THE COUNT OF WINTER-RINGWAY

(First published in “Winged Words” December 1978)

“At Oh-one hundred hours last night Manchester International Airport was closed by Fog” (Official)

It’s Midnight, and the Airport Tower all phosphorescent glows
like something not-exactly dead about to decompose.
It’s waiting and it’s watching for the thread of ghastly white
arising from the clammy ground – the Transylvania Flight!
Ah, see it by the Boundary fence, a thread of ghostly mist
Douse the runway lighting! Oh, it’s futile to resist!
In the sound of fearful silence hear the dropping of a pin.
     (We always close the Runway when the Count is coming in.)

So the mist is pale and bloodless as it drifts around the Piers
touching trembling aeroplanes, which age a thousand years
and the service trucks they scuttle off like beetles in a fright
- but they all get overtaken by the Transylvania Flight.
They are shrieking in their terror to a height of panic-pitch
Till a reaching tendril touches them, they squeak and stop and twitch
But the touch is very tender, they surrender with a sigh.
     (We always stop the traffic when the Count goes drifting by.)

Out there on the Apron as a dying creature moans
in the concourse every Chandelier is rattling its bones
in the warm and perfumed air, which hardly stirs a breath
But has a door been opened? for it’s gone as cold as death.
The Departure Board is shivering and chattering its teeth
willy-nilly at the tellies grinning silly underneath
till they stutter into silence (No need to indicate
     that it ISN’T “Avon Calling” when the Count is at the Gate.)

Silently, seductively, the Count is coming IN
Scented sweet and rotten, aye, like paraffin and Sin.
He whispers to the sleepers, “There’s a BETTER way to FLY”.
They turn and moan, disquieted, a decade more to die.
And the Airport staff, who came to work a thousand years ago
from safe-and-snug Suburbia, now realise and KNOW
it was NOT for “British Airways”, no nor even “K.L.M.”
but for Ancient Transylvania – and NOW they’re one of THEM!
For THE COUNT has come to claim ’em, and the final Hope has fled
     FOG has gripped the Airport, now we’re ALL the Living Dead!

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