In the larger of the smaller hours

Demon drink and all its powers

Led to me a telephone
It happens when you're on your own

On this I then began to talk

To girls in Dublin and New York

I used the satellite to harass

Girls of Ottawa and Paris

Wine compounding all my flaws

London I called, for cricket scores

And here is where it all unfurled

I dialed up a local girl

And Crikey was she unimpressed

And not inclined to be undressed

By clumsy, drunken wandering hands

Which fresh from dialing foreign lands

Had wanted something closer by

To let me pop around and lie

And sober now I do accept

Her preference was to just have slept

God knew then and I know too

At that point she and I were through

And so then I was forced to think

Of other things than flesh and drink:

Pizza, burgers or kebabs

Imperatives like taxi-cabs

And getting home and playing dead

And spreading out across the bed

But lurking, haunting, all my slumbers

The modern curse. Dialed numbers.