October 31st

'Tis the night of jack o'lanterns
'Tis the night of eerie bats
'Tis the night of ghoulish goblins,
Fiendish mummies and jet-black cats.

'Tis the night of screeching witches
'Tis, tonight, All Hallow's Eve,
'Tis the night of Frankenstein
It's a night of make-believe.

'Tis the night of trick-or-treaters
'Tis the night of candy corn
'Tis the night when zombies chant
And the dead are all reborn

'Tis the night of caramel apples
'Tis the night of misty ghosts
'Tis the night of Dracula's return
And longer fangs he boasts.

'Tis the night of ancient Druids,
'Tis the night of Satan's spawn
'Tis the night when dead things rise
And play 'til break of dawn.

'Tis the night of superstition
'Tis, tonight, backwards thirteen
'Tis the night of hags and witches
With a ghastly hue of green

'Tis the night without a moon,
'Tis the night of darkest black
'Tis the night of haunted houses
Where ghoulish fiends attack

'Tis the night of crawling spiders,
'Tis the night when dead have power
'Tis the night when demons rise
For the freakish haunting hour...

'Tis the night of powdered doughnuts,
'Tis the night of severed hands -
'Tis the night of vampires
Returning to their homelands

'Tis the night of apple cider
'Tis the night of things unseen...
'Tis the night of fear and fright,
For it is

HALLOWEEN!

She sits silent, with a steaming-hot cafe-au-lait in her hands,
sipping away the five hours of sleep she lost last night
while dreaming of a never-met lover's kiss...
in a small cafe in Paris, she picks up her pen
and writes down all of her unsaid words, some in
Francais, some not...
Francis Cabrel serenades her with the beginnings
of autumn and the reminder that she has no other to share her
echarpes pour deux

She watches as an elderly gentilhomme guides his
petite sweetheart through the front door,
a bell chiming as if to reminisce their wedding day -
that is how in love they still appear...
and they walk with arms linked, taking
all the time in the world to find a suitable and
romantic seat, silent in voice but exuding
romance, sensuality, and love with every dance-like
step they take...and when they sit and stare into each others'
eyes and she hears his soft, delicate, age-shaken voice
whisper ever-so-lightly Je t'aime to his amoreux... ... ...

In the middle of the most romantic city on earth,
inside the small cafe she only dreamt of
owning when she was seventeen and a big-hearted dreamer,
listening to a song in the most beautiful language she can imagine,
she realizes that she has,
against her own will,
dwelled on a dream and forgotten to live.

I sit on the outside of another
somber autumn evening,
the silent wind stripping life
from branches in colorful
storms. The cold seeps
through windows, under
doors, through the insulation
and into my toes, my fingers,
my bones, even. I am a
human popsicle, reveling
in the crisp, sharp feeling
of the air around me, and though
the quiet speaks volume of
death, I feel completely
and irrevocably

Alive. =]