Aoife Toner: Gorilla

He’s built like a ten-storey building

Eyes like two glowing full moons

Muscles like a seven-foot bodybuilder

Pupils like lumps of coal from Santa’s naughty list.


He lumps along like man and load,

Swings through the trees like Tarzan himself,

Or glides through the jungle like a jet-ski on waves

Gobbling up everything in his way.


He lives in the jungle with trees so high,

Rivers flowing fast to cool him down.

Treetop platforms make for great naps,

Sun blazing warm all day,


Until it sets at dusk

And he begins to snooze,

Snoring like a grandad in a deep sleep.

Darcey Kerr: Panther

Fur as dark as midnight’s sky,

Eyes as orange as summer’s first dawn.

With a calls that could break the deepest of sleeps,

And stride so strong and powerful.


The panther darts and dances and dives

Gliding along the damp forest floor

He cries with the might of a million years,

Alive in the buzz of the deep green maze.


He will sing his song of hope and glory,

And speak his words with tenderness and love.

Yet the panther is watched by the animal kingdom,

As they gaze at the creature with a fearful stare.

Callum Thomas: Halloween

A full moon glowed through the mist, chillingly.

The eerie silence pressed in like a heavy blanket.

Pumpkins glared down, the faces of the long forgotten dead;

Ventriloquists’ dummies stared out of shop-fronts, twitching, moving;

A murder of crows huddled in a tree, cloaked, watching.

Rotting tree limbs reached out as if groping blindly for children to catch;

Skeletal figures stood silhouetted against dim flickering street-lamps.

In the cemetery, hunched figures hid watching, listening from the shadows.

Long dark shadows sprawled out, concealing the unknown.

This was a Halloween like no other!

Tiernan Blain: Halloween Poem

All darkness, except for the lights from the houses casting an orange glow down the street.

Silhouetted birds sat in the trees, like death himself.

The wind wailed as the leaves rustled around.

Jack-o-lanterns stared like dead dubious delinquents.

A cold breeze nipped my nose.

A million eyes stared at me.

As I stepped, the mud turned to stone.

Every sound seemed to echo around.

There was a crunch of gravel that I didn’t make; could it have been made by the one I loved?

She will go back to where she belongs

Tomorrow by night.