the moon is beaming in the dark
with tiny stars as little sparks
it shines with pride, in graceful hues
when night time falls and starts anew

but the moon is kind,
it does not boast
it shines so brightly
to guide, at most

and the moon loves greatly,
it loves the stars
because it lets them shine too
so they are seen from afar

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

Listen to heartbeats
of the time I spent with you-
remorse and regret.

you have such a gift
to entice people with your words
and bestow upon them an aching sense of hope
was i foolish to have hoped to love you?

I know of your flesh
Understand the smooth ways around your river
Meandering through your twin hills,
Into the valley of bliss

A peaking scream,
And a runner's breath,
To catch but a few,
Words between a sigh

Before, rolling again,
Into the chamber of literature
Where plays meet action
And romance colours the sport

Across a finish line
Where silence cheers on,
As the sky curves in,
To leave, but two beings,
Within, the petals of red roses

I wonder often which side
Of the coin I am on,
The magnificent irony of God
For giving me words;

I am the lightless eyes that see
From the dark what is leftover
From a library of dreams that
Seem dimly lit longing to be.....

Each stanza I vainly write,
Or are they written already,
Insensible scribblings wondering
If I am the poem or the poet,

A book of sonnet infinite,
Inaccessible rhymed schemes
Prewrit as the lost manuscripts
Of Alexandria lost to fire,

I live among the metaphorical,
Gardens of verbs and fountains
Of nouns, the blind word speaks
All that is seen.

Librarian of my days,
The the form is free I believe,
The cosmic universe in which
I write call to me in words,

Who am I?
The poem or the poet,
The twilight of my days have
Come to wonder what's real,

The delectable world I watch,
The words feed into me,
I realise I am a poet
Living inside the poem.