All Hallows Eve
They’d
painted a cross on the door outside
To
keep the devil at bay,
While
Ann took care of the soul cakes that
She’d
baked in a shallow tray,
The
Jack O’ Lanterns sat in a row
On
a shelf to await reprieve,
As
darkness fell on the House of Hell
At
the last All Hallows Eve.
They’d
whisked the wandering spirits out
With
a witches broom of straw,
And
placed a basin of milk outside
So
they wouldn’t come through the door.
The
dead could re-visit their homes that night
At
that one grim time of the year,
So
they set the table, an extra place
Should
the shade of a ghost appear.
Across
the road was a cemetery
To
which John would haste away,
And
light a candle on every grave
To
keep the dead at bay,
He
placed a dozen on ‘Hammer Jack’
As
the murderer was known,
Who’d
hung in chains through a drought and rains
Til
at last, his dust had flown.
But
John had a muttered confession as
He
lit up the candles there,
‘I
didn’t mean you to hang, old man,
But
I was beyond despair.
When
somebody pointed the finger, I
Was
only relieved to see,
That
though I murdered my mother, still,
It
wasn’t pointing at me!’
He
staggered back to the house and stood
To
watch his woman, Ann,
He’d
often thought to confess, but then
It’s
not that she’d understand.
He’d
only done it for her, he thought,
His
mother was grim and old,
And
threatened that she would put him out,
And
Ann, out there in the cold.
Jack,
an itinerant laborer
From
a cottage across the way,
Had
liked his mother and visited her
When
the deed was done that day,
There
was blood on his fraying overalls
And
blood on his front and back,
When
he staggered out of the house, some say,
So
they blamed him for the attack.
When
John lit the Jack O’ Lanterns he
Then
placed them out in the yard,
Hoping
that they would fend them off,
The
ghouls from the devil’s guard,
But
just on the stroke of midnight
He
grew pale at a distant howl,
From
out in the moonlit cemetery,
Though
Ann said, ‘It’s an owl!’
But
then came the long and heavy tread
Of
a pair of boots he knew,
Sounding
on the veranda, while
The
door had opened, too,
And
standing there in the doorway
Was
a dead man with a list,
A
Jack O’ Lantern sat on his head,
And
a hammer in his fist.
Ann
was crouched in a corner when
The
police arrived, first light,
She
babbled about some ‘Hammer Jack’,
Was
right off her head with fright.
And
blood was spattered on every wall
From
John, who lay where he fell,
While
‘Hammer Jack’ was back in his grave,
Was
done with the House of Hell!
David Lewis Paget is an Australian Poet, born in the UK but migrated
to Australia in 1958. Writing since 1966, predominantly introspective poetry
until 2005, then launched into Narrative and Gothic verse. Paget taught English
to college students at the Wenzhou Medical College in 2005-6, from which came
his Chinese collection. He lives in a Cornish cottage on the Yorke Peninsula,
South Australia, retired, but still writing and publishing poetry. A prolific
writer whose work has been called addictive by many readers.
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