Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, October 30th, 2004. And seeing as it's not quite Halloween, I thought this would be the perfect day for a poem about it being not quite Halloween. It's called Halloween Party by Ken Nesbitt. I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and read it one more time.

We were having a Halloween party at school.

I'm dressed up like Dracula.

Man, I look cool.

I dyed my hair black, and I cut off my bangs.

I'm wearing a cape and some fake plastic fangs.

I put on some makeup to paint my face white,

like creatures that only come out in the night. My fingernails too are all pointed and red.

I look like I'm recently back from the dead. My mom drops me off and I run into school and suddenly

feel like the world's biggest fool. The other kids stare like I'm some kind of

freak. The Halloween party is not till next week. There's actually very little to say about this

delightful piece of light verse. I pause only to observe that in our world there are some schools

where this occurrence would go

without comment or even notice. Though to the average teenager, I suppose that wouldn't be much

of a consolation. And the mortification would continue nonetheless. I once showed up to school in my

slippers, not realizing until the moment I was stepping out of the car that I had forgotten

to change into my sneakers before leaving home. And in that moment, I think I would rather have died,

even some horrible gruesome death, rather than set foot in that school before my friends

and teachers in my slippers. I see now, though, that it could have been worse. Here is a Halloween party one more

time. We're having a Halloween party at school. I'm dressed up like Dracula. Man, I look cool. I dyed my

hair black and to cut off my bangs. I'm wearing a cape and some fake plastic fangs. I put on some makeup to paint my face

white like creatures that only come out in the night. My fingernails too are all pointed and red.

...