It started late on a Sunday night,
The sudden rattle of pans,
With nobody in the kitchen then,
‘What’s happening, Dianne?’
Dianne went pale and she looked at me
‘You’d better go down and see,
Maybe we have an intruder there,
Just keep him away from me.’

I went, but nobody there of course,
I didn’t think there was,
But two large knives on the cupboard were
Arranged in a sort of cross,
‘Didn’t you put the knives away,’
I called, but she was there,
Looking over my shoulder and
I saw that she was scared.

‘But I haven’t used those knives for days,
There’s something going on,
Somebody must have sneaked in here,
I tell you, this is wrong!’
I turned and I tried to comfort her,
‘There’s no-one in here now,
Just someone playing a crazy trick,
I’ll catch them out, somehow.’

But late that night, in the early hours
The bed began to shake,
Dianne woke up and she grabbed at me,
‘I think it’s a real earthquake.’
I tumbled onto the floor at that,
But the floor was still and sound,
Only the bed was shaking, quaking,
Just above the ground.

And that was only the start of it,
Strange things went on for weeks,
For things would fly off the table and
Plates off the mantlepiece.
A carving knife pinned me to the wall
By the collar of my shirt,
‘I don’t think somebody likes you,’ said
Dianne, ‘you might get hurt.’

Dianne had an ancient father who
Was mean as the day was young,
He hated me, and I used to say,
‘How did he stay unhung?’
We rarely went off to visit him
As he acted like a skunk,
But Dianne dragged me along at times
To show a united front.

Doors were slamming and windows cracking
So Dianne had to shout,
‘We have to visit my father, Dean,
It’s time that we went out.’
I ventured cautiously through his room
And called the old boy’s name,
But it was quieter than the tomb
And Dianne said the same.

We found him out in the laundry then,
He’d fallen in the tub,
Had gone a couple of spin cycles,
Oh yes, and here’s the rub,
One bony arm and a hand were out
And pointed, looking mean,
We knew then who was the poltergeist,
But boy, his bones were clean.

David Lewis Paget