Nightmare Days

Welcoming the Halloween season

                    Nightmare Days

Welcome to the nightmare days,
a month of ghoulish fright.
Black cats cross unlucky paths
and wheeling bats take flight.

Deadly demons rule the dark,
they rise from rotting tombs,
leading hordes of waking dead
in dread malefic gloom.

Jack Skullington tips his hat,
his haunted face sans skin;
limned in orange pumpkin glow
with gruesome rictus grin.

Gravestone pop-ups on the lawn,
ghosts hanging in the trees,
witches riding ragged skies,
signs point to Halloween.

A waxing moon marks the date
with pale deceitful light,
luring children out to roam
and risk unhallowed night.

(20 lines, quatrain, abcb)