All Hallow’s Eve

By John Herlihy

Halloween night comes upon us but once a year,

To thrill our hearts, trick or treat, and to instill fear.

All Hallow’s Eve to honor saints, martyrs, dearly departed,

Beware the costumes and masks not for the faint-hearted.

The night to honor all of those who have passed on before,

Fiery eyes of the pumpkin will remember them, never ignore.

Trick or treat, some masked marauder solemnly intoned,

I now find myself in another world as if thoroughly stoned.

And stoned I was certainly not, only lost in this new reality,

Frivolity would be most welcome, but this scene was insanity.

The false faces of the vast horde that cavorted in disguise,

What beasts hid behind the masks one could only surmise.

I had gingerly stepped through the midnight door;

The magical moment arrived as I levitated from the floor.

Awakened now into a nightmare of abject fright,

Confronted by hideous ghouls on this hallowed night.

Playful ghosts might have relieved my frantic terror;

Instead, fiends of another world shone thru midnight’s mirror.

First, indescribable odors permeated this indecent realm,

Filthy night drains and camel dung tended to overwhelm.

Thick tripe soup reeking of garlic made for an unholy stew,

Attar of roses and essence of hyacinth an overbearing brew.

Then the incessant parade of oils, from almond, to argan, to cypress,

Priceless oils every one of them, suitably fit to serve an empress.

I wandered thru a palace of shadows, peering thru visionary gloom;

No daylight shone thru the colored-glass windows of the solitary room.

As my vision cleared, I came upon a madman with a velvet mask;

He stood tall, breathed deeply, stretched, seemingly ready to the task.

He laughed aloud like the madman he was, his veins flooded with fire,

“Trick or treat, my dear fine sir,” he bellowed at me in princely attire.

I stood there as if nailed to the spot, feeling helpless, exuding a cold fear;

For all I knew in this sordid dream, he was a Russian Czar standing near.

Indeed, the gaunt figure now sat in the distance on a gilded throne,

His head bowed deep in contemplation, as if making ready to atone.

He wore an ankle-length dalmatic, with embroidered slippers beneath,

His aura fearfully impressive, hieratic, his eyes gleamed from a sheath.

The tables turned, it was not I, but this noble fiend making sinister offer;

That I must treat him somehow, otherwise suffer a trick from his evil coffer.

The crazed fiend stared at me from sunken eyes in his phantasmagoric face;

How do you trick or treat someone who doesn’t hail from the human race?

“Your serene majesty,” I said with flair, hiding the grimace felt in my heart

“I will give you the blood of the moon,” I added boldly, like a wayward upstart.

The ghost of Ivan the Terrible wrung his gnarled, bony fingers for me to see;

The ugly brute fingered wood axes, pruning hooks, and hayforks as if in glee.

As in all moments of great danger, the passage of time seemed to stand still,

Giving me a few moments respite, time to think and to plan but briefly at will.

The Czar looked at me as though searching the darkness with hunter’s eyes;

I cowered in shadows, mumbling the prayer of King David before my demise.

Without a word, he leapt up with no undue ceremony, a truly hideous sight,

Grabbing a hanging sickle from the wall on this now befouled, hallowed night.

Holding the curved instrument of death overhead by the sharpened edge;

He uttered a wolfish howl that pierced my ears ringing as an unholy pledge.

“What do I care,” he shrieked, “of your visions of an unseemly trick or treat.”

I will cut off your head,” he cried with blood on his fingers, “as chaff of wheat.”

“Your Majesty,” I cowered in abject terror, my heart pounding blood into my ears.

“I did not mean to offend,” I added, it is a traditional custom over the years.”

“Silence,” Ivan cried, as he lowered the sickle into the folds of his flowing robes.

“I follow the vision of the Other,” he now whispered, “far down celestial roads.”

My own visions then faded, as this hallowed eve awaited the dawn to meet;

Ivan’s footsteps left bloody trails in the moonlight, dripping from slippered feet.