2nd Annual Halloween Writing Contest: We’ve Picked Our Poison

Skull Roll, Please! In the “Spell Poem” Category…

Art by Laura Silva

First, we want to thank everyone who participated in our 2nd Annual Halloween Writing Contest. This year, we had over ninety submissions across the four categories, including submissions from both Yuba College and Andros Karperos Middle School students. You all made it very tough for us in every category, and we hope you’ll make it even tougher for us next year.

To read the winners and honorable mentions in our other categories, see:

• All Hallow’s Short Shorts: All the Zombies are Wearing Them
• Halloween Haiku Candy
• 13 Word Horror Story Tricks & Treats

And now, coveted by covens everywhere, the newest spell poems of the year.

WINNER

Black Art of the Poet

I’m yearning for sleep

But try as I may

My mind won’t forget

What is due the next day

With the rise of the moon

The shadows on my face

I open my book

And my thoughts begin to race 

There’s chills on my spine

Bumps on my skin

I know it’s ‘bout time 

That I turn it all in

With a wing of a bat

The hair of a toad

An eye of a rat

I’m breaking this code

I throw in a gnat

A bug and a bee

A sprinkle of words 

This is how it must be

In a whisper I chant

“To Be Or Not To Be, 

Let The Raven come to thee

To walk The Road Not Taken 

And to eat A Poison Tree

Come to me, Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson

For I must know

The secrets to be a pro”

-by Erendira Mendoza, Yuba College

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Spell of a Dark Soul and Mind

One heart of a broken hearted woman fair,

A lock of a liar’s hair.

The eye of one truly tormented soul,

Then one lost dream inside a bowl.

Then you begin to mix all together with a bone,

This will set the perfect tone.

Then you will say:

What will this bind?

What will you find?

Then my body heaves in the weight of the dark moon light,

My demons of past come into sight.

I become rooted and melt into the dark,

The sky begins to bare the mark.

The watching murder takes off in a flurry of wings,

The little voices in my head have started to sing.

My inner self, my very soul,

Disintegrates before the final toll.

Nothing left but a blackened heart,

My inner voice begins to part.

Sucking the energy from the thick night air,

Leaving my mind nothing to bare.

So concludes the spell of a dark soul and mind,

What was it you thought you’d find?

–by Coryn Guynes, Yuba College

Fantasy Revenge

Rattlesnake’s eyeballs,

I need two.

Slime of frog when the moon is blue.

The very dirt he had stepped foot on,

With a lock of his fresh cut hair.

Now watch as I stir this spell,

Adding fish hooks inside as well.

Hear my words and listen carefully now.

You shall slowly die because you broke vows.

–by Jeng Xiong, Yuba College