The Hole in the Bathroom Wall

This really did happen, though not quite in that way. The snake was under the washing machine, next to my son, and I did snatch him out of danger - without being bitten.

The cottage was old, it needed some work

The walls were of crumbling stone,

The windows, like eyes in a tumbledown Kirk

Were staring, like sockets of bone;

I hadn't much money, I hadn't much choice,

'I'll take it,' I said to the man,

If only I'd known what the future would bring

I would never have shaken his hand.

 

My marriage had failed, I had my young son

Just three and a half in the spring,

We bought an old bed and a table, two chairs,

Drove up there and went to move in;

The floorboards were creaky, the walls were damp,

The place was as filthy as hell,

I sat the young lad on the floor by a lamp

And I cleaned, until darkness fell.

 

The rooms were all empty, they echoed and stirred,

I thought I heard whispers and moans,

The ghosts of the past tried to warn me, I guess,

I couldn't interpret their groans;

I tucked up the lad after dinner, in bed,

And I wandered the house overall,

Then checked out the water, and turning my head

Saw a hole in the bathroom wall.

 

It wasn't that big, but was over the bath,

I could see through the damp and the rot,

It wouldn't take that much to fill it, I thought,

Then I took a long walk, and forgot;

For days I was painting, cementing and fixing

The cracks were all over the place,

But never a thought of that hole in the wall -

To my ultimate shame, and disgrace.

 

Outside the cottage, a paddock ran back,

All burnt up and brown in the sun,

There wasn't a leaf or a stick that was green

The summer had barely begun;

Old pieces of iron lay thick on the ground

And lizards lay under their shade,

I should have been warned, but it just didn’t dawn

On me then, to my later dismay.

 

A month had gone by, the weather was dry,

So hot that we suffered like hell,

I drew a warm bath, only tepid and low

So the lad could cool off for a spell,

I reached for a towel, but nothing was there,

I remembered it out on the line,

Then ran out the back to retrieve it, and saw

What has ever since haunted my mind.

 

For over behind the old cottage, there slid

A shiny brown venomous snake,

Six foot in length it ignored me and went

For the hole where the wall was baked,

Slowly its body slid into the hole

As I stood there just shaking in fear,

My beautiful baby was sat in the bath

As his deadly opponent drew near.

 

I ran through the door and I screamed as I ran,

I made for the bathroom door,

Everything seemed to go suddenly slow

As I slid on the muddy, wet floor,

I finally got to the bathroom door,

Reached out, as I started to fall,

The snake had reared up, preparing to strike

From the hole in the bathroom wall.

 

We often remember 'the day of the snake'

Since my son has grown taller than me,

He has this aversion to lizards and snakes,

And goanna's and skinks in the tree,

We regularly walk round the cottage and fix

Any cracks, any holes, overall;

I lost my right arm from the snake as it struck

From the hole in the bathroom wall.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Tania Leigh]

An excellent write....your talent with rhyme and flow is enviable, and I was pleased to see your trademark
surprise at the end....in this poem it is that the speaker lost his arm.

It it clever how you segued into the last stanza by fast-forwarding through time, and started the stanza out mentioning the son....that allowed the reader to forget for just a moment about the speaker until the shocking line about the arm.

Wonderfully written!

[Kelley T]

The rhythm and flow of this piece is excellent and the closing lines made my gasp!

Wonderful, I loved it!

[Raef C. Boylan]

I agree with Tania Leigh's review: I also envy your ability to both rhyme and tell the story without compromising either. I read this the first time about an hour ago and didn't notice the rhyme, so absorbed was I in the events being described; that's quite a talent, to not distract with rhyme and yet stay true to it [I like that the fifth and seventh line don't always rhyme - and, again, it wasn't a disstraction and didn't throw me off].
I also agree that you did a clever job at the end of making us believe it had been a happy ending, when really something had gone wrong - just not the worst, i.e. it was you and not your son who suffered.

An excellent poem. Seriously.
You describe things so skilfully, in simple detail, that the scenes become vivid for the reader.

Good luck in the contest.
Thanks for posting this. It's actually quite intense/scary to read.

[Norma J. Jessee]

Excellent ...... You certainly held my attention right to the end.
Very smooth flowing.
Loved it.