The beadle comes on stormy mornings
With his omnipresent warnings -
While the boys upstairs are snoring -
To take me away from my kin.

His violet hat sits atop his head
Paired fashionably with a cravatte, he said
I’d been gossiping wild, so must be dragged from my bed
And he prayed to erase all my sin.

I turned in the door as my son shuffles down
Wearing on his face an exhausted frown
That changes to shock as he sees where I’m bound
And the cruel shackles chill my skin.

Now in the gaol, I twist and mutter
And each syllable comes with an oily stutter
And the sight of a man sends my heart a-flutter
For now I’m in bedlam, I think.

The hallways echo with yells and screams,
As other inmates toss and turn in their dreams
And the mind hopes that all is not all that it seems
And walks over to the brink.

Ten years I wait in the darkest room
Each day with a bucket, a mop or a broom,
Ever committed to dark thoughts of doom
And all for the spillage of ink.