The Last Room

Don't take room 217, they told me

But that was the last one left

'First right, then wrong', said the receptionist.

'Don't you mean left?', I said.

Twin sisters followed me down the corridor, 

Blood lapping at their ankles, 

'Don't take room 217', they insisted, 

But that was the last one left.

The son I hadn't fathered 

Trundled past on a tricycle,

'Redrum!,' he cried , an anagram 

to an invisible chum.

Trundled on loose boards

Onto a crimson carpet floor, 

Blood lapping at his wheels, 

'Don't take room 217!, he cried.

The topiary came alive outside

Malevolent creatures, snipped into life, 

I had the urge to kill the wife

I had not yet met.

And to call out 'Heeere's Johnny' 

Swinging axe in dirty hand, 

All this, as I turned the key

to room 217. 

( My tribute to Stephen King's 'The Shining, and  Stanley Kubrick's adaptation thereof)