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.