It’s PoetryFriday!
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Jone Rush MacCulloch hosts our weekend of spooky, spirited poetry! Join us!
Jone offered a list of Halloween-themed prompts. I chose “voices scratch the walls.”
Voices Scratch the Walls
Spirit wakens. Specter beckons.
Phantom traces graveyard spaces.
Ghostly moonlit spinneret
pauses on her silvered web.
Midnight whispers. Window shivers.
Formless shadows slither in.
Risers shudder…Muffled cracks…
Voices scratch…Finger tap-tap-taps…
Something paces. Something prowls.
Something waits inside the walls.
Cackle, cauldron, skitter, utter,
rhythmic spell, flush and flutter.
Erupt in winged silhouette…
witches, goblins, ghouls, and bats
descend upon the darkened streets.
It’s Halloween! Trick-or-treat!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
photos courtesy of pixaby
poem ©2025 Patricia J. Franz
Patricia Franz writes picture books and poetry. She believes children, dogs, and sourdough have a lot to teach us about life, joy, and wonder. She has raised two boys, four dogs, and holds a master’s degree in Theology with a focus on children’s spirituality. Patricia, her husband, her Bernese Mountain dog, Bonny, and her sourdough starter split their time between the Arizona desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
This is a great poem—I read it aloud to myself and just love the clicking rhythm and alliterative flow—beginning with the first stanza onward. Great images and fun phrasings parading across my kitchen…
Ooh – I love the imagery both in the poem and in your chosen artwork! Rhythmic alliteration and words like “erupting in winged silhouette” just add such a beauty to whimsy here. Lovely.
So spine-tingling and spooky! I’ll save this to read to my second-grade friends next year.
Happy November now, Patricia! I like your pics, too, and the poem feels so real, and petrifying! Favorites – ‘slither’ and “Somehing waits inside the walls.” – the creepiest! Seems to me that this should be a picture book!
OH, what spooky, spine-tingling images and sensory details. You captured Halloween perfectly. Great choice of diction and use of alliteration, etc.
The rhyme! The rhythm! The alliteration! The lusciously spooky detail!
Patricia, this is pure and shivery delight. You transformed a simple prompt/line into a perfect poem for Spooky Season. 😀
A buffet of onomatopoeia! I love the skitters and specters and spinnerets adding to the spooky feel of this fun to read aloud poem. What a delightful Halloween offering. I’m reading it a couple of days after in my early morning reading time and it still gives me the shivers.
Fantastic! Love all the internal rhyme, assonance and consonance, alliteration…you used ALL the tools!
Patricia, the title, Voices Scratch the Walls, offers great expectations for your spooky Halloween poem. It opens the doors to great word choice that offers sounds, images, and wonder-filled word choice. The following stanza is worthy of a children’s tale of specters out Halloweening.
Midnight whispers. Window shivers.
Formless shadows slither in.
I think little ones and elder siblings would love to read this aloud in a dark room with only flashlights to accelerate the ambiance while reading the poem.