The Black Hole
By Janine Haig

It"s a thing I've been avoiding, a task I've tried to shirk;
It's not that I am lazy, I am not afraid of work;
There are certain jobs that scare me,
Times when some things seem too hard,
When I need the extra courage
Just to go that final yard.

After much procrastination doing other pointless chores:
Like ironing my nighties, repainting all the doors,
Finally the time had come;
Time to face my doom:
I entered, then, The Black Hole -
The place called Robyn's Room.

I gazed around in horror and nearly had a fit -
Twas a scene of much disaster, a war-zone freshly hit.
The curtains at the window
Were all tied up in knots,
And great big chunks of blu-tac
Stained the walls with nasty splots.

The Teddy-Bear collection appeared to have been hung;
The arm-chair in the corner clearly showed its springs had sprung;
There'd been some rain three months before,
And tossed aside I found
Her filthy dirty gum-boots
On a lumpy dry-mud mound.

The cupboard where the clothes belong did vacantly implore
That someone feed it back to life with items from the floor;
Yet how to tell what's dirty
In amongst the stuff still clean?
And certain objects on the floor
Were things I'd never seen.

A dozen cups I hadn't seen for three or four long months
Lay hidden in dark corners growing fuzzy greenish lumps;
The fold-up chair she borrowed
When she went away to camp
Was shakily supporting
Her beat-up bedside lamp.

Long forgotten fluffy towels were tangled in a stack,
And close examination found them mouldy splotchy black.
Empty cans of soft drink,
Scattered and aslant,
Gave accommodation to
Some very busy ants.

Every piece of paper with every sketch she'd drawn
Was carpeting the carpet: the pages must have spawned.
And as the clutter lifted,
I found the missing rake,
The pliers that had vanished
And the stupid rubber snake.

It took a huge amount of time and effort next to none;
I finished up exhausted but at last the deed was done:
Posters stuck back on the walls,
Rubbish in the bin,
Books back in the bookcase
As neat as any pin.

I can't wait till she gets home!
Won't her face be red!
For in amongst the clutter
I even found a bed!