GHOST BUS

Underneath the lamppost,
In the middle of the night,
A ghost bus make a silent stop,
A strange and fearful sight.

At the bus top at your corner,
Something big and green climbed down.
It's looking for your bedroom,
And it has searched all over town.

You thought it couldn't find you,
That you were safe and you were sound.
You thought that you could hide,
Where you never could be found.

But now it's almost here,
You know it loves the dark of night.
There's only one thing you can do,
Quick! Turn on the light!

Whew!

Joe Wayman

A MAGIC CHANT

If in the dark you're frightened,
Here's all you have to do.
Say: Igga bigga,
Hunka bunka,
Dinka danka doo.

These words give you protection
From ghosts - and witches, too.
Say: Igga bigga
Hunka bunka,
Dinka danka doo.

So if at night a monster
Should whisper, "I'll get you,"
Yell: Igga bigga
Hunka bunka,
Dinka danka doo.

Samuel Exler

JOHNNY DREW A MONSTER

Johnny drew a monster.
The monster chased him.
Just in time
Johnny erased him.

Lilian Moore

TEENY TINY GHOST

A teeny, tiny ghost
no bigger than a mouse
at most,
lived in a great big house

It's hard to haunt
a great big house
when you're a teeny, tiny ghost
no bigger than a mouse
at most.

He did what he could do.

So every dark and stormy night
the kind that shakes the house with fright -
if you stood still and listened right,
you'd hear a
teen tiny

Boo!

Lilian Moore


HALLOWE'EN INDIGNATION MEETING

A sulky witch and a surly cat
And a scowly owl and a skeleton sat
With a grouchy ghost and a waspish bat,
And angrily snarled and chewed the fat.

It seems they were all upset and riled
That they couldn't frighten the Modern Child,
Who was much too knowing and much too wild
And considered Hallowe'en spooks too mild.

Said the witch, "They call this the human race,
Yet the kiddies inhabit Outer Space;
They bob for comets, and eat ice cream
From flying saucers, to get up steam!"

"I'm a shade of my former self," said the skeleton.
"I shiver and shake like so much gelatine,
Indeed I'm a pitiful sight to see--
I'm scareder of kids than they are of me!"

by Margaret Fishback

HALLOWE'EN

Tonight is the night
When dead leaves fly
Like witches on switches
Across the sky,
When elf and sprite
Flit through the night
On a moony sheen.

Tonight is the night
When leaves make a sound
Like a gnome in his home
Under the ground,
When spooks and trolls
Creep out of holes
Mossy and green.

Tonight is the night
When pumpkins stare
Through sheaves and leaves
Everywhere,
When ghoul and ghost
And goblin host
Dance round their queen.
It's Hallowee'en!

by Harry Behn

HALLOWEEN {too, two}

Who raps at my window?
Who in a white sheet
Runs across the midnight lawn
Without the sound of feet?

What moon grows in the East
So huge and dusky red?
Who howls from the chill within the hill
Where the farmer's hound lies dead?

The dry leaves twist and rattle
Alive in an evil spell.
Down by the pond the man who drowned
Tolls a wavering bell.

The wind has hardly wakened,
Yet flapping through the air
Fly shapes with wings and bony things
And forms with jagged hair.

Who blows at my candle?
Whose fiery grin and eyes
Behind me pass in the looking glass
And make my gooseflesh rise?

Who moved in that shadow?
Who rustles unseen?
With the dark so deep I dare not sleep
All night on Halloween.

by Marnie Pomeroy

QUEEN NEFERTITI

Spin a coin, spin a coin,
All fall down;
Queen Nefertiti
Stalks through the town.

Over the pavements
Her feet go clack
Her legs are as tall
As a chimney stack;

Her fingers flicker
Like snakes in the air,
The walls split open
At her green-eyed stare;

Her voice is thin
As the ghosts of bees;
She will crumble your bones,
She will make your blood freeze.

Spin a coin, spin a coin,
All fall down;
Queen Nefertiti
Stalks through the town.

Anonymous

SKELETON PARADE

The skeletons are out tonight,
They march about the street
With bony bodies, bony heads
And bony hands and feet.

Bony bony bony bones
With nothing in between
Up and down and all around
They march on Halloween.

by Jack Prelutsky

ON HALLOWEEN

On Halloween I'll go to town
And wear my trousers upside down,
and wear my shoes turned inside out
And wear a wig of sauerkraut.

by Shel Silverstein

THREE GHOSTESSES

Three little ghostesses,
Sitting on postesses,
Eating buttered toastesses,
Greasing their fistesses,
Up to their wristesses,
Oh, what beastesses,
To make such feastesses!

Anonymous

PUMPKIN

After its lid
Is cut, the slick
Seeds and stuck
Wet strings
Scooped out,
Walls scraped
Dry and white,
Face carved, candle
Fixed and lit,
Light creeps
Into the thick
Rind: giving
That dead orange
Vegetable skull
Warm skin, making
A live head
To hold its
Sharp gold grin.

by Valerie Worth

GHOULIES AND GHOSTIES

From ghoulies and ghosties,
Long-leggity beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord deliver us.

An Old Spell