“He is coming to your little town!”—
Dr. Loomis, Halloween (1978)

It’s what we take as the audience:
he unwound night from the sleeping town,
revealed to us the will, billowing silence

of lawn, driveway, kitchen appliance—
the butcher knife carves skin into the frown
that masks what we take, the audience

of voyeurs in order of appearance,
then disorder. Shedding his nightgown
revealed to us the womb, ballooning silence

in bones, in space and flesh, the crannied place
where he looms, where we are rundown
and taken to him as the audience

of nouns: creature, mother, teacher, conscience;
he simply is, and we want his withdrawn
world revealed to us, the retching silence

that is terror, because terror is mindless
when we begin again (whispering), shown
what we have taken as the audience
that reveals our world: his heaving silence.

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Boogeyman Redux

Matt LaFreniere

 

“You don’t know what death is!”—
Dr. Loomis, Halloween II (1981)

Oh Michael, it takes your hands to strangle.
We see your mind turn in on itself,
we see how to live without Death’s angle

of approach; still we are afraid, Michael,
of the masks we wear. Reveal yourself
Michael, it takes your hands to strangle.

Like cracks in sky veins splinter across pale
Hand-backs, as if God’s pulse beat stiff
the rhythm to live within right angles:

to be revealed, alone, to dangle
from dark corners of the exacted self.
Michael, it takes both hands to strangle

loneliness; where is the throat to throttle
this slippery logic of disbelief?
We see how to live without Death’s angle,

we see the image laid before us, Michael,
the mind studies its advancing self.
Oh Michael, it takes both hands to strangle
our hearts, without knowing death, without you, angel.

 

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