The Basement Stair Poem by David Lewis Paget

I'd rented out the basement of
A house I used to own,
I hated renting places
I preferred to live alone,
I wasn't good at choosing all
The tenants I would get,
And this guy was a doozy
The most eccentric of them yet.

But I must admit, the money
Paid the mortgage, right on time,
And I looked toward the future
When the house, it would be mine,
So I put up with his foibles
And his funny little ways,
He would sit down in his basement
And would disappear for days.

He had a little doctors bag
He wouldn't be without,
With signs both astrological
And Druid runes, no doubt,
He always took it with him
When he wandered down the street,
Come skulking back, and talk about
The weirdo's that he'd meet.

I knew something was going on,
I heard both screams and moans,
Seep up from out the basement
With the creak of drying bones,
At night they used to wake me up
And I'd lie there in dread,
And wonder what that movement was
Beneath my poster bed.

One night I crept on down and stood
Outside the basement door,
And heard strange voices muttering
Not one, but three or four,
I heard him raise his voice and say
In tones both harsh and grim,
‘I didn't say you'd have your way,
But you can enter him! '

A peal of ghoulish laughter then
Rang out behind that door,
I bounded up those steps, ran like
I'd never run before,
Then lowered down the steel trapdoor
That sealed off that stair,
And laid the carpet over it,
You'd not know it was there.

I put up with a week of thumps
And cries of ‘let me out! '
But put my face close to the floor
And whispered, ‘Hey, don't shout!
You keep those demons that you raised
Locked in your doctor's bag,
Or maybe they will enter you,
And then, if so, that's sad! '

I waited for those sounds to die
For upwards of a year,
Then poured a ton of concrete in
To seal that basement stair,
The house has sold, a Mr. Bould
Paid not enough, no doubt,
But said, ‘there's not a basement there,
I'll have to dig one out! '

12 November 2014