A Hundred Eve’s

Woodswalk.jpg

Sometimes it can feel like Halloween is just around the corner, sometimes it can feel like a long walk just begun.  I feel that now as the warm weather beats down and the feeling of a cool breeze is just a memory from a long-ago winter.  Wait.  What is that I see in the distance?  It beckons and guides me.  It flits about in the wilderness.  A lightning bug? Some phosphorescent lichen?  The glowing form of some ancient wood dweller?  Hmm.  I don’t know what it is but I will keep heading towards it.  The light is a wonder, a bedevilment, an enchantment of the senses.  I yearn to be surrounded by such a light and I will gladly endure a hundred eves to get to where it awaits me.  I will wait for you there.

 

Image – Artist unknown.

Madcap & Mayhem

Rogers Gardens, located in Corona Del Mar, California has never failed to captivate and enthrall with their stunning displays of thematic design.  This year will prove that if this pic is anything to go by, with the tagline noted I am sure we all know what to expect, but will certainly be surprised by what we find nevertheless.

Halloween-Boutique-1-2

“We’re All Mad Here!”

This will be my seventh year visiting the Gardens for their annual Halloween Boutique opening and I look forward to what I am certain will be a not-to-be-forgotten step through the looking glass.

Will I see you there?  9:00 am on Friday, August 30th, 2019

Click pic for site and event information.

 

 

Eve of the ‘Eve

wip__homecoming_by_madlittleclown-d6tgmct

 

Harried preparation

Porchlights all a-glare

Breath held in expectation

Of whom we hope to scare

 

Necksore from constant craning

We side eye here and there

Glad that it’s not raining

On the Haunt we want to share

 

Footfalls drawing nearer

Ears prickle at the sound

Rustles of hustled furor

Echoed through the ground

 

What gathering of stitches

represent the costume trends?

Is it a group of witches,

or super hero friends?

 

Alas it’s just a lone dog

Not werewolves on parade

Just leaves scraping sidewalks

And not a zombie raid

 

Cones tumbling at random

Aren’t spiders on attack

Not thrills but chills in tandem

Cause those shivers down my back

 

Pleased anticipation

Is the order of the night.

Waiting on congregation

As capriciousness takes flight

 

Patience sorely tested

Spirits wait for their reprieve

Sure to end up fete and fested

On this eve of Hallows Eve

– by A.E.

…and it’s back…Falloween begins…

falloween

 

…at last!  It’s time to drag out, dust off, plan and prep and post.  The weather may belie the Season, but for those of you tuning in you’ve been at the bit awhile now (as myself) just waiting for the calendar to flip over and for August to close on another heady Summer.  Fall is here, even if the barometer says otherwise.  In an effort to create some sort of weekly connectivity for this blog I’ve decided to go with weekly readings of some writing I’ve been working on.  If all goes as planned, they will take us all the way through October, hope you can tag along.  I’ll be signing up again with Countdown to Halloween, look for the badge and link coming soon, its a great way to visit other blogs through the season, as well as the usual miscellany to be found here, now I gotta go de-bubble wrap something…

Minutes til Midnight

IMG_0362

I am watching my clock countdown the minutes until this 31st dwindles down to moments and memories.  There were a few memorable quirks to the day and the evening, I hope you can all say the same.  As the tomb shuts on this Hallow’s Eve, I draw a final breath of cinnamon stick candle wafting up from the scorched insides of gutted gourds, I gather the crinkled remains of candy skins in their bright coverings shriveled and torn, destined for the recycle bin, and take a long last look up and down the street as porch lights dim, jackos darken and light shows blink and die.  I sigh, shrug my shoulders, turn and close the door behind me.  The house goes dark and here I am at the keyboard…already thinking about Halloween 2018 – I wonder what that escapade will reveal?  So much to plan and plot and ply, as the season passes by…so quickly, much too quickly this year.  Thanks to all of you who stopped to look around this blog, more thanks to Countdown to Halloween for highlighting another great batch of blogs this year, always so much fun to see what others are up to.  I will poke through the leftover candy and ponder…mmmmm….Junior Mints! Rest In Peace Halloween 2017.  I will remember you fondly.

 

 

 

A Trick of the Eye, a Treat for the Soul

IMG_0331

For those of you awed by the odd…Haunters everywhere, a good night!

Whispered words of patience, tickling my ear

The summer crawl, the wait for fall

That highlight of the year

 

random scribbled drawings, and mundane seeming lists

will help devise a dark surprise

a Hallows Evening tryst

 

long preoccupation upon a nightmare scene

as yard or lot like canvas taut

transformed by grisly theme

 

silently I labor, and daily it unfolds

all to create fright filled landscape

the Haunters story told

 

months in preparation, at last the visions done

the lights the fog the folks agog

a play for old and young

 

hordes dwindle slowly with anticipation sated

I’m left with thoughts of greater plots

annually fated

 

I wouldn’t change a moment, or alter inclination

I’ll persevere, each hallowed year

In this haunters occupation.

Revise by A.E., September 2017

Mirth and Musings Part 18

Streetnight

Thursday nights.  My sister and I take a weekly nighttime walk round our neighborhoods during the Fall, we do this specially to see the decorations in yards and on porches.  These “spooky walks” serve to heighten our anticipation for Halloween, but they also create a wonderful shiver up the spine tingle that propels us one week to the next during September and October, even when décor and haunts are slow to emerge.  Our own imaginations are enough at these times, the usual sights and sounds of a suburban street transformed into intriguing murmurs of “malevolent mirth”.  Long shadows thrown from streetlamps and porch lights, the far-off sounds of garbled conversations or t.v.’s drifting from second story windows, creaking gates from indiscernible sources and erratic gusts blown through trimmed trees and banks of fallen leaves, pushed into swirls like slithering snakes across our path.  We encounter random “haunting” objects; a pumpkin on a porch awaiting its fiery grin, a lone shrouded figure hanging off a scraggy tree, or the odd string of orange lights wound haphazardly on rooftops or fence lines. Dogs bark and growl at imagined slights, cats slink along drives, undaunted and furtive.  We step quickly by the garages with opened doors and darkened interiors, and laugh nervously at a car door slamming shut in the distance.  We remark on the absence of folks out walking, the too quiet traffic on the roads and the general pervading stillness.  As though the whole neighborhood was blanketed in the anticipation we feel, and the sense of tethered thrill wasn’t just a flight of fancy but actual and waiting to be realized. Eventually we turn homewards and we whisper inspired plots and plans back and forth, heads twisting to continually observe our surroundings.  Our pace increasing along with the knowledge of time running down, elapsing steadily towards that night of madcap and mayhem, these walks the long breath drawn in, till the eventual exhale into Eve.

Bewitchment this 13th!

Spellz

Posting a bit of spellcraft to get you through this Friday the 13th – beware, bewitch and bedevil!

Lizard lung

Scent of skull

Serpents tongue

Shipwrecked hull

Toe of frog

Wool of bat

Zombie bog

Screeching cat

Adders fork

Siren scream

Vikings torc

Fiendish gleam

Witches tear

Mandrake wail

Crippling fear

Dragon scale

Belladonna

Monsters moan

Withered sigh 

Kidney stone

Ghastly cries

Wisdom tooth

Beedy eyes

Awful truth

Spectral trail

Flaxen hair

Ghostly wail

Piercing stare

Wormwood sliver

Genii gem

Canopic liver

Apple stem

 

Thirty Days Has September

MechanicalHalloweenPranksTitleArt500px.jpg

“…tell me you didn’t use pumpkin spice…”

Wow – that went fast.  Falloween has passed and we are on to the next.  I do hope October doesn’t speed by, I like to take time and savor this time of year.  Deeply Autumn, scent and sense and scintillation.  Spice and season, crackle and rustle, thrill and shiver.  Days spent in anticipation, the gradual reveal of funereal farce and festive folly.  Countdown to Halloween begins tonite, midnight, don’t forget to stop by and look over all the great Halloween themed blogs to surface this time of year, as a hand reaching through the ground that grabs for your attention.  Always so much to experience from the creators and curators of these specialized blogspots…a wonderful way to spend a little time during the coming weeks.  Check the link at right to get yourself started.  My own blog will be witch flavored this year, I will be stirring, spicing, swirling up a cauldron of tidbits about my favorite icon of the season.