I was strolling around the cemetery
On a Sunday afternoon,
When the crumbling earth had opened up
And I fell in a werewolf’s tomb,
I wouldn’t have thought it possible
Were it not for the werewolf’s teeth,
That grazed my arm, and cut my hand,
It was way beyond belief.

But there it was with a canine head
And a slack and open jaw,
Just half a man and half a beast
With a mouth like the devil’s maw,
Its teeth were sharp, serrated as
The blood ran down my arm,
Went mingling with the ancient fur
That had kept the creature warm.

I must have shrieked in the ancient grave
For they came to pull me out,
But once they noticed the wooden stake
Leapt back, with many a shout,
They all shrank back away from me
As if I was unclean,
And left me shivering by the grave
Like a ***** in a dream.

And so I slunk back home again
Bent over in my shame,
I padded swiftly through the weeds
Like a dog that’s going lame,
The blood had clotted along my arm
Had soaked right through my shirt,
So I thought that I’d better hide it then
By rolling in the dirt.

My spectacles were cracked by then
So I cast them off, aside,
I couldn’t believe my vision, with
My eyes, so open wide,
I saw with pin-point clarity,
Not like I’d seen before,
When everything, both near and far
Was seen through a hazy blur.

My wife was sitting and waiting in
Her old and comfy chair,
And though she greeted me cheerily
I could only smell her hair,
But just one thing had startled me
And it’s worthy now to note,
My eyes had sought out her jugular
Soft pulsing at her throat.

It didn’t take me long to tell her
Why I felt unclean,
She bathed and smeared my hand and arm
With some white unguent cream,
Then in the kitchen, later on
Just as the Moon would rise,
She waved a jar of bright red blood
Right before my eyes.

‘Now drink,’ she said, ‘drink every drop,
I know this ancient cure,
And I don’t want to see you stop
Before I have you pure,’
And so I did, this cloying drink,
A foul and horrid taste,
And later on I found she’d made it
From tomato paste.

‘There’s lots of other condiments
I mixed into this crud,
I had to make you think that you
Were drinking human blood.’
‘I’m cured of drinking blood for life
I said, ‘how did you know?’
‘My father was a werewolf too,
Some many years ago.’

David Lewis Paget

I’d known of the cave beneath the cliff
For a year, or maybe more,
And I’d often said to Jill, ‘What if…’
But we’d not been there before.
It was only at the lowest tide
That the entrance could be seen,
We’d have to dive, to swim inside
And for that, Jill wasn’t keen.

For the cave lay in a tiny cove
With towering cliffs above,
‘So how are we going to get down there,
To swim,’ said Jill, ‘my love,’
We’ll hire a boat and we’ll cruise around
With our gear, from Canning Bay,
Which is what we did with our scuba tanks
On a fresh, mid-winter day.

It took a couple of hours or more
To get to the favoured spot,
The sea was calm, we secured the boat
Next to a giant rock,
Then over the side we went, and swam
Toward that narrow gap,
Then dived below with the tidal flow
There was just the one mishap.

Jill caught her tank on the overhang
And it nicked her feeder hose,
She still had air, but I had to stare
As a stream of bubbles rose,
We swam right into the inner cave
Where the roof gave us more height,
So up we came to the air again
And I lit my small flashlight.

The walls reflected the sudden beam
In a thousand different ways,
There were reds and greens, and even cream
In a host of coloured sprays,
Then further on as we swam along
Was a ledge we clambered on,’
And there the bones of a longboat lay
From a time, both dead and gone.

And further in was a pile of bones
Of some poor, benighted soul,
Caught in hell in this prison cell
When the tide began to roll,
He must have come when the tide was low
And sailed in through the gap,
Then stayed too late, there was no escape
Once the tide had closed the trap.

And close by him lay an iron chest
With its bands all rusted through,
Full of coins, of gold Moidores
And Spanish Dollars too.
But Jill became so excited by
The glitter of the stuff,
That she’d forgotten the fractured hose,
Or to turn her Oxy off.

I played the light up above the bones
Where a script was scratched in the wall,
‘God help me, I was cast in here
By the crew of the ‘One for All,’
They told me to hide the treasure here
And would pick me up at eleven,
But then the entrance disappeared,’
It was ‘1797.’

Jill’s tank was empty when we looked,
So I said I’d leave her there,
Go back and pick up another tank
But her face was filled with fear.
It’s been a week since I left her there
For the sea’s blown up, as well,
And the entrance to the cave has gone
Under a ten foot swell.

I’d give all the coin, and gold doubloons
Just to get my woman back,
But there’s been a great white pointer there,
I’m afraid of a shark attack.
If she just can last till the sea goes down
I shall go to that awful cave,
But the thought I’ve fought since I left her there,
‘It may be my woman’s grave.’

David Lewis Paget

I should not have said I loved you
When at first you pressed me to,
For I carried too much baggage
From the past, and overdue,
It was bedded deep within me when
I woke each day at dawn,
And I found it crying in me for
A love, both dead and gone.

But your bright eyes had waylaid me,
And the heart upon your sleeve,
They would tempt me and would stay me
Every time I tried to leave,
You were sweet and loved me only
Which was what I couldn’t do,
Though you soothed me and you played me
I’d not give myself to you.

Though I know I was a fool to care
For what had gone before,
I was anxious to reclaim it
So I pushed you out the door,
Though you persevered and held me
In the love that you had found,
I betrayed your finer feelings
When I covered that old ground.

Then the years piled up upon me
With the ‘we’ becoming ‘us’,
It was like a fateful journey
On an old and wayward bus,
And I came around to love you then
But not enough it seems,
For you saw me as unfaithful
And it shattered all your dreams.

The stronger that my love grew, yours
Would fade and disappear,
And the end of our love story was
To drown in bitter tears,
For in truth, I don’t deserve you
As I now succumb to fate,
Though I love you more than ever
It’s too little, and too late!

David Lewis Paget

She was always saying she’d **** me,
Was violent in word and in act,
But a heart of gold, so her friends have told,
They say it as if it’s a fact.
But they’d never had to live with her,
And often, I think it’s true,
That you only know what’s in somebody’s soul
Whenever you have, or you do.

They thought her the life of the party,
All giggles and kicking up heels,
When we were alone, she’d curse and she’d moan,
Just ask me, I know how it feels.
She’d slander each friendship behind their back,
While they were left thinking it fine,
I didn’t care much for the friends she’d attack,
But then she’d get stuck into mine.

They’d not see her tempers and tantrums,
Weren’t there with her stamping her feet.
I’d heard it said she was good in bed,
She’d wrap herself up in a sheet.
She gave out that she was broadminded
Would flash both her cleavage and thighs,
But never at home, when we were alone,
She’d do it for all other guys.

I never could do a thing right for her
She held me in bitter contempt,
While I’d try to raise her, to lift and to praise her,
She’d just say that I was unkempt.
I took her one day for a picnic lunch,
We sat at the top of a cliff,
The weather was balmy, I thought it would calm me,
It did, but her manner was stiff.

She soon resurrected an argument
I thought that was over and done,
My mind was quite hazy, but she was stone crazy,
And soon she had started to run.
I stood at the edge of the towering cliff
With her charging at me, and how!
She came in a rush, but she missed in her push
Or I wouldn’t be writing this now.

David Lewis Paget

Down at the end of Kilmartin Street
Where nobody seems to go,
A widow lives in an ancient mill
Where the river will overflow,
The mill race turns the mighty wheel
Though it grinds no wheat or corn,
It’s not been used as a working mill
Since before we both were born.

And the widow there is a mystery,
For we don’t know where she’s been,
She doesn’t give out her history
Though we know her name’s Christine,
She’s rarely seen in the street outside
But the gown she wears is black,
And those that visit and go inside
Are rarely seen to come back.

And I’ve watched myself, that paddle wheel,
It seems to go in reverse,
Whenever she has a visitor there
It’s as if the mill is cursed,
For then the water flows uphill
It’s against all laws, I know,
Whoever heard of the water going
Back to the overflow?

There’s a warning sign on the portico
And a warning sign within,
‘Don’t think to enter the Devil’s Mill
If your life is filled with sin,
For it may get rid of the things you want
And delete the good things too,
You may uncover a life within,
But of course, that’s up to you.’

I went one day to the portico
And beat on the old front door,
Then heard her footsteps begin to echo
Across the flagstone floor,
The door flung wide and she stood aside
And I walked into the mill,
But heard the grind of the wheel rewind
Outside, I can hear it still.

I felt my head beginning to spin
As I travelled back in time,
Undoing every single action
That once I’d thought were mine,
Then once outside, I stood and cried
For my world was not the same,
I’d lost my only love, my bride
And forgotten our baby’s name.

I thought I’d possibly get them back
If I went again to the mill,
And stood just cautiously inside
While the wheel went forward still,
But the widow blocked the door to me
And she said, ‘Don’t come again,
You only get but a single chance
Or the end result is pain.’

David Lewis Paget

Elizabeth Paddington Warrington Ware
I met on a path today,
I knew by the wind that was blowing her hair
She’d not have a lot to say.
I said my hello and she turned then to go
And she stuck her nose up in the air,
Like she didn’t know me, or sought then to throw me
Which I didn’t think very fair.

I said, ‘Aren’t you talking?’ but she just kept walking
So I turned around and caught up.
I caught at her sleeve in a moment of peeve
And in doing, spilt tea from my cup,
She snapped ‘Understand me, young man, and unhand me
You’re showing that you have no couth!’
I thought she was blind or was being unkind
I’m a pensioner, far from a youth.

‘Don’t say you don’t know me, you’re trying to snow me,
Remember, we once had a fling,’
I had her engaged, but she flew in a rage
And said, ‘I don’t recall such a thing!
You’re merely a stranger, I feel I’m in danger,
I’m calling for help in a thrice,’
‘How could you forget me, with all that you let me
Back then, don’t you think it was nice?’

‘I’m Ellen Pengellen O’Fogarty Fair,’
She exclaimed, and I said, ‘then you’re not…
Elizabeth Paddington Warrington Ware,
I’m so sorry, I must have forgot.’
I thought, ‘I’m in trouble, she must have a double,’
Then thought of the tat on her bot,
‘Do you have a sailor?’ She blushed, I had nailed her,
For Fair she was certainly not!

David Lewis Paget

I stare at you and you stare at me,
That picture of me before,
You looked so young in your pedigree
Before we both went to war,
But life has left its mark on the face
That was captured, back in time,
And now there’s little left of your grace,
There’s nothing that’s left of mine.

For you’re a constant reminder of
The man that I thought was fine,
I look in awe at your forehead where
There isn’t a single line,
Not one of the cracks and crevices
That now will litter my brow,
I wonder how you would feel, if you
Were able to see me now?

If only I had been painted like
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Then you would possibly look like me
And I’d be like you today,
My faults and pleasures you’d never know
Except on your painted face,
And you would never be put on show,
While I would retain your grace.

But time and life are a cruel pair,
For age to them is a joke,
They both conspire to grey your hair
From the time you enter their yoke,
They run their tractors over your face
Emasculate skin and bone,
And when you look, there isn’t a trace
Whatever you were, has flown.

No sweet young thing will look at you now,
If so, she’s telling you lies,
The only sign of the love you’ve known
Will still reside in your eyes,
And so you look at your lady now
Who stuck by you, thick and thin,
And praise the Lord that she’s aged like you,
As you’re falling in love again.

David Lewis Paget