There once was a tiny cupboard, where
We kept our groceries there,
Just enough room for two to squeeze
Inside, and under the stair,
And Karen would beckon me go to her
With just an arch of her brow,
She wouldn’t take no for an answer, but
Would say, ‘Just come to me now.’

Then I would go in and close the door
And feel her close in the gloom,
Her skirt would rustle, I’d feel her thighs
And would smell her sweet perfume,
She had such a sense of urgency
When she pulled me down to her breast,
But I would be telling old secrets to
Reveal what’s happening next.

But that was a million years ago,
It seemed the beginning of time,
When we were young, and I’d taste her tongue
Sweeter than strawberry wine,
Those nights were the nights of passion, but
Then nothing could really compare,
With the times when Karen called to me
To meet her under the stair.

But the years unfolded fatefully,
And Karen began to stray,
Her eyes that once had been more than wise
Would seem to have gone away,
She’d stare out into the distance to
Some place that I’d never been,
And when I’d ask her just where she went
She’d mutter, ‘What do you mean?’

I found her wandering down the road
Just down from St. Michael’s dome,
She looked at me, most piteously,
‘I don’t know how to get home.’
I took her hand and I led her back
Through the early morning frost,
And when we got to our gate, she said,
‘Oh God, I seem to be lost.’

The days ahead were a nightmare, she’d
Forget where she’d put the pans,
Then look at me like a stranger, when
I’d reach out, and hold her hands,
But worst of all, she would bring my tears
When she stood by the cupboard stair,
And say, ‘I seem to remember, but
Just what did we do in there?’

David Lewis Paget

My last dance will be an inspiration
Hands to hands tightly intertwined
Music deeper than any revelation
And all done in my own time

My last meal will be very delicious
Sampling a bit of all of my favorite things
And being my last, need not be nutritious
Humming with flavor cause you know it makes me sing
My last slumber will be the deepest I’ve known
Dreams will no longer come at all
My essence thus departed receding from how I’ve grown
So there will be no me left to recall

My last conversation will never be my last
Though my bodies may fade
Becoming only an echoe in the past
My words will remain to be remade

Revisited over and over again
It may not be immortality
But it is as close as I can come my friend
Words etched in the collective unconscious
Until humanity ends

There is a little kid crying in the corner begging to die.
I know his face and the reasons why he tries to commit suicide.
Little boy struggling to breathe through the sobs and tears
Wants to forget the proceeding years wants to ignore the fear
Wants to deny the lies he hears from his angry mom who is
Screaming violence in his face ripping security from this place.
I want to tell him that this will pass cause I know it will;
Say that there is something better coming, but that’s not how I feel.
I want to cradle him in the comfort of a calm future,
Rock him in a chair of certainty till he slumbers knowing for sure
The world will not continue to hurt him, that people will love him,
But I know that those tragic trends will happen again and again.
Lovers will leave, deceive, while family and friends fade too fast.
Poetry will help, but he will still wear the scars of the past
Knowing that strangers are safer than those human traitors,
Who promise hope, who hide behind friendly gestures.
I want to help that little boy, but he is me and I cannot break free
Of the shadow he casts.

I sit in the room in my easy chair
And ponder my life in the gloom,
The source of my wonder is where did it go,
While racing me on to the tomb,
I thought that forever was all that I had
Before me, when barely a teen,
But now in my dotage I look back upon
The little that lay in-between.

It used to be easy when I was young
And supple and fit, without care,
I didn’t believe it would come so undone
But that was when I was still there.
The aching of muscles and creaking of bones
Were something that old people had,
And I was determined to die, before moans
Would rack me, and make me feel bad.

But life is deceptive, it sneaks up on one,
By not even making a sound,
It pads up behind you before you can look
And then it starts beating you down.
We cling to our dreams and impossible schemes
And hope that our time will come in,
Just as the ship of our fortunes will stream
In to shore, with the laurels we’ll win.

I never got married, or tied myself down
For why should I borrow a book?
With so many women abroad in the town
And each could be had, with a look.
So that was my folly, and that was my creed,
I bedded each one as they came,
I knew no regret as I scattered my seed,
Nor even the feeling of shame.

I heard people mention that love was the thing
But I didn’t know what they meant,
Was love a new sports car, or masses of bling,
I carried that stuff on my belt.
My friendships were shallow, and selfish I know,
I look back, and measure the past,
If my life were a steamer, they’d take it in tow
And fly all my flags at half mast.

There once was a woman, I’ll call her Karrel,
Who worked her way into my heart,
I almost felt things that I never could spell
And soon we had drifted apart.
But her presence had lingered so long in my mind
That I spent my days, just feeling sad,
She said I was empty, and heartless, unkind,
Till I thought I was quite going mad.

So now I sit here, quite alone in my chair
And I ponder on where it went wrong,
The tears on my cheeks tell me life was unfair
That it got the wrong words to my song.
But deep in the dark of my shrivelled old heart
Where Karrel still resides, fancy free,
I look in my shame for somebody to blame
And the answer comes back, it was me!

David Lewis Paget

A gun that scars the shooter
is the perfect metaphor
cause no soldier leaves battlefield
without the wounds of war.

Sip, sip, sip, is how it starts out
when you're feeling a little down.
Clug, clug, clug, is when it could end
when you're nearly about to drown.

Sad and depressed, motivates the hand
to delve into the cans in the fridge.
One by one, this helps you no?
By twelve I feel like slipping from a bridge.

"I'm a **** man, let's break out the Jack."
My body numb, the pain subsides away.
Emotions mean nothing, neither does life
I got in my car, and reversed out my driveway.

Not really knowing, where I would be going
my mind buried deep down in a hole.
Following the lines on the outskirt of town
they lied and took me head on in a pole.

When I was found, people couldn't believe,
the horrific picture they'd seen.
My parents never imagined, this day would come
they would suffer a funeral for their teen.

She should have been fine,
Right school, good family, right color,
But she was at the age when things go wrong.

She began to feel the weight
Of weightless things
And the need to be someone
No one could be outside the cover of a magazine.

So the doubt crept in and
Muddied her image in the mirror
Then frustration took hold
Because she couldn't reach a
Place that never was
Or ease the pain of that failure.

One bad day, the devil whispered
Through the mouth of a boy who knew her pain
In his hand a pill, he said,
“It's cool, everybody does”.

But she heard through tortured adolescent thoughts  
“Here is peace, acceptance is here, belonging “.

And so she did and did
And when she tried to turn away
The whisper became a shout, then a command
And the pill became a needle in her arm.
  
When money ran out, she started selling
Pieces of her soul in backseats, or ***** hotels.
The devil left her then, he had won.
No more promises, no dreams, or hopes or even fears
Only the need for something
No one ever needed.

Her world became an illustration
She maintained with just enough sense
To keep her on the street, but
It wasn't enough in the end.

Her mother found her in her bed
Afterward the woman always said
“She looked so peaceful and
So young. “My little girl “.

Somewhere the devil whispered,
“Peace” and laughed.