Halloween Sonnet Contest: Halloween Ultimatum, David Raphael Israel

California-born, David Raphael Israel attended a Quaker school (writing poetry from
grasshopper height), studied classical Chinese at Berkeley, and pursued music journalism at
EAR Magazine (NYC) in the late 1980s. Poems of his can be found in the anthology Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English.

Halloween Ultimatum

John Keats took birth         on Halloween

as the internet        has made well-known

no other such tidbits            that I've seen

in similar wise         my mind have blown

Halloween now seems     too vague to me

I observe it as                  an American rite

alike Easter & Labor Day         how poetry

relates to mimicked ghosts   seems slight

whereas here you seek     a sonnet turned

toward the topic                of this occasion

who in their candy-bag       has discerned

rites European?             Mexican?  Asian?

bring me a Halloween     globally sourced

or from vapid rites       let me be divorced


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