The Castleford Ladies Magic Circle - Jake Thackray

The Castleford Ladies' Magical Circle meets tonight,

In an upstairs aspidistra’d room that’s lit by candlelight,

Where Elizabeth Jones and Lily O’Grady

And three or four more married ladies

Practice every week unspeakable pagan rites.

Dressed in their Sunday coats and their flowerpot hats,

Respectable middle-aged ladies — running to fat, at that —

There’s Elizabeth Jones and Lily O’Grady

And three or four more married ladies,

Each with a Woolworth’s broomstick and a tabby cat.

But they don’t waste time with a ouija board or a seance now and again, no.

And three or four more married ladies

Prefer to be tickled by the whiskery chins of bogey men.

Their husbands potter at snooker down the club,

Unaware of the devilish jiggery-poke and rub-a-dub-dub,

While Elizabeth Jones and Lily O’Grady

And three or four more married ladies

Are frantically dancing naked for Beelzebub.

And after the witches' picnic and the devil’s grog,

After their savage pantings, their hysterical leap-frog, well,

And three or four more married ladies

Go back home for cocoa and the Epilogue.

So be careful how you go of a Saturday night:

If you see a little old lady passing by, it very well might be

Or one of those satanical ladies.

Their eyes are wild and bright, their cheekbones all alight.

Don’t go where they invite,

Because the Castleford Ladies' Magical Circle meets tonight.