A thousand ships are shipwrecked, adrift on stygian shores,

Their billowing sails all stripped and gone, but he’ll need a thousand more,

Until he’s all the white ones, they’re the ones he needs the most –

To sew them in the costume of a thousand-foot-high ghost

He didn’t eat the sailors, he left them all to drown,

He’s saving space for candy which he’ll greedily gulp down,

In his house at R’lyeh, dread Cthulhu is dead keen,

To go out trick-or-treating on this special Halloween.

Shub-Niggurath is coming too, he’s dressing as a bat.

If Hastur’s mum will let him out, he will be wearing that

flat-headed outfit he insists is one of Frankenstein.

“That’s the doctors name”, they all maintain – Hastur’s so asinine.

Yog-Sothoth can’t come tonight, he’s feeling rather peaky,

Stabbed by some investigators, that made him somewhat leaky,

Curse his vulnerability to that damned enchanted sword,

He’s at the local hospital, stuck in Charles Dexter Ward.

It’s a rare old treat for Elder Gods, this special celebration.

Herbert West’s prepared the drinks, a special green libation

“With qualities”, he proudly boasts, “of great rejuvenation”.

(Presented in a punch-bowl full of green illumination).

And if that band of Elder Gods end up upon your street

And you are faced with that grave choice, I urge you to say “Treat”.

Be sure to be insistent as you won’t be asked again –

A trick from Cthulhu and his pals can render men insane.

Halloween ends; Our Elder Gods are all clutching at their chests

To shed this heartburn and belly-ache will take a lengthy rest.

Cavernous bellies full of jellies, candies, chocolate, cake and pie

That, which is now full of sweets, can now eternal lie.

(A poem adapted from a short story of mine)

The strangest thing has happened in the PrimeGen Research Station

as a lifetimes worth of study, enquiry and investigation

looks like it may just finally be coming to fruition

to the glee of every gathered engineer, scientist and logician.

Their detractors now stay silent, for they have been proved wrong

By the pluck and bloody-mindedness of this assembled throng

who even after failure remained faithful to the cause.

The type when asked "Why do it?" simply answer "Just because."

The alarm that roused them all's switched off, to stop their ears from aching.

A science experiment one hundred- million long years in the making.

Trembling claws the size of moons rub tired, sun-sized eyes.

The assembled scientists gather round as the defrosted sample dries

And there it is; a perfect sphere, devoid of imperfection

A tiny ball of textured green and glistening blue reflection

Assembled voices "oooh" and "aaaah" in self-congratulation

and empty wine glasses are refilled all primed for celebration.

Sample EAR-7H hangs there, a flawless gleaming jewel.

The research head stares beaming and announces, "Scientists, you'll

Be remembered for this breakthrough, long after you've all gone."

He speaks too soon, an alarm sounds – something has gone wrong.

A blackened tiny oil-like speck appears there on the crust

And tendrils of it grow and spread much to their disgust

Corruption's quick and total, and they're past the time for panic.

The tiny living fractal flaws both viral and organic.

Without a word it's taken, a hastily sketched proposal

that EAR-7H's a failure, fit only for disposal.

Into the stasis chamber, this experiment is done.

It floats with other failures round a tiny yellow sun.

A success in all other regards; aesthetic and tectonic.

EAR-7H would be perfect, if not for the life upon it.

If you’re a gamer, go grab some dice

Some multi-coloured ones with the funny shaped sides

Or go borrow them from a nerd or a geek

With the promise you’ll return them by the end of the week.

Get a plain piece of paper, or if you must, lined

Because this’ll be where your characters defined

Your strengths and your weaknesses, inventory too,

So grab your black pen. Or alternatively, blue.

So now you’re prepared to embark on this game,

And the first thing to do’s give your character a name.

I insist that it’s male – it’s a mandatory clause.

But if you’re male already, then you have to use yours.

So, there next to name, you can mark down your gender

(Which we’ve established is male, which isn’t meant to offend or

Disturb all you people who don’t fit that forte

But to choose something else would be really quite naughty)

And we’ll quickly move on to an uncommon stat,

Your sexual “leanings”, let’s leave it at that.

Is fancying blokes, women, neither or both your true fate?

That said, I insist that you write down that you’re “straight”.

And now to the step that can upset a few.

The colour of your skin – your pigment, your hue.

It may seem like an odd stat in this particular equation,

So we’ll simplify things by just putting “Caucasian”.

So turns out in the end that we didn’t need those dice

And we’re left with a character that’s turned out quite nice

So we can start with some adventuring fun…

Ah, actually, turns out you’ve already won.

"Oh Skull, you are so beautiful"

she murmured, with a sigh.

But the skull, bare, bleached and lifeless,

Could offer no reply.

On waking, she would talk to it.

tell it about herself,

But the skull, a mere framework of bones,

Just sat there on the shelf.

In mornings, she would sing to it,

Songs joyous and bleak,

But the skull, as deaf as it was dead,

could offer no critique.

At lunchtimes, she would cook for it;

fine repasts, and such.

But the skull, bereft of appetite,

would leave the meal untouched.

In afternoons, she would dance for it.

She'd pirouette and spin,

But the skull could only lay there, smiling

With a forced white rictus grin.

In evenings, she would lay with it,

Caress the skin-stripped bone.

She'd hug it for mere company,

to help feel less alone.

"Oh Skull, you are so beautiful"

she'd whisper as night fell,

but no response would ever come

from that vacant bony shell.

Her hair, from red to grey it went,

Her songs came out less eager,

The dancing slowed to a slow waltz,

Food portions grew more meagre.

Until one day, she rose from bed,

But paused before the shelf.

"You are a skull, and nothing else."

she said, pleased with herself.

"You give me nothing but disdain.

I'll dance for you no more."

She spat and cursed and grabbed the skull

and placed it in a drawer.

The outside world can be quite harsh,

To the weak and the naïve

And a cruel man can exploit such souls

through the expert lies they weave.

The name he gave her was the only truth

he gave about himself.

He'd wend his way into her good books

and drain her of her wealth.

As time went on, this roguish knave

begin to win her heart.

"My love, I want for nothing more

than for us to never part."

She took the man into her home,

devoid of apprehension.

They'd chat and dance. She'd cook for him,

Convinced of his good intention.

He'd wander round the house at night,

This knave – scum of the earth -

Counting all her worldly goods

and totting up her worth.

One morning, as she lay asleep,

a drawer was disturbed.

The gleaming white skull was revealed,

The knave shrieked, quite perturbed.

She awoke, and ran to see what thing

had irked her lover so.

His eyes ablaze, he screamed at her

"This cursed thing must go!"

"No!" she cried, "The thing must stay!

To me it means the world."

"It wasn't a request," he snarled,

"You'll do as told, my girl."

Seeing his mask gone, for the first time,

She felt a pang of doubt.

"Of course, my dear. Just as you asked.

Before the day is out."

He raised his fist as though to strike,

to her horror and surprise.

But left her there, holding the skull

and staring in its eyes.

"I've cooked your favourite meal," she said.

He grabbed it, simply glaring.

Little did he know that it was laced

with a box-worth of Warfarin.

"Oh Skulls, you are so beautiful"

she murmured, with a sigh.

But the skulls, bare, bleached and lifeless,

Could offer no reply.

Part of Londons burning, 

the heart of Londons burning

in a building which

now serves as little more

than a pretty pyre

for the rich.

Frayed dried twig fingers knead lumps of pink matter,

Into a bloodied straw mass that grows fatter and fatter.

The donor, a victim that life has eschewed,

Her cold flesh as scarlet as her ruby red shoes.

A needle, a thread – open straw scars are sewed,

as blood drips to the bricks of the long amber road.

Then the murderer sings, with a cheery refrain

‘"If I Only" No longer, now that I have my brain.’

Warning: Contains spoilers - however, it's a thirty-five year old movie, so you've got no excuse if you haven't seen it yet :)

Toppling towards Earth,

the place of our birth,

is something burning bright like a furnace.

It’s an alien vessel,

which at a rough guess will

plummet out of control to the surface.

There are few places parkier

than the depths of Antarctica,

where the landscape is nothing but snow.

But then something of note, a

loud helicopter rotor

of a chopper that’s hovering low.

They’re in hot pursuit

of a stray Malamute

but keep failing to hit with their gun.

The Norwegians are frustrated

and get quite agitated when

it reaches Outpost thirty-one.

The chopper lands on a verge as

the gunner emerges

and pulls out a grenade which he’d stowed.

The throw’s fucked up a treat

and it lands at his feet

and the pilot and chopper explode.

With reckless abandon

He keeps shooting at random,

gibbering, clearly off his head.

As stray bullets fly by,

Bennings is caught in the thigh,

and Garry shoots the Norwegian stone dead.

MacReady and Doc. Copper

head off in their chopper

and find that the Norwegian base is

just a charred shell that’s filled

with dead bodies, as well

as a humanoid corpse with two faces.

They bring it from there

for their biologist, Blair.

“This thing isn’t human,” he proposes.

and meanwhile the mutt

confirms somethings afoot,

as the bloody thing metamorphoses.

Whilst their dogs buy the farm,

MacReady pulls the alarm

and Childs turns the dogs into toast

Blair checks out the corpse

“This is alien, of course,

and can perfectly mimic its host”.

“It’s from an alien race

come from deep outer space

and we can’t let it get out of here.

If it reaches civilization,

It’ll mean all our damnation.

Earth’ll be assimilated in just a few years.”

Bennings dies by cremation,

caught mid-transformation,

and they’re forced to lock Blair in the shed.

With an axe he went crazy, Oh,

and chopped up the radio

and killed all the sled dogs stone dead.

Copper says “With our blood,

a simple test should

reveal the alien now rather than later.”

But the blood stores are trashed,

al the samples left smashed.

It’s clear now that there is a traitor.

The biologist Fuchs

says that he’ll take a look,

and that he’ll continue Blair’s studies.

But later that night

of him there’s no sight

so venture outside, do his buddies.

They find Fuch’s corpse burnt black,

and so Windows heads back

in order to go raise the alert.

Nauls too, is deflated

fearing his friend assimilated

when he finds a scrap of MacReady’s torn shirt.

As the team congregate

to debate MacReady’s fate,

he appears with explosives, quite stressed.

“I’ll blow you to bits,

If you attack me, you shits.”

(Norris suffers a cardiac arrest).

Without hesitation, they try

defibrillation

The outcome for Norris looks bleak

but to their disbelief

his stomach sprouts teeth

and teaches Copper a hands-off technique.

The mutated fellow

is toasted like a marshmallow

although one you wouldn’t dare digest

“Windows, gather everyone round

and tie them all down.

We’re going to try out a test.”

Clark, who fears for his life,

goes for him with a knife,

and MacReady just shoots the man dead.

They’re all stunned into silence

by this act of violence

having seen their friend shot in the head.

“Guys” said MacReady,

“I think I’ve got a theory.

The alien just wants to survive.

if we can just determine,

who’s a host to this vermin,

then we might just stay alive.”

Everyone tied and seated,

a copper wire’s heated

and placed into samples of blood.

But when the wire tip was probin’

Palmer’s Haemoglobin

it leapt off as far as it could.

With little advance warning,

Palmer’s now transforming

as tentacles sprout from his head

Windows hesitates to flame him,

and death comes to claim him

and MacReady has to burn them both dead.

Garry’s been through the wringer,

He feels loathe to linger, so

it’s only fair that he seems a grouch.

“You’ve been through a lot,

but I would rather not

spend Winter tied to this fucking couch”

With Childs left to guard,

the others head to the yard

in order to go and test Blair.

They open his shed

and find they’ve all been misled.

The alien has tunnelled out of there.

Though they thought him Mammalian,

turns out Blair is an alien

and the blighter’s given them the slip

He’s been scavenging equipment

which is for his ship meant,

and has part-built a makeshift space ship.

Garry looks all forlorn.

“The Generator’s gone”

“Is there any way we can fix it?”,

MacReady asks with a frown.

Garry stares at the ground,

“No, I meant as in somebodies nicked it”

“Oh, bugger, shit and damn,

I know the things plan.”

MacReady states, with some consternation.

“We’ll all freeze to death,

and we’ll breathe our last breath –

it’ll be safe whilst it’s in hibernation”

The most hopeful prognosis

was to lay the explosives

agreed the remaining three guys

The dynamite was placed

(and Blair melts Garry’s face)

but then came the biggest surprise.

A vast tentacled Blair

bursts out into the air

popping open like some vile haemorrhoid

But with some dynamite (the last),

MacReady triggers the blast

And the base and the beast are destroyed.

As the flames all burn higher,

MacReady sits by the fire

as Childs reappears with a wry smile.

They can do nothing but watch

as they both share some Scotch.

“Why don’t we both just wait here a while.”

Obscene angles,

On dreams landscape desolate - 

will Night-gaunts make a meal of me yet?

In Innsmouth’s only bar,

a squamous man.

Why risk losing your sanity

when you're destined to be

an Elder Thing’s treat?

I would escape tonight,

but I haven't any arms to bear.

That man is so gruesome

from some kind of loathsome nightmare.

Arrrggh! A Deep One in the bar,

he’s screaming in my face

and hits me with a swing.

He knows so many arcane things

He knows so much about dread things

I would escape tonight,

but I haven't any arms to bear.

That man is so gruesome

from some kind of loathsome nightmare.

La, la-la, la-la, la-la, a squamous man

Oh, la-la, la-la, la-la, a squamous man

Arrrggh! A Deep One in the bar,

he’s screaming in my face

and hits me with a swing.

He knows so much about dread things

He knows so many eldritch things

He knows so many dreadful things...

(To be sung to the tune of "This Charming Man" by The Smiths - With apologies to both Howard Philips Lovecraft and Steven Patrick Morrissey)

You were the last of the Teletext family to go

Oracle saw it coming, as far as we know

You'd been there on our tellies since '74

but the BBC Red Button meant you were needed no more

You were state of the art in a far simpler age,

when we were happy to read news page.. by.. slow.. bloody.. page

The wonders of typing in eight eighty eight

to watch telly in silence when staying up late

You were our early web (and sometimes a godsend)

from a day when TV used to actually end

but now just like Oracle and its cousin Prestel

you're confined to the scrapheap of history as well

Your primary colours on my screen I'll miss

without you in my life there is something amiss

Another aged beeb worker who has fell to the axe;

Into 8 bit heaven we commit you, Ceefax.