Nutter Alert

It might come in a letter,

darkness falls in a telephone call;

I await the unexpected

with one ear to the party wall.

Is it the pricking of the conscience,

is it the itching of hair shirt,

is it the dictionary definition

of a precipice to skirt?

It's the nutter alert.

Though this face is familiar

something in it has bred contempt;

I never asked for your opinion

or your back-handed compliments.

Oh, but here comes that special nonsense

all the words out in a spurt,

the unhinging of the trolley

as the mouth begins to blurt...

it's the nutter alert

I can see we're in trouble

from that glint in the eye you've got;

there's no sense to the story,

comprehensively lost, the plot.

And how contorted is that logic

you so forcefully exert:

you're a car crash in the making,

head-on, that's a racing cert.

It's the nutter alert,

this is the nutter alert.