There Was An Old Lady
who lived in a shoe
box of a cramped white house
next door with her two overgrown
adult sons and their duo of dogs.
Her stringy black hair and witch’s warts
greeted my sister and I when we rang
that doorbell, throats clogged
by jumpy hearts, each Halloween.
One year we didn’t say trick or treat
fast enough, so she gave us a silent death
glare and closed the door.
When it reopened a moment later
to a cacophony of barks and a wicked
wheeze of laughter, we nervously coughed
up the magic words, watched her drop
chocolate bars in our buckets, and mumbled
our thank yous before she could change
her mind. Then we whirled and ran like ghosts
howled at our heels toward the weeping
willow in our own front yard, praying
its branches were long enough to sweep
us, like a broom, back to safety.
20 thoughts on "There Was An Old Lady"
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This really captures the anticipation for halloween, bravo!
I definitely should have written “my sister and ME” in the 3rd couplet, and that’s going to bother me forever. 🤦♀️ This is why I shouldn’t try to use my brain late at night.
i like ‘my sister and i’ that low key rhyme helps to keep the sounds rolling esp before ‘when we rang’ adds to the musicical lifeblood in this poem..
takes me there…
invites me in.
and makes me
want to ask
her
what she thought about you 🙂
The drive-through energy, couplet to couplet, was never disappointing Chelsie- not to mention this was creepy. But you missed more than that that “me” in the third couplet… you also missed using the word “thousand”, a few ellipses, four M’s and a Silent Q. Also, I would have hyphenated “wheeze-of-laughter.”
Good morning, your pal, Manny 💛
😂 I KNEW even as I was typing the comment to correct myself that you would come along and heckle me. Good morning to you too.
piggybacking picing nits… there might be something clunky about the final line as is..
maybe try
‘us, back to safety, like a broom.’
so you can visually marry ‘sweep to broom’
and to rhyme with the sense/tone/mood of the almost claustrophobic sense of this room.
I think you’re right about that. Thanks!
Also, pick and the nits you want on my poems, I love receiving helpful feedback. Manny is just messing with me because he knows I’m a card-carrying member of the grammar police.
Chelsie is the bestest of friends in the Pōtry Universe. I send her just about everything I write!!!!! And one of the most hilarious comments – REPEAT comments – is “hyphenate”.
to MG: as a person addicted to ellipseseses (sp?) it’s important to know who you can lean into to tell you when you stop…
i’m also starting to develop a problem with parenthesis….
((ISO elliptical parenthetical interventions))
“us, back to safety – like a broom ‘
😉
Love this story! I loved Halloween so much, and meeting a spooky old lady like that would have made my night.
Now THAT is how Halloween show be!
Man, I hope this is a true memory because it’s so fun! Great pacing and suspense created by your line breaks.
It is! I may have a couple more poems brewing about her if I can cobble them together.
I love this one! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays!
Such a fun exploration of the very real mystery and danger boys and girls navigate every Halloween. I suspect the old lady looked forward to seeing how you two had grown each year and waited for the magic words so she could play the game, too. Nice work, Chelsie!
A great story, handled beautifully, reminds me of an episode in Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas…”
Ane the mention of Dylan Thomas by Gregory made my thoughts decide to not go gentle into that good night and took me back to that old woman who may return in other poems.