Imposters

On this moonlit ghoulish night, the wind plays tricks on us.
It spins around our ghostly wraps and makes the vampires cuss
as all the wicked creatures rise up from the dead
to escape from where they’re buried and do what we all dread.
Within the crypts where they’ve been resting, their hearts just barely beating,
they’ve been plotting to impersonate small kids out trick-or-treating.
They’ll go out ringing doorbells, never once exposing
the fact that they’re real ghosts and goblins, not just children posing.
They’ll grab up all the candy so when the next child begs
for Hershey bars or Reese’s bars, they’ll only get the dregs
the zombies left––the  licorice and the candy corn,
so kids go home with empty bags—crying and forlorn.

This is the spell that witches cast in twenty-twenty-three
when they came out of hiding to see what they could see
And saw small nervy children impersonating witches
and goblins, ghosts and vampires, then making scary pitches
for popcorn balls and candy and other gastric pleasures.
Whereupon the witches decided to take measures
to turn the tables on the kids, they decided on a whim
to teach those kids a lesson by impersonating them!
So this is my fair warning that tonight when your bell rings,
and creatures wearing  witch hats or fangs or other things
first mouth an incantation or issue hearty “Boos,”
then demand that you give candy, lest a trick ensues,

best give them all the Hershey bars met by their greedy eye,
the Reese’s Bars and Milky Ways that they might espy.
But also keep a stash on hand for later in the night
when all professional witches and ghosts have taken flight.
And you hear a feeble knocking of gypsies with tearstained eyes
and ghosts in wrinkled bedsheets and little goblin guys
with smiles all turned upside down and tummies empty of
chocolate and gummy bears and other sweets they love
because their competition has beat them to the knock,
please bring out all that candy that you have kept in stock
to fill the bags of children who come knocking at your door.
These fakers are the real creatures that Halloween is for!

For the Sunday Whirl Wordle, the prompt words are: ghoulish night wind tricks spin wrap spell wicked dead crypt buried within