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.