‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all down the street
Came a howling of wind and a lashing of sleet
The stockings were hung by the 50 inch plasma
And parents were snoring like bulldogs with asthma

The children were nestled in cosy wee places
With smug little grins on their villainous faces
Their mum in her nightie and I in my skin
Were of Christmassy spirit, specifically Gin

When out in the garden, a moaning was heard
I sprang to my feet without breathing a word
With a hint of a stagger and stumbling feet
I went to the curtains all sly and discreet

And what did I spy as I peeped through the crack?
No jolly fat Santa or magical sack
It was as I had feared but had always expected
The zombies were here and St. Nick was infected!

His sled, with a frenzy of giblets, was smitten
And was pulled by a mob of the people he’d bitten
He threatened and jabbed them to get them to run
And struck at their heads with the **** of his gun

“Now Arnie, now Johnny, Now Barrak Obama
On Oprah, on Beckham and on Dalai Lama
On half of Madonna and Samuel L. Jackson
And run for your lives at the sound of the claxon”

The sled rose aloft dragging corpses behind
Like a wedding day prank from a murderous mind
And with more than a hint of the melodramatic
An almighty crash rattled down from the attic

Still dressed, as it were, in my birthday attire
Some pants and a chainsaw, my only desire
I crept on my tippy-toes, ever so soft
And I heard a grim sound from the stairs to the loft

I searched for a weapon and first within sight
Was the bottle of ***** for Boxing Day night
I ran from the bedroom to battle my foe
I turned to the stairs, but now where did he go?

When a breath on my neck made me shiver and freeze
And a trickle of ***** advanced to my knees
I came to my senses and spun on the spot
And before me pulsating with maggots and rot

There stood zombie Santa, he drooled as he leered
His eyes filled with hunger and blood in his beard
I screamed and I bolted, I ran down the stairs
I bounced and I bounded and leapt them in pairs

I rounded the corner and flung back the door
I flicked on the light but could journey no more
The windows were gone and in every direction
Were lurching the victims of zombie infection

They lunged and they nibbled and ripped me apart
They tore out my liver and chewed on my heart
My giblets, like tinsel, were strung on the tree
And beneath lay the presents in puddles of me

And while they made meals of my pieces of mind
Upstairs there was gore of a similar kind
The missus was mangled and minced in her sleep
And Santa selected the pieces he’d keep

The children still snoozed with not even a groan
The zombies sensed evil, and left them alone
Their work was complete so they hastened away
To the attic they galloped to rev up the sleigh

With a scrape and a grind and a clatter of slate
They took to the air to continue their spate
And the voice of St. Nick could be heard from the sky
“Merry Christmas to all and to all……

DIE!”

When I first made the night, I did
The moonlight sloshed in jars
I pulled the blackness overhead
And pinned it there with stars
I spilled the moon a puddle
Like a ghost it rose aloft
I waved a gentle breeze, I did
A whisper in the trees, I hid
A lullaby, to ease the lid
A silence, butter soft

I revelled in the night, I did
The void I’d cut for me
I edged the world in silhouette
With silver filigree
I felt dewdrops clustering
In beads about my face
The creeping glow of dawn, I spy
A purple hint of morning sky
An hour overdrawn, am I
And slightly out of place

Lord Henry Dickenbottem
Lived among his peers
A mind of deepest arrogance
Concealed between his ears
He spent his nights in gross misconduct
Lounging in his secret quarters
Mistress, maid and washerwoman
Ousted mothers, secret daughters
Hiding sordid love affairs
His endless line of ******* heirs
***** Henry Dickenbottem
Stalked above the stairs

Lady Mary Dickenbottem
Did her wifely duty
The slenderest of all her kin
Considered quite the beauty
Though in the dusk the candle burned
Alone, she stitched a pallid face
And in the dark she sought its words
To gain her shallow masters grace
Guiding will and fooling eyes
Beseeching of the dead to rise
Demon Mary Dickenbottem
She the pure despise

Master Neville Dickenbottem
Best of all his class
Beaten all the school boys
And bedded every lass
Allies of the strongest kind
And making merry of the weak
The liberties were his to take
And never one he wouldn’t seek
His gaze surveyed that which he ruled
All logical and water cooled
Nasty Neville Dickenbottem
Devil-fire fuelled

Young Jemmima Dickenbottem
Innocent and slight
Playing on the borderline
And darting out of sight
Only ever at her ease
When no one else was close about
And etched upon her baby face
The guilty shadow of a doubt
Always blamed if something broke
And speaking just above a croak
Shy Jemmima Dickenbottem
Tangible as smoke

Old Mother Dickenbottem
Lounging in her chair
Lavender and nicotine
Are fighting for her hair
Beware, at night she ventures forth
So best keep safe your tiny tots
She’ll creep up to the windowpane
And ****** them, sleeping, from their cots
Humming in discordant tones
Nimble fingers, cold as stones
Hungry Mother Dickenbottem
Gnawing on the bones

Dear Major Dickenbottem
Five years in the ground
Hoarded every ha’penny
But frittered every pound
Long he served his king and queen
A gentlemanly thing to do
He left the port with many men
And brought back homeward very few
He died away in foreign lands
Of syphilis and swollen glands
Dead Major Dickenbottem
Killed by wandering hands

I see the other angle now
The one which you perceive
By warping your perspective
Til there's nothing to believe
From sinking to the lowest ebb
A soul was meant to go
I've seen the other angle
Now I know

Yes, I want perfection
Efficiency I seek
Unless my words are faultless
I never dare to speak

Yes, I want prefection
And no, it's not a crime
Instead of looking foolish
I'd rather bide my time

Yes, I crave perfection
My flaws, so very many
Through many years of looking
I've not discovered any

Yes, I want perfection
And no I don't regret it
As yes, I seek perfection
But know I'll never get it

It began, as these things often do
With darkened skies and all around
The night had paused to draw a breath
And through the streets rebounded sound
A slow and steady fall of foot
I stepped the cobbles free of care
My eyes were drinking vivid light
A fragrance tangled on the air

My purpose set
My heart a grim quartet

The door was mere scenery
A sight to see but not recall
The passing gaze is pushed away
And sees there, just another wall
No movement could I hear within
My knuckles whitened on the knock
Relief recoiled hastily
A scratching from the rusted lock

My fingers clenched
Anxiety deeply entrenched

The woodwork inched a little back
A brow bedecked in withered hair
A pupil sharp as autumn frost
Surveyed me with a butchers glare
Her voice, a blade across my mind
Invited me to step inside
A shiver shook my frozen bones
My feet took up a timid stride

Her tone shallow
Her skin like warm tallow

Within was soaked in tepid gloom
In candle light the shadows danced
The flames grew quick and paranoid
And leaned away as I advanced
Behind me scurried shut the door
And down my spine, an angel tear
A leather chair of ages past
Held consort with my falling rear

She sat near
And whispered in my ear

With lizards hiss and jagged tone
In fragrances of smoke and gin
She sprinkled such a parable
That tingles bounced across my skin
My mission lay ahead of me
But caution of a reckless choice
A curse that fed on failure
And menace edged her ebon voice

Salvation awaited
But hope swiftly abated

Away into the night I strode
My razor wits with terror blunt
I packed a satchel prudently
For sustenance about the hunt
A dagger dangled on my hip
A bow and quiver on my back
Its bowstring plaited spider web
Was ever strong and never slack

Horizon bound
I broke the ****** ground

My quarry was a worthy foe
And many days I tracked until
By moonlight on a starless night
I caught a glimpse and stopping still
A sight I've struggled to forget
My bounty and my nemesis
Was bounding past me heedlessly
As fear wrought paralysis

Eyes like death
****** hung on its breath

It stood a daunting seven foot
With talons jutting from its hands
A mass of quills and tentacles
With extra spleens and mucus glands
A mouth with room for seven men
And teeth the size of ironing boards
A single but enormous eye
With lashes like a row of swords

My face paled
My bladder faultered and soon failed

I faced my prey and crossed my legs
My stricken blood had turned froth
I ****** myself in abject fear
But stopped just short of touching cloth
I turned about and ran away
While screaming out profanity
And crying like a baby
And adopting Christianity

Pleading with fate
My pride a sorry state

I fled the county swiftly
Finding shelter inside a cave
My punishment for failure
Would see me to my grave
And so I existed in exile
Eating only what I caught
In time the wind grew colder
And the days were ever short

Winter grips
The solar zenith slips

I huddle to this very day
Amid the gloom with frozen breath
And keeping warm is paramount
For stretching life, postponing death
Though purely for survival
While I weather every storm
I've taken to bumming weasels
As a means of keeping warm

Blunt trauma
Weasel skin *****-warmer

Theresa May look ghastly
And she might give you a scare
Theresa May have racist views
And someone else’s hair

She May not like the common folk
Theresa May have rabies
And who can say, Theresa May
Eat other people’s babies

Theresa May tell porkies
May keep her cash abroad
Theresa and her colleagues
May be put away for fraud

Theresa May look lonely
Like she May run out of friends
And soon she might be signing on
For June is where May ends

**

Preparing for a cataclysm
Not for the faint of heart
Tornadoes are tempestuous
Tsunamis, quick to start
A lethal strain of chicken-pox
Can wander on the breeze
And flu attacks acutely
With an uninvited sneeze
But no historic incident
Disaster or decline
Can match that of the Wobbling
Of nineteen fifty nine

It started over breakfast
With a rippling in the juice
The spoons were jiggled savagely
And dentures rattled loose
The condiments were quivering
The sauces sat and twitched
Cookies cracked and crumbled
And couples came unhitched
Horses bolted randomly
And ran around in squares
The pensioners reverberated
Rocking in their chairs

The birdies in their downy nests
Were bounced about the trees
The cars rebounded in the street
And stacked themselves in threes
Eyeballs turned alarmingly
The clouds flipped upside down
The church bells all played chopsticks
And the fish began to drown
The roads became entangled
And bunched up into knots
The pencils slipped their cases
Leaving tiny lines of dots

The cities were in uproar
The noise like solid thunder
As puddings toppled needlessly
And Jelly fell asunder
Furniture was undulating
Hats abandoned stand
Sailors found their sailing legs
A hundred miles inland
But just as it had started
The tremble shook no more
And one again, humanity
Could start to trust the floor

The roads were combed and straightened
And nestled back in place
The spoons were fastened safely
And eyeballs turned to face
The parrots were sedated
And locked up in their cages
Books were shelved and sorted out
With bookmarks in their pages
The world returned to normalcy
And soon, no single sign
Was left to tell the tale
Of the Wobble of fifty nine

**

In a nonchalant nook of a meadow and brook
There's a spot where the rules don't apply
It's not easy to find in the rushes enshrined
And you'd have to be ever so spry

It's here, cast aside, that the fairy folk hide
The ones Disney politely declined
Though they twinkle and fly through the midsummer sky
Their employment was less than refined

There's a stout looking sprite in a shimmer of light
With the buzz like a million sighs
Her name sent a shiver straight over you liver
It's Shitwallop, bringer of flies

There's a couple of wimpish and creepy wee imps
Pale yellow, like ageing canaries
It's Wagglebrow-Kisses and Gropetit-Dismisses
The ****** Harassment Fairies

And floating around with a raspberry sound
Leaving sulphurous fumes as she goes
Like a starfish but hairy, the Flatulence Fairy
Queen ******* drifts up your nose

There's so little to write of the Soddomy sprite
That I won't even mention his name
Dodge Flapcrack and Slurpees the Harpies of Herpies
And avoid any friends of the same

If you want my advice, which will have to suffice
Then I'd stay well away altogether
For I've not even touched on the ******* and such
And a fairy looks scary in leather

There's a hole in my wall which the wind whistles through
And the wallpaper's mouldy and calamine blue
The carpet besmirched with a decade of grime
And the pattern is lost to a happier time
The journals and books where my memories stay
Have mixed and submerged in a fearful array
The curtains hang tattered in woeful neglect
Where the mildew and fungus and beetles collect

There's a hole in the floor where the mice have a nest
Where the walls creak and groan like a cancerous chest
And a puddle emerges from under the door
Like a serpent, it winds on the laminate floor
Underfoot, fragments of crockery crunch
Still stained with the leavings of long ago lunch
There's a rattle and scratching of verminous claws
The spoon never stirs so the *** never pours

There's a crack in the window that lets in the rain
Where it runs in a rivulet right down the pane
The mattress is rotten and rusted inside
Bacteria thrive and amoeba divide
The ceiling is sagging from waterlogged beams
And catches the sunlight with putrefied gleams
Like powder, the plaster is fast in retreat
With it's choking secretions, the air is replete

There's a trace of a life that was never fulfilled
Like a drink only sipped and then carelessly spilled
There's hope of a future and trinkets amassed
But frittered away and consigned to the past
The wires are old but the bulbs are still new
And pictures of vigor are hanging askew
As if from existence, vitality blinked
A carcass remaining though life is extinct

Good night my worldly minions
I abandon you to gloom
The moon is yours to tarry with
The stars have come to bloom
Just set yourself about the clouds
And hustle them away
I'm sick and tired of ****** rain
Let's have a sunny day

**

She came to me with open hands
And in them held the air
She came to me with fancy free
And absent of a care
She saw in me a mirrors depth
Both shallow and entire
She looked at me like megawatts
And set my eyes on fire
She brought along an early spring
The buds cracked in the frost
She brought demands and interest
She never met the cost
She stood the test if permanence
And slapped the face of time
She summoned the extremities
The wicked and sublime
She dropped me like a punch line
She counted what she'd cast
I removed her like a splinter
Erased her like the past

She came to me with open hands
And in them held the air
She came to me with fancy free
And absent of a care
She saw in me a mirrors depth
Both shallow and entire
She looked at me like megawatts
And set my eyes on fire
She brought along an early spring
The buds cracked in the frost
She brought demands and interest
She never met the cost
She stood the test if permanence
And slapped the face of time
She summoned the extremities
The wicked and sublime
She dropped me like a punch line
She counted what she'd cast
I removed her like a splinter
Erased her like the past

What's new? Have you heard?
Bad statistics up a third
Someone said a naughty word
Candid shot with ******* blurred
Terrorists and pirate fleets
Politician/Mango tweets
Weather bombs, infernal heats
Docu-dramas and repeats
How to drop a size for spring
A kitten with a ball of string
Arguments from either wing
Adverts selling everything
Striking blows, legal highs
Diplomatic compromise
Close ups of the royal thighs
******* wins the nobel prize
A baby drinking anti-freeze
Retention fighting llama cheese
IMFs and IEDs
With overheads and hidden fees
Settlements and legal action
Kidnap by extremist faction
Cartoon dogs and brief distraction
Now, about your next transaction
Shorter cash and longer queues
Horoscopes and cryptic clues
Underpayment overdues
I wonder why they call it news?

It began, as these things often do
With darkened skies and all around
The night had paused to draw a breath
And through the streets rebounded sound
A slow and steady fall of foot
I stepped the cobbles free of care
My eyes were drinking vivid light
A fragrance tangled on the air

My purpose set
My heart a grim quartet

The door was mere scenery
A sight to see but not recall
The passing gaze is pushed away
And sees there, just another wall
No movement could I hear within
My knuckles whitened on the knock
Relief recoiled hastily
A scratching from the rusted lock

My fingers clenched
Anxiety deeply entrenched

The woodwork inched a little back
A brow bedecked in withered hair
A pupil sharp as autumn frost
Surveyed me with a butchers glare
Her voice, a blade across my mind
Invited me to step inside
A shiver shook my frozen bones
My feet took up a timid stride

Her tone shallow
Her skin like warm tallow

Within was soaked in tepid gloom
In candle light the shadows danced
The flames grew quick and paranoid
And leaned away as I advanced
Behind me scurried shut the door
And down my spine, an angel tear
A leather chair of ages past
Held consort with my falling rear

She sat near
And whispered in my ear

With lizards hiss and jagged tone
In fragrances of smoke and gin
She sprinkled such a parable
That tingles bounced across my skin
My mission lay ahead of me
But caution of a reckless choice
A curse that fed on failure
And menace edged her ebon voice

Salvation awaited
But hope swiftly abated

Away into the night I strode
My razor wits with terror blunt
I packed a satchel prudently
For sustenance about the hunt
A dagger dangled on my hip
A bow and quiver on my back
Its bowstring plaited spider web
Was ever strong and never slack

Horizon bound
I broke the ****** ground

My quarry was a worthy foe
And many days I tracked until
By moonlight on a starless night
I caught a glimpse and stopping still
A sight I've struggled to forget
My bounty and my nemesis
Was bounding past me heedlessly
As fear wrought paralysis

Eyes like death
****** hung on its breath

It stood a daunting seven foot
With talons jutting from its hands
A mass of quills and tentacles
With extra spleens and mucus glands
A mouth with room for seven men
And teeth the size of ironing boards
A single but enormous eye
With lashes like a row of swords

My face paled
My bladder faltered and soon failed

I faced my prey and crossed my legs
My stricken blood had turned froth
I ****** myself in abject fear
But stopped just short of touching cloth
I turned about and ran away
While screaming out profanity
And crying like a baby
And adopting Christianity

Pleading with fate
My pride a sorry state

I fled the county, took my leave
And made my shelter in a cave
My punishment for failure
Would see me to my early grave
And so I lived in solitude
Consuming only what I caught
In time the wind grew perilous
And hours of light were ever short

Winter grips
The solar zenith slips

I huddle to this very day
Amid the gloom with frozen breath
And keeping warm is paramount
For stretching life, postponing death
Though purely for survival
While I weather every storm
I've taken to bumming weasels
As a means of keeping warm

Blunt trauma
Weasel skin *****-warmer

Why would I consider it
When never were you true
I never should reload it
And relinquish it to you
For surely would you use it
And still would I show surprise
At the sight of bridled malice
In such grey and lifeless eyes

The tools you used against me
Left scars across my mind
The will you took away from me
I happily resigned
A blame it hovers over you
But doesn't match your dress
If more I pile onto you
It seems I carry less

You placed such trust about me
And it grew too hot to hold
I dropped the warmth in front of me
And cursed about the cold
A shiver ran about me
Like a spider on my skin
My vision faded eerily
The room began to spin

Insanity beheld me
In my broken tepid form
It wrapped its arms around me
So comforting and warm
And showed me secret windows
Which no living eye should bite
With a light of truth above its head
It charged into the night

There lived a witch in olden times
Of the quizzical variety
A firm grasp of the arcane arts
Though sadly not sobriety
She hatched a certain theory
Causing general consternation
But she turned away from doubters
And towards her new salvation

Go deosil, never widdershins
Avoid a deadly plight
For turning left is sinister
And that just isn't right
Rotating anticlockwise
Is officially redundant
Keep turning right for victory
Examples are abundant

My cousin said she knew a man
His name is immaterial
He turned left one too many times
Whilst searching for the cereal
Reality was torn apart
And through the gap he fell
He landed in a tangled heap
Outside the gates of hell

Go deosil, never widdershins
As daytime follows night
For hard to port is oh so gauche
But starboard's always right
Moving counter to the clock
Will ever be unwise
So keep on going rightwards
And away from your demise

Wendy failed to plan her route
With careful dedication
To turn only the rightest way
And reach her destination
Her lack of forward thinking
Led to tragic complication
She came upon a roundabout
And died of dehydration

Go deosil, never widdershins
Stay right and on the level
For only flaccid penises
Hang limp towards the devil
And those who turn to face the dark
The gods will surely smite
So if you think of turning left
Instead, go three times right