand, "see ye John Farrel's fate!"Tis proven here a hempen noose is stronger than man's hate!

For heard ye not John Farrel's vow to be avenged upon meCome life or death? See how he hangs high on the gallows tree!"Yet never a word the people spoke, in fear and wild surprise-For the grisly corpse raised up its head and stared with sightless eyes,

And with strange motions, slow and stiff, pointed at Adam BrandAnd clambered down the gibbet tree, the noose within its hand.With gaping mouth stood Adam Brand like a statue carved of stone,Till the dead man laid a clammy hand hard on his shoulder bone.

Then Adam shrieked like a soul in hell; the red blood left his faceAnd he reeled away in a drunken run through the screaming market place;And close behind, the dead man came with a face like a mummy's mask,And the dead joints cracked and the stiff legs creaked with their unwonted task.

Men fled before the flying twain or shrank with bated breath,And they saw on the face of Adam Brand the seal set there by death.He reeled on buckling legs that failed, yet on and on he fled;So through the shuddering market-place, the dying fled the dead.

At the riverside fell Adam Brand with a scream that rent the skies;Across him fell John Farrel's corpse, nor ever the twain did rise.There was no wound on Adam Brand but his brow was cold and damp,For the fear of death had blown out his life as a witch blows out a lamp.

His lips were writhed in a horrid grin like a fiend's on Satan's coals,And the men that looked on his face that day, his stare still haunts their souls.Such was the fate of Adam Brand, a strange, unearthly fate;For stronger than death or hempen noose are the fires of a dead man's hate."

"Her Strong Enchantments Failing" by A.E. HousemanThis is another one that gets you in the very last line. Don't skip ahead, or you'll ruin it.

"Her strong enchantments failing,

Her towers of fear in wreck,Her limbecks dried of poisonsAnd the knife at her neck,

The Queen of air and darknessBegins to shrill and cry,"O young man, O my slayer,To-morrow you shall die."O Queen of air and darkness,I think 'tis truth you say,And I shall die tomorrow;But you will die to-day. ""I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain" by Emily Dickinson

"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading – treading – till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum –

Kept beating – beating – till I thought

My mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race,

Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down –

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing – then –"

"Outcast" by Claude McKay

Detailing the horrors of being black in a deeply racist world. Still, painfully real today.

"For the dim regions whence my fathers cameMy spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.

I would go back to darkness and to peace,But the great western world holds me in fee,And I may never hope for full releaseWhile to its alien gods I bend my knee.

Something in me is lost, forever lost,Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,And I must walk the way of life a ghostAmong the sons of earth, a thing apart;For I was born, far from my native clime,Under the white man’s menace, out of time."

"Mad Girl's Love Song" by Sylvia Plath"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;I lift my lids and all is born again.(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,And arbitrary blackness gallops in:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bedAnd sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,But I grow old and I forget your name.(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;At least when spring comes they roar back again.I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.(I think I made you up inside my head.)”