Happy Halloween!

I'm not much of a Halloween guy. Never been that into costumes--I can never think of any really good ones. I'm all for the kids getting candy and then me eating the 90 percent of their bounty that they don't like, though. Anyway, since I hadn't posted in awhile, I thought I'd share a spooky poem by Thomas Lux that the kiddies might or might not enjoy.

Cellar Stairs

It's rickety down to the dark.
Old skates, long-bladed, hang by leather laces
on your left and want to slash your throat,
but they can't, they can't, being only skates.
On a shelf above, tools: shears,
three-pronged weed hacker, ice pick,
poison-rats and bugs-and on the landing,
halfway down, a keg of roofing nails
you don't want to fall face first into,

no, you don't. To your right,
a fuse box with its side-switch-a slot machine,
on a good day, or the one the warden pulls,
on a bad. Against the wall,
on nearly every stair, one boot, no two
together, no pair, as if the dead
went off, short-legged or long, to where they go

Read the rest at the Writer's Almanac. And happy haunting.