I said no to drugs once.
I looked a bag of **** right in the face
and, like a loving but firm father,
I said, "No."
I was really high.

This girl came to my party,
And petted my tortoise,
In nineteen sixty four,
When I was eight, and
No-one noticed, not even me.

She still complains today
That she missed out on
Her jelly and ice-cream,
When she was seven, and
No one noticed, not even me.

I think when ten years later this
Beautiful blonde said yes, she
Would be mine, and is today, this
Tortoise slow was still around, and
No one noticed, not even me.

I tell our children now grown-up,
That I have found a tortoise is
The perfect way to find the girl,
Who will be yours forever, when
You are eight and she is seven.

.
I awake in the night and whisper your name,
is it just a dream when only silence replies?
a melancholy descends like a blanket of shame
at the arousal of remembering your Siren's eyes.

Such sleep as I had not enjoyed in long ages
disturbed by the intrusion of an old lovers face,
rearing up to unbalance the serenity pages,
your name passes my lips with yearning grace.

Unsettled by your surprise and quiet arrival
I lay back, anxiously sigh to the waiting void,
uneasy closing my eyes, craving dream survival
but the illusion of rest has now been destroyed.

I sleep in the night and whisper your name,
is it a dream as the silent in mute rejoice?
A sadness drops slow like a blanket of shame,
at the distance of remembering your Siren's voice.



© Pagan Paul (21/10/18)