The Legend of Pumpkin Jack

Quatrain Retelling of the Jack O' Lantern myth

Each year in the month of October
Jack O' Lantern carves a pumpkin shell
inserts and lights a black candle
then places it on the road to hell.

A path leads deep into a dark forest
past Pumpkin Jack's leering head
toward a bright orange sunset glow
that rouses in every hiker's dread.

They say that walking past the pumpkin
is the last hike anyone would take
because in the forest Jack's headless body
for a living human head does ache.

Jack is cursed to eternally wander
through the swampy forest of death
seeking lost and frightened walkers
to take from then their heads and breath.

Jack is the undead trickster
forbidden to enter either heaven or hell;
thus his soul is doomed to roam
just outside the Gates of Hell.

Do not pass his laughing lantern
or Jack will sever body from head
place your skull atop the Devil's Cairn
and grind your bones for Satan's bread.

Line Count: 24
Form: Quatrain with a rhyme scheme of ABCB.