Sonnet CXCVIII

The weeks or two when Halloween had passed
was time to find the box of candy treats.
I searched and searched for all those yummy eats
and soon I found the treasured box at last.
Alas, I found it wasn’t, very fast.
It was in fact the year-old, mouldy treats
I didn’t like. I searched behind the seats,
the cupboards, tables – everywhere I passed.

I couldn’t find it. Angry, frenzied now,
a chocolate demon thrashed within me still,
awaiting candy bars to satisfy
its candy craving. Tearing all the house
apart, I found the box and ate my fill,
then hid it in my room to keep it mine.

Sonnet CLXXXV

In Hamlets far away in Canada,
there was a holiday called Halloween
where children, kind, obedient, or mean –
regardless of their character – were glad,
as all had knocked on doors of wood and glass
and then received their fill of charming sweets.
But only after yelling “trick or treat!”
(of course), and making sure the giver wasn’t mad,
a pedophile or rapist (or they’d run).
Kids got a heap of varied candies from
the teens a-writing essays on Macbeth,
the mothers watching husbands with their sons
(or daughters), grandmas left alone with rum…
and thrice the cauldron charmed their dreaming breaths.

Sonnet CLXXXIV

Who are they? Bumblebees and witches, fruit.
From house to house and yard to yard they fly:
a fairy princess or an action guy;
perhaps a pumpkin, stout, rotund, and cute,
or lovely mermaids, lithe or more obtuse.
In any case, their flashlights light the night
with glowing beauty simple as their plight
of chasing candy down in scattered troupes.

And “trick or treat!” they call, but only “thanks”
are whittled out of them when parents chide,
apologise, and carry them away.
Though happy with their sweet and chocolate weight,
soon all our little demons flee inside,
exhausted, thirsty, itchy, pulling pranks.

Sonnet CLXIV

Her name was Mary Jones, I think.
And though my school was private, pious, old –
she never filled the Virgin Mary role
and just was wicked, female, crudely mean.

She drove the bus I rode each day to school,
arriving early to my house at times but then
arriving late at times. In bitter wind
I perished, cursing her as vile, cruel.

But then she gave me candy canes at times
like Christmas, Easter, days before March Break.
But still I loathed her – sloppy, late, and glum.
She thought she’d win us over with her lies?
Her sad excuses covering her fake
and sad, disgusting life? We kids weren’t dumb.