Number 67, Oh Dear!

Oh Dear!

Oh my goodness me what happened,
Down the road last night?
Someone left the gate opened,
Which wasn’t very bright.

In the early hours therefore,
Everyone was woken
By noises sounding rather more,
Like deckchairs being broken.

Ladies in their nighties came and
Peered out in the gloom,
Armed with what they found to hand,
A ladle and a broom!

Suddenly there was a splash,
As something lost its cool,
And in a terrifying crash,
It fell into the pool!

Is that a fin? somebody said,
Could it be a whale?
Don’t be such a silly head,
Its got the wrong shaped tail!

In leafy Sussex what would you,
Expect that it would be?
A badger or a burglar,
Too dark for them to see?

Everything seems bigger when,
In panic in the night;
People think of monsters then,
And multiply their fright!

Well this was nothing quite like that,
No reason why of course,
Could be the dog?...was it the cat?
Cripes, perhaps a horse

It could be a puma or
A bigfoot or a bull;
All the ladies thought for sure,
Something quite dreadful!

Then a torch was found at last,
Though all it did was glow,
The ladies backed off very fast,
For fear what it might show!

Some scary creature’s found its way,
From where exactly too?
And on the only night that they,
Had forgotten to...

Shut the gate, make it secure,
Before their Ovaltine,
And now these ladies must endure,
A most disturbing scene.

Round the pool they heard it go,
Thrashing all about;
Then they saw it was a doe,
And tried to fish it out.

Oh dear, a deer the ladies cried!
Whatever can we do?
Then one went in the house and tried,
To ring the local zoo.

By luck they got the number wrong,
And rang me up instead,
It didn’t take me very long,
To get up out of bed.

And so I pulled the Oh deer free,
And let it run away;
The ladies were all pleased to see,
It live another day!

© Stephen Saunders