The Candy Bandits
They’re heartless and artful—delinquents of wit
With grab-happy claws and a glare that is lit
With greed that will trigger each dastardly deed—
These boisterous brutes are of barbarous breed.
Such ghastly marauders with mischief in mind
Are out and about with no doubt they will find
Fresh pleasures to pilfer at others’ expense.
Their hunger to plunder has conjured offense.
These gorgers have galled all the angels who place
Lush bonbons in baskets embellished with lace
For peachy-cheeked cherubs perturbed by the beasts
Who pee on the pumpkins and snaffle the feasts.
A princess and pirate are shrieking with grief
At spotting the slickest and stickiest thief—
Jaws gnawing and noshing the nectarous fare,
Fangs ripping at wrappers, farts rending the air.
They bully and sully each reveling street
With werewolves and zombies admitting defeat.
These utterly gluttonous, mannerless mobs
All hoggishly stuffing their slobbering gobs,
Now swallowing sparkle and vomiting glitter,
Have spewed up a moral that’s splattered on litter:
For trickster-free, trouble-free, tame Halloweens—
Swap platters of treats for tureens of green beans.
Star Crossed Cadavers
—a triolet
The luckless, lifeless Ghouliet
Is moaning for her Romeo.
As sunset dims to grimmest jet,
The fleshless, restless Ghouliet
Espies a bony silhouette—
Her long-lost, stone-cold, lonely beau.
The dead delighted Ghouliet
Is floating home with Romeo.
Susan Jarvis Bryant is a poet originally from the U.K., now living on the Gulf Coast of Texas.
Susan, positively entertaining Halloween treats maligning the gift of the candies and sweets. You only could think of the treat of green beans for the “mannerless mobs” on their Halloweens. Your delightful poems are certain to please as the pranksters intend to “paper” our trees. “Star Crossed Cadavers” is ghastly and ghoulish as two long lost lovers at last get their wish! Happy Halloween to you and Mike. Thank you for the humor to brighten our night.
They’re getting a sizeable selection of candy from us tonight, Susan, but some of it’s at least 2 years old. We should probably just turn out the porch light to be kind to the seemingly-greedier-every-year little twinks, but, as usual, some of their outfits are a real hoot! BTW – I can tell you’ve been working your alliterational skills – good girl! 🙂
Boo! to you, too.
“Star Crossed Cadavers” is a real hoot! The name “Ghouliet” is something that only a poetic mind could think up. I’m always glad to see the triolet used for a bit of impish, in-your-face satire. The metrical and rhyme structure is perfect (not a single glitch!) which in my view is essential for all very short forms.
“The Candy Bandits” shows that you are seriously pissed off at grabby and greedy trick-or-treaters. I don’t blame you. When I was a kid, no child over the age of eight would presume to go out demanding candy at the doors of strangers. As we got to the 1970s and 80s, more and more young adolescents joined in the shake-down, and it seemed to adults as a kind of blackmail or extortion. By the 1990s, Halloween had become a teenagers’ holiday, with all sorts of creepy additions and unpleasantries.
Both poems are a great pair for this spooky day.