Halloween at the King William IV pub.

My London gig singing debut (read poetry and stories before). Purposefully invited no one I knew to see if I could do it alone without support. The crowd kinda ignored it and talked through it but I’m glad I did it. Tracking down an open mic night on the day was surprisingly tricky!

You step out on the Tube and it’s Hal­loween, And you get more scared then you’ve ever been, Be­cause you can’t tell who’s in cos­tume any­more.

Ser­en­aded by drunken harpies as you head to­wards the door.

You look around you and it’s all a trap, Broken fin­gers crawl out of the rail-side gap. And grab to reach your soul is ter­ri­fied, You jump but it’s worse on the other side.

A tum­bling wreck looks quite sur­prised, To feel cob­webs grow in place of eyes. The lights are burn­ing bright, But you hope it does­n’t get darker to­night.

Were­wolves, mov­ing stair wolves, braided hair wolves, soon in­tens­ive care wolves howl­ing in the air wolves and it’s just the same out­side, No place to hide, be­cause there it’s worse the walls close in and be­come your hearse. To take you out of town, but in the sub­urbs every­one’s already dead, They’ve been zom­bi­fied for years, com­mut­ing to ca­reers, But it drove them mad, and now you’re glad you’re in the depths of hell in­stead. Don’t choose limbo choose a tor­ture bed…it’s fun.

And you’re gonna die, but you’ll be sweat­ier and hap­pier you think. The world’s a mess, be­fore you get to blink.

You stumble to a pub past ghosts and ghouls, The bar­tender must think you’re a liv­ing fool. You haven’t got the mes­sage right to­night. It’s a fright to be the only hu­man be­ing in her sight.

Your veins are pulsing with a stub­born thud, You grab a drink but they just serve blood. You try to pour it down, your lungs would rather drown, So you head back out into the crazy town and find the streets on fire all around.

The flames are tear­ing up the sky­line, every­one is think­ing what on Earth is this? I know it’s Hal­loween but this just takes the piss.

You see a wo­man burn­ing and her clothes are loose, She looks like she’s dressed up as a roas­ted goose.

And her pan­ic’s un­der­stand­able, As her cos­tume is quite flam­mable.

As she kisses her boy­friend he catches alight as well.

Though he’s an al­co­hol doused fire­ball, they’re a good match you can tell.

He does­n’t break out of his flam­ing binge, And he says he likes the look of her singey ginger fringe. With so much lust and trust he’s hardly fussed, That they’re turn­ing a dec­ade of love to dust.

His lips taste just like acid, her breath it smells like death, While she’s cack­ling, her skin is crack­ling and soon there’s only jew­ellery left.

Ants and beast­ies crawl­ing from the drains, Creep to­wards the flames and feast on brains. There’s plenty to go round but they’ve all been numbed on the flam­ing ground.

It’s like a game of tag with a burn­ing rag. And every­one is get­ting on the bar­be­cue, Every­one that is, apart from you.

You run to the park past a herd of rats, Maybe that’s why all the wo­men are dressed as cats.

The moon is burn­ing in the sky, and it’s quite a pretty place to die, The crowd is hav­ing fun you’re al­most try­ing, but your lack of fire leaves you cry­ing.

Every­body’s dan­cing they don’t seem to care the end is com­ing soon, The street’s like a fire-pit, stoked with boozey tomb and mixed with dan­cing room there’s hap­pi­ness in­stead of doom and gloom.

So you push apart, and you pull right through, The fire nearly swal­lows you, but you seem im­mune.

You slap your­self from miss­ing out, and feel the jaws burst from within, You’re sud­denly on fire and it feels like a sick but saintly sin.

You look around the town’s as pretty as it’s surely ever been, Is this Hal­loween or a sexy dream? Should you smile or simply run and scream?

You keep your eyes swollen and open, To never lose this sight. But then a far too cosy skel­eton shakes your hand and you blink it off in a fright.

Is this Hal­loween or a Sat­urday night? Are you drunk on fumes or a hellish light.

An am­bu­lance it rushes past, You thought you knew this feel­ing could­n’t last

A couple flee the flames, head to the river, Where the tentacles with fish-heads sliver.

Are these joy­ful or re­gret­ful tears, Bat­ter­sea burns like it’s been forty years.

And the chim­neys tumble to sub­mis­sion, Did the demons get the right plan­ning per­mis­sion?

You walk through the dark till you see a spark… And be­come a fire­cracker over Bat­ter­sea Park.