Happy Saturday, dear reader.  On my new ridiculous schedule with the audacious goals, Saturday is just the sixth Monday of the week.  And I’m still behind schedule!  But I’ve got a good feeling about catching up reasonably soon.

An unfortunate side-effect of this pre-dawn-til-after sunset schedule is the losing track of time and days.  It was just over 100 degrees and September, next thing I know, it’s the last half of October, and Halloween is suddenly right around the corner.  It seems like a couple weeks ago I was cursing the fireworks stands that had popped up like patriotic acne all over the parking lots of local strip malls, and suddenly, there are pop-up Halloween costume stores in the same strip malls.  I’m not sure how this temporal chaos happened, but it is obviously high time to get into the Halloween spirit.

Here, then, is the first of what I suspect will be a steady stream of bad Halloween poems and maybe short stories between now and Halloween:

In the shadowed woods where whispers creep,
A forgotten path the night fog keeps.
Beneath a sky of ink and lace,
The moon’s frail glow hides its face.

Branches twist like gnarled claws,
Scratching secrets, breaking laws.
The air is thick with ancient dread,
Where once the lost and lonesome fled.

A rustle, a sigh, a chilling breath,
A dance with shadows, a waltz with death.
Eyes unseen watch the wayward stray,
Luring souls to eternal gray.

Footsteps echo, then fall to hush,
In this realm where nightmares rush.
Dare you wander, dare you stay,
In the haunted where phantoms play?

N.P.: “Rigor Mortis” – The Hunger