Halloween House Guide

A Jack O’Lantern’s face,

carved with a terrible

sneering leer, quivers

and shimmies from the

backlit flicker of a candle’s

flame.

The steps are damp with

the autumn leaf harvest

and a light chilling misty rain

falls. The plastic black cat, locked

in a perpetual scowling hunch,

is the warning.

A skeleton, hung on the door,

hollowed eyes staring vacantly

at the approaching ghouls and

goblins, a toothy yet goofy,

grin on  its bony skull, but

ready to chomp on the cowardly few.

The orange lights, strung about,

casting a golden hue of Fall on the

small cowboys and ballerinas,

minions and monsters, Elsas and

robots.  Each one ready, through their

fear, to shout a familiar phrase said every year.

Night comes quickly and goes

too fast for the seekers of sweets

on All Hallows Eve. Each house is a

challenge, a fright or a bore,

depending on, who comes to the door.

A mommy, a mummy, a monster or Dad,

or no one at all, and that seems bad.

Some houses are scarier than

most, there’s something about them,

that’s evil and morose. Parents avoid them

and babies cry passing by, it’s that

house with the crazies or the one lonely

guy.

No tricks, no treats, no decorations to

speak of, just dark and unholy, melancholy

and dismal. It’s broken and tired and left so

alone. But one night a year it fits just right,

as the creepy house on the corner, that’s

somehow always empty but always lit.

Hideous ghosts of the past lurk in

there, creaking the floorboards,

and slamming the doors, they are

envious of your flesh and want it

for their snack. So if I were you,

I’d stay back.

Stick with the carved pumpkin faces,

the jolly psychos and smiling zombies,

the well-lit porches and bowls of candy,

stay clear of the dark house, the one

with the frown, it might swallow you

whole and drag you down.

If you’re brave though, and think it’s all

a fake, there’s nothing to fear, no vampires

to stake. Then by all means go up those

steps, ring the bell and tempt Hell.

You might be the trick, and the treat,

for what dwells inside collecting souls to eat.