Beware! The Man Who Holds The Monkey’s Paw

 

The wolf is at the door,

dragging your hungry children

across the cobbles of Victorian conditions,

their ribs rat-a-tat-tatting

like a wooden washboard.

In the clinging northern mist

ghosts drift across the streets

before settling into doorways

where no one sees them.

 

A creature lurches into view,

its frame a mass of body parts

stitched together by tired doctors

in bleak basements.

It stumbles into the night

and mingles with the un-dead

pacing the towns and cities

looking for flesh to chew upon.

 

An old woman chuckles,

then coughs grey phlegm

into a bowl beside her,

sneezes and wheezes

and mutters ancient curses

at the mob who would take

everything she has

and burn her as a witch.

 

Ghouls, feasting on the dying,

glory in their blue skinned gluttony

and turn the thumb screws tighter

on the poor peasants.

At number eleven

a blood sucking count

begins to lick his lips

and dreams of feeding.

 

Graveyard Britain,

now alive with the once dead -

animated and angry

at the desecrations brought upon them.

Crawling from their tombs

and spilling towards Westminster -

their souls glowing

with righteous anger.