Ring, Ring, Bloody Ring ...
Phone Calls After 9 p.m.
Phone calls after 9 p.m. are harbingers of doom.
They chill the blood and race the mind;
Is someone dead, or left behind?
Who's that ringing at this time?
Who's invading my bedroom?
Phone calls after 9 p.m. destroy the joy of sleep.
In a burst of noise, they shatter dreams,
Inducing fear, unravelling seams;
Once agile legs, like leaden beams;
Dank sweat begins to creep.
They dry the throat like desert sand;
Words are hard to utter.
Palpitations on the rise, that ghastly sweat is in my eyes;
My heart begins to stutter ...
Life may not have been in vain, if you'll for me expand,
That phone calls after 9 p.m. should be forever banned.
© James Gill
Ban Them!
It certainly isn't William Shakespeare.
It isn't even William McGonagall!
It is, however, all mine.
This poem was inspired by my life-long friend, Robert Brookes.
He'd dragged me from a deep sleep at about 10:30 p.m.
with a phone call to say he was in the
Moulders' Arms at Birtley.
After I'd politely asked why I hadn't been invited,
I explained (in Advanced Pitmatic) that I was due
underground at 07:00 the next morning
and I'd like to go back to bed!
I knocked up this piece of doggerel a few days later.
We had a million laughs, Bob.
R.I.P.