I Woke In The Night comical poem 700 by Angela Lansbury

 I woke in the night

I had a poem in my head

But I'd had less than 5 hours sleep

So I stayed in bed

Now the next day

My poem's gone away

I live in sixes and sevens

Night's lost poems in the heavens

If I believed in afterlife

Which is wishful thinking

I'd ask St Peter for my poems

Lost at night, or after drinking

Now I am in a dreadful distress

My poems have gone astray

Like parcels delivered to the wrong address

Which should have come my way.

I am hunting high and low

Where did those wonderful rhyming words go?

Not delivered the next day

Alas. you and I will never know.

-ends-

In case any reader was not aware of Christian mythology, St Peter is said to be the gatekeeper of heaven. Numerous jokes are about the questions St Peter puts to people who want to get in the gate. In this case I am at the gate, asking St Peter, like a postman, or a householder delivered the wrong parcel meant for another address, for the delivery of my lost poems.

I was rather pleased with these metaphors. Poems like parcels. The image of the poet knocking on doors. Hoping to find lost poems in heaven. St Peter like a porter holding deliveries. A poet queueing like someone at a post office for words to be delivered.

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