Lord Byron's Cleaner Dishes The Dirt

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