Happy Birthday to Me; Not-so-happy Halloween

Yep, it's another birthday, all right, and a pretty quiet one so far.  Lots of birthday wishes from Facebook friends, including Marge Piercy, whose intensive workshop I took a couple of summers ago.

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "monster" poem, and (2) write an "ekphrastic" poem based on one of four photos provided (or one of your own choosing).  I actually wrote three poems today (the first time all month I wrote more than one in a day), and I'll share two of them here. The first one is in keeping with my personal tradition of writing a poem about my birthday on my birthday. The second is much darker, and was inspired by, not a literal interpretation of, one of the photos on NaPoWriMo, which featured a rather whimsical Halloween decoration in someone's yard.

Birthday Monster

It's cute when it's young

and you look forward to its annual visit,

bringing joy, cake and presents.

But then it matures, gets moodier.

Sometimes it even surprises you

when it shows up at your door:

"Weren't you just here a few months ago?"

As you get older, it becomes more of a nuisance,

and you start to dread when it's due to stop by.

It's grizzled and ugly now, a little grumpy too;

It sings the same song every year

and blows out all your candles.

It makes lame jokes about your age

and reminds you that you're closer

to the end than to the beginning.

And yet, you never lock your door

when you know it's on its way,

because having it call on you again

is much better than the alternative.

Monsters

In October, they took my neighbor out

in handcuffs. A seventy-ish woman

in a shabby housedress, she didn't

look much like a criminal.  Then guys

in hazmat suits filed into her house,

past all her Halloween decorations

of smiling skeletons and ghosts.

Later I learned that she had smothered

her ninety-three-year old mother

in her sleep and sealed up the room

with duct tape to keep in the smell.

Then she continued to cash her mother's

social security checks until her next-door

neighbors complained about the stench. 

Seems that duct tape works only so long.

Eventually someone put up a for-sale sign

and took down all the Halloween decorations.  

Then all the monsters were gone.