We were way up there on the Ferris Wheel
When it came to a sudden stop,
We’d only got on for the final ride
And it left us up at the top.
‘What are they doing?’ said Imogen,
As we first began to doubt,
Then looking down to the distant ground
The lights of the Fair went out.
‘Surely they know that we’re still up here!’
There was panic in her voice,
I tried to bellow, and then to shout,
They had left us little choice.
The lights of the cars had streamed below
With the last ones, headed away,
The wind up there put a chill in the air
And the Wheel began to sway.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she cried,
And I said, ‘Please, not on me!’
I wrapped her up in my coat and tried
To calm her misery.
‘It’s always the same with you,’ she said,
‘But it keeps on getting worse,
The moment we’re down, and on the ground
I’m going to get a divorce.’
We’d only gone on the Ferris Wheel
For a place to talk things out,
I wanted to get her away from home
To a place where she couldn’t shout.
She’d sworn she’d never divorce me that
She’d make life living hell,
I had to make her want a divorce
As much as me, as well.
‘So I get blamed for the Ferris Wheel,
Did I tell the guy to stop?
How could I know he’d forget us here
And leave us perched at the top?’
‘It always happens, you wired the stove
So the whole **** thing was live,
Then I got thrown when I switched it on,
It’s lucky I’m still alive.’
‘Then out in the boat, we nearly sank
When you put the boat in a spin,
It filled with water when you forgot
To put the drain plug in.’
‘I know, I know, I’m a jinx,’ I said,
It always happens to me,
Perhaps you’d better get a divorce
Then you’ll be finally free.’
We didn’t speak for a solid hour,
Sat as far apart as we could,
And then I lit up a cigarette
To dispel my cold, black mood.
Our marriage had really hit the pits,
It was never going to do,
I’d not been happy since Imogen
Had turned to a carping shrew.
I’d never done anything right for her,
And never could make amends,
She always tried to humiliate me
By telling all of her friends.
She said I was good for nothing, but
To give her my weekly cheque,
At times I barely restrained myself
From seizing her round the neck.
An hour went by, and the Wheel began
To take us down to the ground,
Someone had seen my cigarette
It seemed, said the man from town.
She shrieked and screamed as she stalked away
At the guy that I knew as Nick,
As I slipped him his fifty bucks, and said:
‘It seems to have done the trick!’
David Lewis Paget