Has the sensation as he passes through
Of fusing with the drab planks from below,
Emerging on their far side in insane
Conditions, chest-deep in the warping floor
To nightmare. He discovers that his skin,
Now naked, is that on a manikin
Grown from this attic of the charnel poor
With joints replaced by pins and pores by grain,
Whose screams are creaks, whose tears are viscous gum
Slow on his lathe-shaved cheeks. Den gapes, appalled,
As his host, wood-fleshed and immersed like he
In floor, is seized by the fraternity
Of tipsy ghouls who sing while Kenny’s hauled
Up to inebriate Elysium:
“The jolly smokers we, a cheery bunch
Here in our half-world, half-real and half-cut,
Enjoy that good night out without the wife
Pursue an after-hours afterlife
And want for nothing save a head to butt
Or Bedlam Jennies for our Puck’s Hat Punch.”
Aghast at what seems Happy Hour in hell
Den flails, embedded, glancing up to spy
The Guinness toucan smirking from tin plate,
Its touted goodness decades out of date,
Then with a wide and panicked wooden eye
Surveys the chiaroscuro clientele
Of smouldering reprobates who swirl and curse
About him as he struggles there beneath
Their knees. One, waistcoat-draped with bowler hat
Wipes from his chin the remnants of a rat