In Lockdown 1 I thought, “How nice
To get myself a poltergeist!
Some unquiet spook who’ll bang and thump
And cheer us when we’ve got the hump,
Who’ll make toothbrushes disappear
And lend this place some atmosphere,
A mischievously ghostly sprite
To give the girly swots a fright,
A clattering goblin from the grave -
You never got such larks with Dave!
Hearing bangs, some loud, some soft,
Echoing from the undercroft
Or from way up in the den
Right at the top of Number Ten
Where Geisty could thud with aplomb -
And be company for Dom!”
But now we’re in the Second Tier
My heart’s begun to fill with fear.
You see, what started as a joke
Is no longer so okey-doke,
No longer such a wizard wheeze.
Instead a pall, like some disease,
Hangs in a mist throughout the place,
A presence beyond Time and Space,
A dank and damp eldritch miasma
That - O lawks - quite chills the plasma...
And, for once, I won’t dissemble.
The Cabinet no longer tremble
When Dom screams at some small error:
Instead they stare in abject terror
And Williamson voids his insides
When the table creaks and slides
Then melts and flops round like a squid
Then gells into a pyramid!
And Jacob, decked in crucifixes,
Pointedly no longer mixes
Afterwards, for tea and biccies.
The Civil Servants all pulled sickies
And Dom’s weirdos and misfits, oddly,
Fled at first sight of The Ungodly.
But worse yet is the deathly gloom
That suppurates through every room,
Beyond the nauseating feeling
As flocks of books swoop round the ceiling,
Knives and forks whizz through the air,
The carpets writhe above the stair,
The framed portrait of Bonar Law
Impales itself into the floor
And just now - Jesus! - Churchill’s bust
Crumbled into seething dust
Which then reformed into a foetus
That hissed “Give up! You’ll never beat us!”
And when they say I’m looking tired
They fail to understand I’m mired
Inside a hell I never chose!
I get no sleep! I barely doze!
I’ve tried counting me shagging sheep
But as I finally fall asleep
Another sudden thunderous thud
Forms ice crystals in my blood
And boiling hot, Reason defied
I’m bolt upright and wild, wide-eyed.
Night after night, day after day!
At least C took that kid away,
But small relief brings no release!
It seems my torments will not cease!
Tried potions made from ash and jism,
Then I tried an exorcism,
Thrashed the air with bogbrush handles,
Muttered prayers by guttering candles,
But with each succeeding prayer
I’d lose another clump of hair
And hear, close by, a dreadful laugh.
Then blood began to fill the bath...
And thuds and thumpings bang and clatter
O’er splats of ectoplasmic matter
And grunts and whines and cruel cackles
Make flesh creep on my rising hackles
BECAUSE I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS!
I was just taking the piss!
It was all a stupid lark!
The darkness darkens in the dark;
A clamminess consumes my skin;
Shame coughs up my every sin;
The remnants of my soul now slithers
From my nose. I’m chained in shivers
As things behind me start to moan,
Then bleeping from my mobile phone!
A message! Trembling fingers grapple
To find what fresh torment a chap’ll
Face now, what the Faustian pact
Has saved up for the final act...
No earthly fears could ever presage
The dread I felt reading that message...
WE’RE NOT THROUGH YET - THERE’S LOADS MORE FUN
WE’LL SQUEEZE FROM YOU BEFORE YOU’RE DONE
AND SENT TO HELL - TO MAKE THINGS CLEAR
THERE’S 40,000 OF US HERE 😁