Late one October night,
Halloween in the air like a spectre
(booze, parties, the usual disguises)
I go walking along the inlet
(this place isn't safe
but the soft reflective water is alluring).

Thinking on danger's allure,
strolling through fog and the night
despite the rumours I feel safe,
as if I am suddenly a spectre
circumnavigating the twinkling inlet
protected by this ethereal disguise.

The transformative powers of disguise
make objects seem costumed, alluringly
personlike, gathering solemnly around the inlet.
Reliable in the gloom of night,
an old oak like a spectre
seems grandfatherly and safe.

Not a reasonable safety;
one of bedazzled instinct, which disguises
the frightening as familiar, the spectral
as real, the disturbing as alluring.
I walk in a daze through the night,
the fog, and the looming people? around the inlet.

On calm nights the ocean is gentle, the inlet
flows softly, soothing and safe,
a quiet companion in the dark coccoon of night.
So comforted I fearlessly approach the old oak (disguised
as something familiar and alluring)
imagining myself a quiet untouchable spectre.

Until the illusion fades and now the spectre
is the oak, tall and authoritative over the inlet,
which now glistens cruelly, no longer alluring
as i continue compelled, but suddenly unsafe
between looming objects! their disguises
fallen away to reveal the cold hard ruthless edges of night.

And later, while searchers at night talk of spectres,
disguised, I will stand safe (yet mute cold and perpetually unmoving) before them
an eternal oaken monument to the allure of the dangerous inlet.

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