Hallow Even
Jack found the biggest pumpkin
I had ever seen, I swear,
He wheeled it in a barrow from
The local Pumpkin Fair,
‘And what d’you think you’ll do
with that?’
His sister said, Colleen,
‘I’ll make a Jack O’Lantern, for
Tonight, it’s Halloween!’
‘I betcha don’t!’ ‘I bet I do!’
They said, in childish chat,
For Jack was two years older so
He gave her tit for tat,
‘I’m gonna dress up like a witch
And put a spell on you,
That thing will end up pumpkin
soup
Mixed in my witch’s brew!’
‘I’ll put my clothes on inside
out,
Walk backwards round the fire,
My Lantern will bring back the
dead,
I’m raising Jim O’Dwyer,
And he will bring the big black
sow…’
But that was when she screamed,
His father cuffed him round the
head
‘Stop frightening Colleen!’
O’Dwyer still hung in chains back
then
Had danced his final jig,
He’d strangled little Annie Penn
Then fed her to his pig.
They hung him at the old
crossroads
And staked his wicked heart,
And Colleen shut her eyes up
tight
When passing, in the cart.
That night they lit the bonfire
and
Then went to trick or treat,
The farmers gave them soul cakes
And their wives some home-made
sweets,
But Colleen had complained all
night
Had moaned and told them lies,
He said, ‘You wait ‘til we get
home,
I’ll raise Widow Tresize!’
Tresize had been their schoolmarm
And had caned them as she taught,
Colleen had felt it on her legs
When she and Jack had fought,
The widow ended coughing blood
All over Colleen’s dress,
And Colleen screamed as she
collapsed,
‘Look what you’ve done - Bad
cess!’
She’d always been a spiteful
child
And Jack would sit and brood,
Each time his father punished him
For being rough, or crude,
He’d sit up lonely in his room
And tear her dolls apart,
Imagining no sister as
He stuck pins in her heart.
The Lantern sat in pride of place
Out by the great bonfire,
Its evil eyes glowed in the dark,
Its mouth, a dreadful leer,
But Colleen threw a tantrum
Said the face made her feel sick,
She set about it with her broom
And poked it, with a stick.
The pumpkin smashed, in pieces
lay
Jack sat with wounded
pride,
He took her witches broom and
flung it
In the fire, outside,
Another cuff around the head
His anger turned to hate,
And Colleen sniggered just once
more
And sealed her morbid fate.
The barrel in the kitchen floated
Apples by the score,
The dunking was the one good
thing
That Jack was waiting for,
When Colleen dunked and dunked
again
Jack stood behind, and frowned,
Then called out to his father,
‘Da!
I think Colleen has drowned!’
David Lewis Paget
Copyright 2012
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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