How on earth did I arrive here
In this dark and dismal place,
When it all began with love, but
Of that love there’s not a trace,
When you first began to spell me
I was helpless in your clutch,
Like an oak, you tried to fell me,
One who didn’t matter much.

You would praise me up and raise me
When it suited you to play
With my juvenile emotions
You could have had me any day,
Though you never looked much further
Than the day that you would tire
Of your plaything, or the way things
Would consume me in your fire.

I was not more than a bangle or
A bracelet for your wrist,
You would get me so entangled that
I never could resist,
Then you tossed me in your tempests
Left me battling your storms,
Till you had me question love and
What it was, in all its forms.

Then you plunged me into darkness
Black as pitch, without a light,
And I wondered at this starkness
When you failed to say goodnight,
I have stumbled on your pathway
In my folly, now it seems,
But have missed the open gateway
In my search for love and dreams.

David Lewis Paget

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

Of everything I never had
I only dreamt of you
A wind to push me on in life
Fresh air
Just a breath, to carry me through

Of all the wants I've ever had
The only need was you
Come sun, come rain
Come joy or pain
There were open arms to always run to

I kept you in that bubbled hope
That sphere of glass and air
For everything that blew away
One dream stayed anchored there

Thank you for being just enough
To keep me feeling real
For being that one and truest love
When I was sure I wouldn't heal

You were just enough for quite some time
Until I gave you my soul
Then the glass  orb imploded
And my insides exploded
And I'd finished with digging my hole

Just wishing all the poets a
HAPPY NEW YEAR


Hello 2017

We’d been together so long, it seemed
That nothing could tear us apart,
We lived our lives in a world of dreams
And Barbara lived in my heart,
But frost had covered the window pane
And then it began to snow,
As Barbara turned, with a look of pain
And said, ‘It’s best that you go.’

I didn’t know what she meant at first
As I looked up from my book,
“Go where?’ I questioned, but thought again
As she quelled my heart with a look.
‘I said I want you to leave,’ she cried,
And her face was set in stone,
‘We’ve come to the end of the path,’ she sighed,
‘I want to be left alone.’

Then suddenly all confusion reined
I didn’t know what to say,
Whatever had brought this mood on her,
I wished it would go away.
But she was firm, and she packed my things
And ushered me out the door,
I stood there shivering in the cold
To be back on my own once more.

I found a flat and I camped the night
There was barely a stick or chair,
I’d have to buy all the furniture
To make it a home in there.
But I sat and cried in the empty room
As the question came back, ‘Why?’
I’d loved her so and my heart was torn,
I thought I wanted to die.

I went to her with my questions, but
She slammed the door in my face,
Whatever love she had had for me
Had vanished, without a trace.
It hurt so much that she cut me off
With never so much as a sigh,
I called that all that I wanted was
To tell me the reason, why?

The roses had bloomed so late that year
Were still in the garden bed,
We’d always tended the bush with joy,
We both loved the colour red,
So I snipped one off as I left one day,
And planted it under her door,
To let her know that I loved her still
I didn’t know how to say more.

Her brother called in a week or so,
Said she was in hospital,
She’d gone in just for a minor cure
And thought that he’d better tell.
So I caught the bus and I went on down
With a quaking fear in my heart,
She hadn’t said there was something wrong
Before she tore us apart.

The doctor came in his long white coat,
His brow and his face was grim,
I said, ‘Don’t tell me the news is bad,’
He said, ‘I’m out on a limb.
Your wife just passed from the surgery,
But she pulled, from under her clothes,
And asked if I’d pass this on to you,’
In his hand was a red, red rose.

David Lewis Paget

There are razor blades threaded in my tongue
Each time I go to speak
I end up cutting off someone
And the ceiling cracks from the heavy weight footsteps of the creatures living above me
I am terribly conscious
And horribly aware of the things surrounding me
The crumbling pain into which the children of younger generations were born
Birthed into a dead space where we will all become deceased
But when do I find the meaning of living?
I've tried to be patient and I've tried to be calm
But my mind has a timer that ticks like a bomb
Explosive thoughts and cancerous feelings are all that patrol my mind and soul
I hope I don't live to be old

decisions of consequence
matters of missed signs
crossed lines
beyond common sense
delve into the lost mind
one last time
find the insanity offence
a list of who lives and who dies
who deserves recompence
whos eyes get to view mine
in my definitive act of ultraviolence