The Spyder

Spyder Spyder, in the night
Dressed up for a spooky fright;
What potion gave you eight long legs,
And eight awful, googly eyes?

Cotton candy cobweb trails,
Like sticky, gossamer pink tails,
Unwind behind you down the street
As you go out for trick-or-treat.

How do you run on just two legs?
Who knocks on doors for sweets and begs?
And when your eight eyes start to blink
Who’s the one whose heart will sink?

With your pincer chelicerae
Candy now becomes your prey.
What chocolate, candy corn, or gum
Will you, this dread night, overcome?

My favorite new word: feghoot

Last year I had a blast reading Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled. Not only did I learn a lot about verse, but I got to encounter all kinds of fantastic poetry vocab, like dithyramb and trochee, to name a few.

Little did I know I had yet to meet another fantastic member of the poetry lingo set: the feghoot.

What, you may ask, is a feghoot?

The feghoot is a coda, a little pun tacked onto the end of narrative verse. It turns out that feghoots have been in my life since early childhood. The ending I learned to “Little Rabbit Foo Foo” is a classic feghoot:

“Hare today, goon tomorrow.”

The hare half of the pun should be obvious even to someone who has never heard of “Little Rabbit Foo Foo.” Here’s a link to the lyrics if you’re curious about the goon.

But before you click, take my advice and watch out for the Good Fairy.