FACTory by Darren Clark... a cautionary tale!

A cautionary poem that I have written... enjoy!

FACTory
By Darren Clark

Thomas Fitzjames used to lie all the time
And he is the subject of this little rhyme

He lied to his granddad, he lied to his mum,
He lied when he stood or when sat on his bum
His lies kept on coming until one day you see
The CLAWS took Thomas to FACTory.

Where children and walls were all dressed in gray
And they were made to tell lies all day every day
They worked them in shifts, the lying recruits
Putting lies into bottles and bottles down chutes

Thomas was also a curious boy
And finding things out was greatly enjoyed
He thought to himself ‘what would happen if I
Put a truth in a bottle instead of a lie?’

So Thomas, ever the curious chap
Wrote ‘I’m a boy’ and screwed on the cap
And he reached out his arm with the bottle…

The alarm started going, the FACTory turned red
And a searchlight soon pointed at Thomas’ head
The CLAWS quickly caught him and took him away 
He was certain that this would be his final day

But the claws dropped him down on a hard metal floor
In a dark shadowed room that he’d not seen before
Before him there loomed a mouth without tooth
And inside it the infamous Tongue of Truth

Inside he was put, the tongue started to roll
And soon Thomas Fitzjames had been swallowed whole
Down, down he tumbled, down cold tubes of glass
Now and then slowly and sometimes quite fast

In darkness and shadows he then hit the ground
And rubbing his eyes he tried looking around
“What is this place” said Thomas, alone
But himself didn’t answer, instead came a groan

“This is the place where truth comes to die
And sits gathering dust just like you or like I.”
The speaker was ancient and wrinkled and bowed
With sagging old legs and a mottled old nose

“All of these bottles are filled with what’s true
 Words from the heart deep inside of you”
Thomas Fitzjames followed her through the sea
Of discarded bottles and true hopes and dreams

Till they came to a house lit with shimmers of light
That stood out from encroaching shadows of night
“What’s that?” Thomas thought in his mind
“That’s the Little House of Truth, won’t you come on inside?”

Thomas opened the door to warm yellow hue
And inside there were pictures of people he knew
His mum and his dad and his brother and sis
All of the family he had now come to miss,

He held himself back, with tears in his eyes
Thinking “What have I lost by telling these lies?”
“How will I ever get back to the start?”
She said “All that depends on the heart”

“In the depths of the FACTory, withered and black
Like a barely live corpse of a shriveled black rat
Is a heart that’s been shattered and broken as well
If it can still live, well no one can tell”

“To the heart you must go and sing it awake
Though the trip won’t be an easy one to make"
So Thomas set off from across the dust bottle sea
Determined to set the broken heart free

Through canyons and valleys of hard twisted shards
He counted the miles and he counted the yards
The FACTory was larger than he could have thought
Larger by far than what he’d been taught

Then after days he reached the black soul
A place thick with blackness, a forgotten hole
Wires and tubes ran into it’s black pulp
A slackened carcass, of battered hulk

And Thomas walked up to the broken heart
And he could see that it was fairly near falling apart
The cracks running deep on it’s hard dry skin
Desperate for something other than lies to be in

And Thomas stood up, in the prime of his youth
Took a deep breath and whispered the truth…

The heart started roaring, like a cannon or drum
And FACTory shook with a bone shaking hum
The CLAWS all collapsed and the children ran free
And that was the end of FACTory.

And Thomas Fitzjames went home to his mum
And he no longer lied when he sat on his bum
He told only the truth to his family and friends
And promised his heart that he’d not lie again