Lord Byron's Cleaner Dishes The Dirt Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Lord Byron's Cleaner Dishes the Dirt
Dusting these skulls he uses as flowerpots
Gives me the creeps.
Real skulls, mark you….his ancestors' heads
Stolen out of the crypt
And monks' skulls, exhumed from their graves.
He drinks from one, too.
Flamboyant bard or freak?

He pays well though,
When he isn't avoiding debtors
Then he goes missing for weeks

He keeps a coffin in the dining room…
Then there's the food fads.
I sometimes cook for him, if you can call it that
None of your meat and two veg
(Folk say he's mad and bad)
Glasses of vinegar,
Chewing gum made from pine sap
Plates of mashed potatoes
A diet, he calls it.
Either boom or bust
Binge or starve….
He's quite bulimic

‘Mr George, ' I say, ‘It isn't fat.
Big bones, ' I tell him
‘You take after your mum.
And you really should cut out the laudanum.'

Our footman gets paid to play on Lord Byron's lake
Steering a fleet of toy boats, like an armada
He has to make cannon noises and whistle nautically
While master sits in his pretend fort on the shore
Like a great sea admiral…insane or eccentricity?

At least he doesn't keep his pet bear here.
I draw the line at clearing up bear poo

In Venice, I heard he lived with a small menagerie
10 horses,8 dogs,3 monkeys,5 cats, an eagle
A falcon,5 peacocks 2 guinea hens
And an Egyptian crane…encouraging bugs

The aristocracy, oh how they carry on!
I blame inbreeding myself
Nothing but orgies and drugs

And that queer friend of his, Mr Shelley!
Swore he saw demonic eyes
Looking out of his wife Mary's nipples.

A week of Horlicks, bread and butter puddings
Early nights (no sex)
Would sort them out.

You ask, why I choose to stay?
I quite like working here when he's away