30 Days of Spooky Tales Anthology

Prompt 18

PROMPT 18

Be afraid. You should be for there are horrors lurking in the night, capture them in a poem starting with just those words... 'Be Afraid'

WINNER

stevopen - On Fear

Be afraid of your natural attraction to

leering jack-o'-lanterns

that would bite your hand off

if it wandered into their loathsome grin.

Mere fear, is not, of course,

a natural attraction, that beckons us

to stand in life's light.

One is apt to look upon

Gargoyles, goblins and ghosts

with childlike curiosity, those unworldly

fiends—how they seduce you when they come

tricking or treating, not to yield to the impossibility

They prey on, waiting for the door to

creak open, an invitation to come in

is all the vampire wants—and then you will have

bats imbibing blood in the basement, the bathroom, the belfry.

Share the guilt when you hear of people

in the park being grated like cheese by the violent

hungry horror that comes when the moon is full.

It should have been you. But you accept

That it is the very nature of things for such

misfortune to fall upon others, not ourselves.

There is a certain sad pleasure to be had from being forever

relegated to the bridesmaid of the bride of Frankenstein.

Forgiveness may be sought, which

if afforded could compel the moon to rise to new

heights. But even with the procurance of the sacred silver

shield, there is still no sacrament to stifle the invisible man.