This Halloween will be different.
There will be no Jack O’ Lanterns,
No Trick-Or-Treaters welcomed either
In this sacred space
Where I scrub and scrub
Till everywhere and everything
Shimmers beneath the red aura
Of a setting sun.
And yet I continue scouring
Until I drop exhausted
To the bare floor
While the surfaces softly glow
As moonlight spreads its beams.
Witches. ghosts, goblins
And other night creatures
May ride the skies till dawn,
But I will be unaware—
Deep in sleep as though cursed
Like fabled Sleeping Beauty.
When I wake, I will walk to the sea
To let the brine sharp air
Sweep away the last ash-dust
Of betrayal,
And standing in the receding waves
Let their distanced coolness
Seep within to douse even the embers
Of betrayal’s fires of treachery.
At last, I will lie in the sun
While the rushing waters within
Carve away the lingering footprints
Of betrayal
Creating new pathways
Until there is only an emptiness
As vast as the Grand Canyon.
Infilled with peace
Then warmed within and without,
I will rise to walk in serenity
And confidence
To a new beginning,
A new tomorrow.
SPLINTERS FOR OCTOBER 2022
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
A Different Halloween
This Halloween will be different.
There will be no Jack O’ Lanterns,
No Trick-Or-Treaters welcomed either
In this sacred space
Where I scrub and scrub
Till everywhere and everything
Shimmers beneath the red aura
Of a setting sun.
And yet I continue scouring
Until I drop exhausted
To the bare floor
While the surfaces softly glow
As moonlight spreads its beams.
Witches. ghosts, goblins
And other night creatures
May ride the skies till dawn,
But I will be unaware—
Deep in sleep as though cursed
Like fabled Sleeping Beauty.
When I wake, I will walk to the sea
To let the brine sharp air
Sweep away the last ash-dust
Of betrayal,
And standing in the receding waves
Let their distanced coolness
Seep within to douse even the embers
Of betrayal’s fires of treachery.
At last, I will lie in the sun
While the rushing waters within
Carve away the lingering footprints
Of betrayal
Creating new pathways
Until there is only an emptiness
As vast as the Grand Canyon.
Infilled with peace
Then warmed within and without,
I will rise to walk in serenity
And confidence
To a new beginning,
A new tomorrow.
O, DANTE, YOU GOT TO ME!
(After reading The Inferno)
I am haunted by the sound of Satan
Laughing in his dark, buried towers
Where demons dance to discordant song
And black flowers in doom-embowered rooms
Rise like grotesque gnomes,
Hideous in raucous riot.
My prayer is:
Please, God, let it not be so.
FOR HALLOWEEN: WORDS THAT MASK, HIDE AND DISGUISE
October is the month ending in Halloween when trick or treaters wander our streets and shopping centers. So, I decided to share some of my favorite odd words, all meaning to trick or deceive.
Hornswoggle is associated with the southern United States and first appeared in the nineteenth century. But its etymology is appropriately a mystery. Some have suggested it is related to the scene of a roped steer—its horns lassoed and the animal shaking its head in disbelief. Could be, but I’ll let you decide.
The next word in my list, bamboozle, has conflicting reports of its origin though the consensus points to its appearance around 1700. One group point to Italian and similar words meaning a very young child with the idea that a child is easily fooled, or a duped person appears to be a confused child. Alternately, Bamboozle may be a borrowed word lifted from a French word meaning to make a baboon out of someone. Seems appropriate to me. Ape costume anyone?
Hoodwink popped up in sixteenth century England and suggests, if your mind tends to the macabre, rather a gruesome origin associated with executions or kidnappings. If not, the more innocuous origin is blindfold. The word was once the title of a version of the game Blind Man’s Bluff, a game which appears in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But that’s a later holiday. Still, isn’t a Halloween mask much like a blindfold?
This concludes my short list of odd English words all meaning to trick, deceive or disguise reality. A perfect collection for the night of Halloween trickery, don’t you think?
AUTHOR NOTES
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“O, DANTE, YOU GOT TO ME!” reflects the author’s reaction upon reading The Inferno, by Dante Alighieri when she was a young girl. It was an experience she never forgot.
KALEIDOSCOPE— an essay by Kathleen Roxby
“FOR HALLOWEEN: WORDS THAT MASK, HIDE AND DISGUISE” continues the author’s series on the English language, especially focused on its oddities.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“A Different Halloween” was written in a poetry workshop and was inspired by others’ work and suggestions of the facilitator.
SPLINTERS FOR OCTOBER 2022
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SUCKED DRY
Weak
Bleak
Product of listlessness
The dregs of photosynthesis
Drab
Flat
A fitting complement
For khaki and beige
Leeched of vibrancy
Olive is barely
A color at all
Born as it was
Where the wind blows brown
Though rain may paint the air
In lands
Where the sun and angry earth
Chew rock into soil
FOREST OF THE HEART
There is a region
In the forest of the heart
Where walks no stranger,
There, secluded and lone,
Wild, exotic tanglewood grows
Which needs no light to give it life
But thrives in somber solitude.