Poems

“What a curious thing,” said Alice

“One might easily lose one's balance,”

As she walked through the labyrinthine tangles

Of the sea-risen city's impossible angles...

The moon was bright

The breeze was light

As I stepped outside, that fateful night

And felt upon my neck the bite...

The Beast became a Beast by living too long alone

Not caring how his beard or his fingernails had grown...

Mr Was only was, never is

The was of the moment is his

The is never is, because

Then is the now of Mr Was...

The bravest girl I ever knew

Was Molly Millie May McGrew

She stood no more than four foot two

But she’d outfaced the Gobbledigoo!...

My father had a night-black suit

With a night-black tie up to his throat

And gloves so dark, when they were on

You wondered where his hands had gone...

Our Mummy’d been a mummy in a horror film franchise

Rising from the dead with mesmerising, glowing eyes...

Day or night

You’ll feel his bite

He’s always out, dispensing fright...

The Gentle Giant Robot, striding through the countryside

Stopped, then hung its heavy, heavy robot head and sighed...

Jonathan Livingstone Shoggoth wanted to fly

He knew he could — believed he could — don’t ask him why!...

Agatha spends all her time in the attic

Dorothy’s drawings leave doctors aghast

Anthony’s charging the cats up with static...

First, a tingle up your spine

Then a whisper in your mind

Look around and you will find

The Telepathic Twins

Tabitha penned as-you-are invitations

To whomever found them, with no expectations

And left them in randomly-chosen locations...

Now alle is DEAD withinne me, and the attick dust is still,

And old moth huskes lye crumbling on the warped woode of the sill...

Meddie had fantastic hair

It floated snakily on the air

A slow-motion sculpture of waves and curls

The envy of all the other girls...

He came down the road like a roistering riot

Now forwards, now backwards, as though just to try it...

Did you feel it, like a sigh

Maybe Ghostie passing by

Soundlessly — I wonder why

Oh Ghostie?

The Devil had a mobile phone

He called me up on it

He said, “D’you wanna make a deal?”

I said I’d sleep on it...

How nice to be an angel

Flitting about the sky

Without a thought of who or when

Or how or if or why...

Robot wrote a novel

All in ones and zeroes

Humans were the villains

Robots were the heroes...

Although we did our best

To pretend it wasn’t there

We kept It in the cellar

Just below the stair...

The Existential Agent has a gadget and a gizmo

The Existential Agent has the low-down and the info...

Welcome to Invasionville!

A normal, humdrum town

Apart from the constant alien threat

And the beaming up and down...

They had an Indifferent Beast at the zoo

It was furry and spiny and somewhat scaly, too...

Wish I could be a witch

Real old-hag-cackling bitch

I’d cast me a spell

That’d summon up hell...

Spike and Doodles, friends for life, set out upon a quest.

Spike said, “Doodles, I have always liked the sound of west.”

Dr von Brain

Said “I’m not insane!

“It’s all the other scientists who are far too tame!”

It's easy to summon a demon

You'll need paper, a pencil, and something to lean on...

I sometimes sit and wonder

At all this useless plunder

I’ll maybe dig myself a pit

And bury it...

They wondered why Toby was always so cold

He was only, they calculated, five years old...

Doctor Freud, oh Doctor Freud

How is it I can avoid

Lustful thoughts and such distractions

Leading me to shameful actions?...

New neighbours in the flat below.

Young. Happy. In love. You know.

Kiss each morning as they go to work.

Bit more than that each night in the dark....

I saw what seemed to be myself emerging from a door

Upon a street I swear I’d never walked upon before...

Met a man, was no more than a shadow in the street

Looking down, I could see he had chains around his feet...

I want to be on the moon.

Just me, on my own.

Three hundred and eighty four thousand miles

From any pair of human eyes...

Teach Yourself Terror! the book’s cover said:

“How to be frightened of things not-quite-dead!”...

The icky drip

Went drip, and drip

And dripped upon my neck...