It was Black Dog Night at the station,
With a Black Dog caught in my hair,
There were too many owls, there were shrieks and howls
There was too much intolerance there.

There were tales floating out and forgotten,
There were stories that claimed to be hype
There were nightmare things with handfuls of rings
There were things too awful to type.

There were nasties a-float in the darkness,
There were Gorgons, that looked for a fight,
There were these and more, and Griffins of yore
That gave any sentence respite.

In the dark, I could hear the farmer scream
He’d just cut the throat of his wife,
But the low of the cattle had masked her death rattle
And the slash-slash-slash of his knife.

There were monsters that sat on my keyboard,
They were growling, and screamed ‘Let me in!’
But I pushed them away, and I cried ‘Not today,’
They were creeping right under my skin.

Then a voice echoed up from the valley
Where the darkest of dreams lay at rest,
‘You may type in the grail at the end of my tale
If you’re sure that Milady is dressed.’

The night came and flew in the window,
To block all the plots I had kept,
It’s the Black Dog way, no story today
For the rest of the night, barely slept.

It was Black Dog Night at the station
With the rails outside rusted through,
But the Ghost Train came in the mist and the rain
With a story, at last, that was true!

David Lewis Paget