THE ANTIQUE
By John Reddin

I was in the antique shop
Talking to a man called, "Pop"
When he showed me something I had seen before

I remembered such a thing
When a George was still the King
Must have been when I was only three or four

It was round yet sort of fine
I could not bring it to my mind
How I could use the wretched thing in '95

It had a sawn off little part
That often gave you quite a start
And sometimes you would think it was alive

It was painted Red and Green
And was the strangest thing I'd seen
With a central sprocket held in place by glue

It had parts that made it hum
And I was feeling fairly glum
As I had no real idea what it could do

I had a closer look at it
And then I pushed and poked a bit
Just to see if I could work out what it did

And as I touched the rotten thing
I must have hit a hidden spring
Because it "popped" a bit and lifted up a lid

In the centre was a ball
Which made no real sense at all
So I searched around to see what I could find

Then I found a little hole
Put the ball in. Watched it roll
And what
I saw, nearly made me lose my mind

It went down and to the right
And then it gave me quite a fright
With the noise it made. It sounded like a train

Then it whirred and clicked away
And I saw it start to sway
As the hammers started pounding at my brain

What on earth would it do next?
Was it cursed, or maybe hexed?
Well I didn't have to wait for very long

It rose straight up in the air
Raised the lid and then I swear
Started flying everywhere around the room

Then it slowly settled down
Closed the lid that's painted brown
And made a sigh, just like a bride does with a groom

So I turned to "Pop" and said
"Am I crazy in the head?
Did I really see what I just think I saw?"

He said "Son, it's not your day
If you've come in here to play
With my machine, that's all it does. There ain't no more"

Well I left him standing there
And I sat down in a chair
Feeling not too good and wondering what went wrong

Then I saw the funny side
And then my shame I tried to hide
It was that "grassy" stuff, that I'd put in a Bong!