Jack O Lantern Quotes

“The jack-o-lantern follows me with tapered, glowing eyes.
His yellow teeth grin evily. His cackle I despise.
But I shall have the final laugh when Halloween is through.
This pumpkin king I’ll split in half to make a pie for two.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year

“...flames moved towards him
and dropped within
-
singed and marred
his tender skin ...

(the frightful plight tale)”
― muse, Enigmatic Evolution

“The Storm Stranger by Stewart Stafford

Were I to shed forty coats,
Or forty layers of this skin,
I'd stay an intruder in myself,
At a crossroads in a storm.

Stranger in my own country,
Pariah to everything beloved,
Organ rejection by my own body,
A lantern wanderer in limbo.

All foul, cast out by my lamp,
Saving those mistreating me,
Traversing sanity's outer rings,
I turn my collar up and trudge on.

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The Haruspicy Field
by Stewart Stafford

Jack-o'-lanterns strewn about,
Heads upon a shelled battlefield,
The coiled mist resists motion;
Cannon fodder, soon pyre smoke.

Trees recoil at the piper’s draught,
A lamenting copse for corpses,
Wooded shrapnel scraping icy sky,
Throttling the wind to entombed silence.

Pumpkin flesh and innards spew:
A reading of Nature’s entrails,
Predicting nought but more cycles
Of ruin and revival for final terms.

© 2026 Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford