Demon Eyes

It hovered above on the ceiling,

It only would come at night,

My sister said she’d a feeling

It was dark, and was full of fright,

The light would glimmer and slowly fade

As the Moon came over the hill,

The globe grew dimmer in light and shade

Than a candle that flickered still.

I’d lie and I’d stare at the corner

Where the cloud had begun to swirl,

It had little form and no meaning

When first it began to unfurl,

But then came the claws in the ceiling

The eyes in the cloud glowing red,

And Clara would scream and be reeling

With her hands pulled over her head.

I thought that if I could disperse it,

It would run on back to its well,

And perhaps the Devil could curse it

Or find it a place in hell,

I beat at it with a baseball bat

But it seized the bat with its teeth,

And wrenched it out of my wretched hands

With a strength beyond belief.

It grew a cloak and a pair of horns

And roared with an orange flame,

It burnt a patch on the ceiling then

And I saw it had written its name,

‘Askarametch’ it had written there

The demon that lived in our well,

I said to Clara, ‘it won’t be long

I’ll be sending the demon to hell.’

In daylight hours I filled up the well

With bracken and poisonous weeds,

Then as the sun was beginning to fade

I’d add Belladonna seeds,

A gallon of petrol damped it all down

Till the Moon had begun to rise,

Then what I struck had it all lit up

To match the red demon’s eyes.

We never see clouds on the ceiling now

It doesn’t seem able to come,

The only thing is the sulphur smell,

It’s potent, I give you the drum.

It drifts on in from the well outside

And hangs in the bedroom air,

Devil’s Nightcap was sprayed for days,

It’s better than demons in there.

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

:) always a treat to read your poetry ..i've said it before i know .. i thought for sure that Clara and her man were going to be blown to the gates upon lighting the well ..but you fooled me ;} nice, fun read sir!
E.