Occasional Writings

It’s Hallowe’en.

The veil between this world and the next

- the other worlds – 

is thin.

The Other Worlds are not necessarily

“Next” or “Past” or “Elsewhere”

among the feeble powers of projection

and time lapse orientation

which are possessed by humans.

Humans who have been tempered

and, indeed, socialized against the wayward cosmic tides.

These people have promised their children

a world they have no right to describe:

a safe, logical, predictable, sterile, monster-free zone.

These children have hopes and they have a dream

based upon a dream

that was dreamt by their ancestors

who lived in a world that is no longer accessible to them,

nor even are the ancestors they claim to hold the dream for

That’s why Hallowe’en is scary.

Somewhere deep in our souls we remember

but in daylight we think we have mastery.

Hallowe’en is dark.

There is more to this rock of earth

than we can consciously call up

- and the depths below that are of earlier days

before we told ourselves that we are in charge.

Every child grows up thinking they are in charge:

that's what they’re told.

But the great hollow pumpkin

of existence knows better.

You can carve it out,

you can put a candle in it,

but it’s only a representation.

At Hallowe’en,

so the story goes,

and the experience proves it out,

the sunshine of this existence

transits the hollow, not-knowing 

but all-remembering

wick of existence.

Many lifetimes have come before.

People have edited them,

In the stories they told before roaring fires.

What if the edited-out versions

were to appear,

and tell their own side?

It’s Hallowe’en, and that’s what is happening.

We always knew that 

headless horsemen

and the manky remains of witches

would come back to haunt us.

We just forgot why.

There is no way out.

All that we have done

remains 

to be made right.

Dressing up our children

in the likeness of those we sacrificed

is not enough.

You can’t have reconciliation

just on the terms of those 

who want forgiveness

and permission to keep keeping on.

The spirits come, 

they come on Hallowe’en,

because there is a regular feedback loop

within the spiral of time.

What did we do?

Those of us who live today,

we have to ask ourselves,

what did we do

to achieve this uniformity;

this hegemony, this homogeny?

And, is it helpful?

Are we better off for hunting down

the wild and the weird,

or could we perhaps see them

as part of ourselves?

At least, 

accept life with them – 

with others,

who have their own journey

here in the same space.

We haven’t lost them yet.

They keep coming back,

stronger than ever.

Now we have made them the more so.

And it’s not just at the end of October

that we have to face them:

hungry, angry.

It’s Hallowe’en and the ghosts 

are biting for a new life among us.

The ghosts want to be here, too.

They want to be reborn in their own image – 

to touch feet on the fertile ground 

and live.

The ghosts and ghouls and apparitions

are what remains

of our earlier selves.

We are all one.

At one time or another,

we culled ourselves.

We sent riders out

to burn down “their” places,

we told ourselves that the pumpkin heads

sailing out of the black night

to land at our feet

was the work of still others,

introducing a non-existent “magic” or “mystery”

that was messing with us.

But it was our own forces

who killed the unfortunates.

We turned into a costume sketch

displacing our own shame.

Maybe it was the Great Pumpkin?

Maybe it was the dread forces

of Hecate?

But it wasn’t.

It was us.

And to mask it,

we gave other forces power

over us. 

We pretended to be helpless

we pretended to be victims

we knew all along that

our villagers were the murderers

we adopted the speechless pumpkin head

as witness – 

a hollow marrow, lit by a candle and

carved to our specifications.

Is this the best we could do?

It’s Hallowe’en.

There is no standard, no (woolen) flag to billow between us,

that can deflect the light of things past.

The past rains down with reason

having collected in the heavens all year

now condensing in the darkness 

now heavy enough to fall.

It rains down with a vengeance.

It’s Hallowe’en

It’s a costume party 

It’s a spectacle

It’s an elaborate denial

It’s an annual death sentence

- it’s a ritual –

It’s trick or treating

It’s coming home with a pillowcase

full of candy rewards 

It’s being louder than the spirits

who whisper their regrets

from the shadows,

their soft-spoken confessions,

the things they wanted to say

before we burned them down.

It’s drowning them out.

What did they want to say?

They wanted to say that

they had been wronged,

they had been violated,

they had been cut off

by persons still among us.

They come back

As a gesture

out of obligation

to show us

and help us

to heal.

They point out the villains

and there should be no amnesty 

no protection 

from the wronged dead.

Some kind of prejudice against those dead

comes into play.

It’s led by the murderers

who profited by those deaths

and exiles.

But now the murderers and profiteers

are our highest elites – 

who else can speak out against them,

but those who are already dead?

The ghosts glow with the radiation of unsatisfied time

illuminating blood long since washed off;

lighting up pitchforks long since thrown in the river.

And who would take up the cause

of a ghost

against the heavily-armed and well-positioned living?

Answer:  a foreign army.

Our own traditions were our undoing.

Indiscriminate

as to the means of their vindication

our ghosts mass near the enemy camps

at the border,

their crumpled cloaks and darkened visages 

make a raiding party appear to extend deep

into the night.

Something intangible makes them feel confident, fearless.

Away goes the bronze, away the silver,

away the stores of grain 

and the money is never spent on the holy shrines

of our own tribal accounting.

We could have paid off our debts,

but we’ve lost to allies of our victims. 

We are afraid of ourselves.

We flock like fish, birds,

like sheep,

never to be on the outside of “us.”

It only takes one warlock, one king,

one general, one priest, to turn

the collective into a mob.

We know what we are capable of.

What have we done to the defenseless?

To the weak?

What have we done to the few 

that have fragile powers?

To those with exceptional talent

or enlightenment,

and equal vulnerability?

What have we done to everything that we can’t

or won’t or refuse to understand?

What have we done to the trees

in fairy rings

to the streams

and their ancient wells

we are right to be afraid of ourselves.

It’s Hallowe’en

Still, there is no darkness.

Not in the night sky,

not when you close your eyes,

not underground,

not under water.

Darkness only exists in the imagination

So many have turned to their imaginations to make their own lives better

to think of themselves as enjoying the spoils of the hunt

instead of being one of the victims.

We’re on this ride together – winners and losers and all

We’ll not have been at the same places together,

at the same times

some stabbing others to death

some helping others to read

some telling others the story of how

the ones who stabbed others taught their children to read

in a foreign language. 

Now foreigners teach our children

that their ancestors were rubbish,

turn our sacred art into catchphrases and props and badges.

Maybe I watch from the window as the children go by

with their candy bags, dressed as witches and pumpkin heads,

maybe I silently scream

like the others looking back at us tonight.