These short scary Halloween Poems are intended to not just scare and entertain you, but also frighten someone that you decide to share them with. However, most of them are not very scary, and therefore may be shared with kids (depending on their your interest or age).
Night Of Fright
Jasmine
Monsters stalking through the night.
Halloween is the Night of Fright.
Fear is what this night brings,
Along with many other things.
Are you sure you are prepared?
Tonight is not for the easily scared.
Creatures from hell roam on this night,
For tonight is the Night of Fright.
Trick or treat you say,
You should not have waited until the end of the day.
Tonight you will lose your tricks and treats,
For the monsters need to eat.
You better not take this night lightly,
Or else you will truly learn what fright means.
In ancient times people feared this night,
The night they greeted with fright.
Why they were so scared you will soon see,
On this “All Hollows’ Eve.”
*************
Dusk in Autumn
Sara Teasdale
The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches likes an eye.
And thro’ the nursery window-pane
The witches have a fire again,
Just like the ones we make,
And now I know they’re having tea,
I wish they’d give a cup to me,
With witches’ currant cake.
*************
Ghost Music
Robert Graves
Gloomy and bare the organ-loft,
Bent-backed and blind the organist.
From rafters looming shadowy,
From the pipes’ tuneful company,
Drifted together drowsily,
Innumerable, formless, dim,
The ghosts of long-dead melodies,
Of anthems, stately, thunderous,
Of Kyries shrill and tremulous:
In melancholy drowsy-sweet
They huddled there in harmony.
Like bats at noontide rafter-hung.
*************
Halloween Chills
Denise M.
On this night of spooks and gnomes
Of swooning leaves and cringing crones
Of legends told from ear to ear
Of shrieking cats that grin and sneer
Over the hill and past the tree
A haunted house there said to be
With chill and mist to pierce your soul
And whispering winds to keep you cold
Heed the whispers straight from hell
To keep you safe from witchy spells
For through this night of devilish play
All who tread will rue the day
*************
My Next Door Neighbor Is A Witch
Samiya Vallee
My next door neighbor is a witch,
And she lives way down in a ditch.
Her clothing is a little strange,
Because she never wants to change.
She has a black robe and a black hat,
Green skin and a smelly black cat.
A big fat wart grows on her nose,
And seventeen pimples on her toes.
But…her food is EVEN worse,
Because she eats it course by course.
Her first course is seven dead bats,
Laid on top of seven rats.
Then she has twenty flies
With lots and lots of llama eyes.
Her main course is a horrible soup,
Because it’s made with doggie poop.
But worst of all is her dessert.
It’s little children rolled in dirt.
Last night she had a witch’s feast
And turned into a greedy beast.
I think she cooked my best friend Tilly
And ate her with some peas and broccoli.
*************
Candy Corn
Jan R
Against the black void, looms the lunar sphere.
Hungry ghosts haunt, satisfied by fright.
Oh my! The children’s faces blanch in fear.
And thus the small summit embodies white.
Dwindle do the autumn leaves to the ground.
From the fire, the cold meets its warm demise.
Halloween’s favorite gourd, carved and round
And thus the middle is where orange lies.
Farms and tractor-pulled rides, hay is handy.
The black cat’s eerie eyes gleam from its face.
The vegetable tastes not like the candy.
And thus concludes yellow to form the base.
White, orange, and yellow make something sweet.
Enjoy some candy corn, Halloween’s treat!
*************
Spooky Halloween Night
Jacey Vantimmeren
It’s very spooky on Halloween night.
The ghosts and goblins will give you a fright.
Watch your back, do not be blind.
If you’re not careful, who knows what you’ll find?
You might see things like little black bats,
Or you might see things like scary black cats.
On every porch there’s a pumpkin or two,
With their creepy grins smiling at you.
It’s very spooky on Halloween night.
*************
Theme in Yellow
Carl Sandburg
I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.
*************
Mr. Macklin’s Jack O’Lantern
David McCord
Mr. Macklin takes his knife
And carves the yellow pumpkin face:
Three holes bring eyes and nose to life,
The mouth has thirteen teeth in place.
Then Mr. Macklin just for fun
Transfers the corn-cob pipe from his
Wry mouth to Jack’s, and everyone
Dies laughing! O what fun it is
Till Mr. Macklin draws the shade
And lights the candle in Jack’s skull.
Then all the inside dark is made
As spooky and as horrorful
As Halloween, and creepy crawl
The shadows on the tool-house floor,
With Jack’s face dancing on the wall.
O Mr. Macklin! where’s the door?
*************
Hallowe’en
Joel Benton
Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite
All are on their rounds to-night,
In the wan moon’s silver ray
Thrives their helter-skelter play.
Fond of cellar, barn, or stack
True unto the almanac,
They present to credulous eyes
Strange hobgoblin mysteries.
Cabbage-stumps-straws wet with dew-
Apple-skins, and chestnuts too,
And a mirror for some lass
Show what wonders come to pass.
Doors they move, and gates they hide
Mischiefs that on moonbeams ride
Are their deeds,—and, by their spells,
Love records its oracles.
Don’t we all, of long ago
By the ruddy fireplace glow,
In the kitchen and the hall,
Those queer, coof-like pranks recall?
Every shadows were they then-
But to-night they come again;
Were we once more but sixteen
Precious would be Hallowe’en.
*************
Haunted Houses
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.
We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapoursdense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.
Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.
And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—
So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
*************
Halloween
Arthur Peterson
Out I went into the meadow,
Where the moon was shining brightly,
And the oak-tree’s lengthening shadows
On the sloping sward did lean;
For I longed to see the goblins,
And the dainty-footed fairies,
And the gnomes, who dwell in caverns,
But come forth on Halloween.
“All the spirits, good and evil,
Fay and pixie, witch and wizard,
On this night will sure be stirring,”
Thought I, as I walked along;
“And if Puck, the merry wanderer,
Or her majesty, Titania,
Or that Mab who teases housewives
If their housewifery be wrong,
Should but condescend to meet me”—
But my thoughts took sudden parting,
For I saw, a few feet from me,
Standing in the moonlight there,
A quaint, roguish little figure,
And I knew ’twas Puck, the trickster,
By the twinkle of his bright eyes
Underneath his shaggy hair.
Yet I felt no fear of Robin,
Salutation brief he uttered,
Laughed and touched me on the shoulder,
And we lightly walked away;
And I found that I was smaller,
For the grasses brushed my elbows,
And the asters seemed like oak-trees,
With their trunks so tall and gray.
Swiftly as the wind we traveled,
Till we came unto a garden,
Bright within a gloomy forest,
Like a gem within the mine;
And I saw, as we grew nearer,
That the flowers so blue and golden
Were but little men and women,
Who amongst the green did shine.
But ’twas marvelous the resemblance
Their bright figures bore to blossoms,
As they smiled, and danced, and courtesied,
Clad in yellow, pink and blue;
That fair dame, my eyes were certain,
Who among them moved so proudly,
Was my moss-rose, while her ear-rings
Sparkled like the morning dew.
Here, too, danced my pinks and pansies,
Smiling, gayly, as they used to
When, like beaux bedecked and merry,
They disported in the sun;
There, with meek eyes, walked a lily,
While the violets and snow-drops
Tripped it with the lordly tulips:
Truant blossoms, every one.
Then spoke Robin to me, wondering:
“These blithe fairies are the spirits
Of the flowers which all the summer
Bloom beneath its tender sky;
When they feel the frosty fingers
Of the autumn closing round them,
They forsake their earthborn dwellings,
Which to earth return and die,
“As befits things which are mortal.
But these spirits, who are deathless,
Care not for the frosty autumn,
Nor the winter long and keen;
But, from field, and wood, and garden,
When their summer’s tasks are finished,
Gather here for dance and music,
As of old, on Halloween.”
Long, with Puck, I watched the revels,
Till the gray light of the morning
Dimmed the luster of Orion,
Starry sentry overhead;
And the fairies, at that warning,
Ceased their riot, and the brightness
Faded from the lonely forest,
And I knew that they had fled.
Ah, it ne’er can be forgotten,
This strange night I learned the secret..
That within each flower a busy
Fairy lives and works unseen
Seldom is ‘t to mortals granted
To behold the elves and pixies,
To behold the merry spirits,
Who come forth on Halloween.
*************
My Next Door Neighbor Is A Witch
Samiya Vallee
My next door neighbor is a witch,
And she lives way down in a ditch.
Her clothing is a little strange,
Because she never wants to change.
She has a black robe and a black hat,
Green skin and a smelly black cat.
A big fat wart grows on her nose,
And seventeen pimples on her toes.
But…her food is EVEN worse,
Because she eats it course by course.
Her first course is seven dead bats,
Laid on top of seven rats.
Then she has twenty flies
With lots and lots of llama eyes.
Her main course is a horrible soup,
Because it’s made with doggie poop.
But worst of all is her dessert.
It’s little children rolled in dirt.
Last night she had a witch’s feast
And turned into a greedy beast.
I think she cooked my best friend Tilly
And ate her with some peas and broccoli.
*************
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