Haunted By The Past Poem by Neil McGreevy

When I was on a secret mission
I was visited by an apparition
it came up out of the morning mist
and took the form of a trombonist

At first I thought this strange creation
was a figment of my imagination
then the poltergeist kicked off its shoes
and flew straight into an eight bar blues

Now something that I must expound
although I savour the horn's sweet sound
with the covert style of my expedition
I could do without this hot rendition

Spooky concerts in the morning
are something of an early warning
and the person I had come to spy on
kept alligators and a mountain lion

And since I wasn't keen to peg it
perhaps the phantom ought to leg it
before his ghostly horn recital
caused me to forfeit something vital

Then I remembered in my jacket
with my A to Z and my tennis racquet
was something guaranteed to chase
the sackbut spectre back to base

It could freeze the blood and chill the bones
and would turn the warmest heart to stone
I showed the fiendish troubadour
a picture of my mother in law

The shadowy visitor took one look
and was immediately thunderstruck
then like a genie on full throttle
he vanished back into his bottle

With the slush pump songster evanesced
I could continue with my furtive quest
without that noisy incarnation
bringing about my mutilation

The moral of this ghostly chronicle
could be tagged phantasmagorical
but underneath the thin veneer
lies an implication more sincere

That whether you're a saint or sinner
a loser or a lucky winner
the way to keep a nice cool head
is to leave your demons under your bed