Happy Halloween, so says the Gnome
The figurine old soul in my brome
Bearded lotus forever in prayer
My meadow knoll his personal lair
Carved wood bought for a shekel and dance
A souvenir from a spent romance
Planted amongst the flowers and ferns
Reminder that a loved heart still burns
His blood painted hat catches the moon
His crimson smear an ominous rune
Lures my eye as his voice does my ear
Out into a darkness that I fear
My backyard now so suddenly strange
Scratching myself like a beast with mange
My heart now a deviled witch’s drum
My soul sacrificed for Satan’s crumb
But still I hunch forward to the call
The Gnome urging me on with his wrawl
I stumble on my well trodden path
Kicked to the ground by an ancient wrath
The devil himself unseen but felt
My heart wrapped in his tightening pelt
I crawl forward on elbows and spleen
Come face to face with my figurine
Happy Halloween, he says again
His whisper as calm as the dawn’s wren
And yet hints of a chuckle from coals
His laugh sputtering out from lost souls
Just too much gleam to his wizened eyes
His prayerful peace a lure to a prize
I am a memento, am I not?
The old Gnome intones in his bloodied snot
Reminder of what you’ve buried here
Old wood cast as a back looking seer
My Buddha pose a shawl o’er your past
While I see what haunts you to the last
But this is the night the Gnome can rest
You for once will be put to the test
Forced to sit here and behold your haunts
Nothing to spare you from your old wants
While I, the Gnome, do pack up and leave
You’ll have no respite from what you grieve
Sitting here in this garden all night
Your hours ahead a mad moonlit fright
As I tuck my beard and leave this patch
I give you a soul you cannot scratch
Happy Halloween, I say to you
May you be cooked in your old sad stew
And with that the old Gnome disappears
I writhe in the mud from my own tears
My soul lost in this garden so green
My life a wind howl for Halloween
