When the King rode off to the old Crusades
He was leaving his Queen behind,
Safe in the hands of his former aids
He was coy, but he wasn’t blind.
He kept her locked in a chastity belt
And hid the key in his gaol,
Then swore the Gaoler to guard it well
Though the gaoler went quite pale.

How could he give a ‘No’ to a Queen,
Or ‘No’ to her favourite Earl,
So he perspired when the King retired
And travelled half round the world.
The Queen was troubled, she said it chafed
And demanded he give her the key,
‘But no, My Lady, I wouldn’t dare,
It would mean the end for me.’

‘Do you think he’ll even remember your face
By the time that he gets back home?
I’ll have you gutted, and then replaced
While he’s still out there to roam.
I’ll ask the headsman to bring his axe,
The hangman to bring his rope,
And six fine horses to tear you apart
If you think there’s a spark of hope.’

‘Your pardon, Lady, I gave my oath
And am bound by the King’s decree,
He swore I’d burn in a barrel of tar
If ever I give up the key.’
‘Then I shall boil you in oil,’ she said,
‘And strip the skin from your bones,
I’ll feed your fat to the pigs,’ she said,
‘And take delight in your moans.’

He sought protection from higher up,
The Earl had noticed his plight,
And said, ‘I’ll send you my personal guard
If you lend me the key one night.
I’ll guard it well, and you’ll get it back
When the sun comes up at dawn,
Not a word of this shall pass my lips
As I stand, an Earl has sworn.’

The gaoler gibbered in fear and grief
He could see his head on a spike,
‘I can’t conspire with your lord’s desire
No matter how much I’d like.
The key is hid in a secret place
That is only known to the King,
He hid it where there would be no trace,
It’s only a tiny thing.’

The Earl then sent his guards to the gaol
And they tore the place apart,
While searching for the chastity key
To settle his troubled heart.
The Queen sat in her apartments, on
A cushion of fine brocade,
It helped to ease where the belt had teased,
And hid where the Earl had played.

The key they found, hid under a slab
At the base of the dungeon door,
And soon the lovers were lain together
The chastity belt on the floor.
The months went by in a lovers sigh
Til the King and his knights rode back,
Their shields and helmets worn and dented
In Saladin’s fierce attack.

The Queen’s trim figure was rather big
When the key was put to the belt,
It’s hard to know what a King would show,
And harder to know what he felt.
But he burnt the Earl in a barrel of tar
And the gaoler did what he said,
He lowered the Queen in a barrel of oil
Til it bubbled up over her head.

David Lewis Paget

He only appears in the pouring rain
When all the gutters are clogged,
I asked if anyone knew his name
They said, but my ears were blocked.
There wasn’t a thing you could hear out there
For the water, bubbling through,
The rain’s refrain in a noisy drain,
The thunder and lightning too.

You’d see his shadow on distant walls
Thrown there by a gaslight flare,
And catch the shape of his stovepipe hat
Flitting both here and there,
They say he’s waiting for dollymops
Just as they’re starting to run,
As night is chasing the day away
And rain’s blotting out the sun.

Then rumour has it, the Ripper’s back
We’re waiting for blood and gore,
We’re tense, awaiting the first attack,
For that’s what the Ripper’s for.
They say he chews on his victim’s bones
Then eats their liver and all,
The streets will fill with their awful groans
As blood will spatter a wall.

And then the sound of a horses hooves
Pulling a Landau coach,
Its wheels a-rattle on cobblestones
Just as he cuts their throats,
Perhaps he’ll lure them to take a ride
In that black, square box on wheels,
Then all that slashing goes on inside,
God knows how a razor feels.

We sit and muse in the Hemlock Inn
A dollymop on our laps,
And feed the terror they feel within
Filling in most of the gaps.
They turn to us for protection then
So we gain their favours cheap,
And keep on telling those same old tales
Til the bawds curl up, and weep.

Whenever the fog and the mist are thick
And the lamplight’s just a glow,
We make our way to the Hemlock Inn
Where the skirts are raised, you know,
Then say his shadow’s been seen again
Just to make the bawds all shriek,
‘He’s getting ready to pounce, and then…’
He’ll be there again, next week.

David Lewis Paget

We lived on a tiny spit of land
That they called the Harkness Light,
It sat on a reef, a mile of sand
And it beamed out through the night,
There was just myself, and my darling wife
By the name of Jennifer,
But when I went up to tend the light,
He was below, with her.

I was supposed to be on my own
But he brought the cutter out,
Every time that they feared a storm
He’d come, and put her about,
Tie her up to the wooden dock
When the tide was on the rise,
And burst on in to our tiny room
With a wild look in his eyes.

‘I’ve come to be of assistance, Joe,
There’s a storm front coming in,’
‘I think we can manage it ourselves,’
I’d say, with a touch of vim,
I never could trust those smiling eyes
Or that set of perfect teeth,
He made me think of a circling shark
Like the ones beyond the reef.

But Jennifer always welcomed him
With one of her gracious smiles,
She hadn’t a frown for anyone
And her smile would beam for miles,
‘It’s lovely to have some company,’
She’d say, when a storm was nigh,
And cold, black angry thunderheads
Had filled the darkening sky.

He wasn’t of any assistance, he
Would sit and drink our tea,
While I would climb to the light alone
He wasn’t much use to me,
I began to suspect his visits there
Were more to do with her,
I knew that he was attracted to
My darling Jennifer.

It came to a head one night when I
Came down to find them hushed,
With Jennifer disarranged, and when
I looked at her, she blushed,
I knew that I had to do something
But what? It chilled my blood,
That one of these days she’d slip away
And I’d lose my wife for good.

I said, ‘I need your assistance, Chris,
To change the carbon arc,
We’d better get up on top or else
All they will see is dark.
I followed him up the winding stair
But carried a bar of lead,
And when we arrived at the topmost stair
I hit him, over the head.

It doesn’t take much to truss a man
When he’s out, stone cold for the count,
I tied his back to the outer rail
And facing the light, its mount,
And then I plastered his eyelids wide
So he couldn’t take his sight
Away from that glaring carbon arc
That made up the Harkness Light.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Chris
Had screamed on his coming to,
I said, ‘I’m protecting Jennifer
From the leery eyes of you.
You shouldn’t come on to another’s wife
For you know, it’s just not right,
I’ll do whatever I have to do
If it makes you see the light.’

That light burnt into his very brain
As he cursed, and cried, and swore,
His eyes could never survive the pain
Of a million candle power,
I went below and I said to her
‘Go up and set him free,
You’ll have to gentle him down the stair,
I don’t think he can see.’

It seems that I bet on a loser
For she left me anyway,
‘How could you be so cruel,’ she said,
As she left, the following day,
I heard they’re living together now
But I’m comforted at night,
That when she strips off her clothes for him
All he sees is the Harkness Light.

David Lewis Paget

The carts rolled out of the warehouses
And trawled each single street,
Each drawn by a giant Clydesdale with
Those massive hooves and feet,
They creaked along, and they struck a gong
That excited furtive looks,
While the men that day, who rode the dray
Called out, ‘Bring out your books.’

They watched the shimmer of curtains as
The people peeked outside,
For many were loth to show themselves,
All they had left was pride,
The law brought in by the ****** left
Trapped all but the pastrycooks,
For they could retain their recipes
At the cry, ‘Bring out your books.’

They said they were saving forests from
The pulp mill on the bay,
There wouldn’t need to be paper with
The pads we have today,
And too many things were incorrect
Had been printed on a tree,
Were sitting on people’s shelves, defunct
In ideology.

The people set up resistance, they
Had loved their tattered tomes,
And many a shelf was burdened in
The meanest of their homes,
‘The government’s trying to dumb us down,’
Was the universal cry,
‘Go out and save the forests, but
If they’re already printed, why?’

The spread of ideas is dangerous
They could rot you to the core,
And too many things on liberty
Have been printed, long before,
Perhaps it would have been better if
The people couldn’t read,
Taking away the books at last
Might take away the need.

The drays that rumbled along each street
They had stacked the books up high,
But there was the odd revisionist
Who complained, and grumbled, ‘Why?’
A squad broke into each suspect house
Where the owner locked the door,
And tore the books from his fevered grasp
While screaming, ‘It’s the law!’

But mine, I hid in the garden shed
And buried the others deep,
They wouldn’t be getting their hands on them
The ones that I wished to keep,
There’s so many fake and useless things
That they’re legislating for,
But to take our books and our liberty
Would be like declaring war.

David Lewis Paget

When I met, and married my wife,
I opened a secret door,
I knew that her mother, Grace, was strange
But I didn’t know what for.
They spoke so low that I couldn’t hear
In a mother/daughter pact,
But Ellen, she was my holy grail
Til I found it was an act.

I’d been brought up in the English way
Of roast beef, fruit and veg,
The mint that grew and the rhubarb too
By our garden’s privet hedge,
I didn’t know there were other things
That were quite beyond my ken,
But she’d come up through a different school
Though I didn’t know it then.

They say you should check the mother out
If you want to save your tears,
For what the mother is like right now
Is your wife in thirty years,
And Grace was skinny and pastie-faced
With a rock-hard, gimlet eye,
While Ellen was soft and curvy then
And just a trifle shy.

Grace was running a cuisine club
For the village ladies all,
Every Wednesday they’d go en masse
Down to the village hall,
Ellen said there were treats in store
But I didn’t really see,
Not til she brought it home with her
That she’d try it out on me.

The first of the treats she brought on home
Almost knocked me through a loop,
I said, ‘What’s that in the steaming bowl,’
And she answered ‘Batwing soup.
You might need a knife and fork for it,
The wings have a leathery feel,
It won’t take long to get used to it
It tastes a little like eel.’

After I’d gagged and choked a bit
I managed to keep some down,
I said, ‘I’d rather have beef, my love,’
But she stood awhile, and frowned,
‘I’ve made you a special omelette,
Of turtle legs and bees,
Bound together by turkey eggs
And just a little cheese.’

I couldn’t say what I thought of it,
She would be dismayed, my wife,
I knew the love she’d put into it
It would only cause us strife,
But every Wednesday she’d bring one home
A treat for me to try,
Her casserole was a lucky dip
And snake in her cottage pie.

I suffered it for a month or more
Then I put my case to her,
‘I draw the line at toadskin wine,
And a pie with rodent fur,
I love you, Ellen, I really do
But your mother gives me the creeps,
Her witches recipes just won’t do,
I hate ragwort and leeks.’

We came to a final arrangement,
She could do what she’d always done,
The whisk broom under the stairs, she said
Was her idea of fun,
I try to ignore the pointy hat
That she wears when the moon is high,
But she never feeds me toads and rats
Though her mother asks her, ‘Why?’

David Lewis Paget

Since ever he came to live at our house
We’d never felt safe or sure,
So late at night we’d turn out the light
And block up the bedroom door,
We’d slide a heavy old chest in place
That he never could push right in,
We knew, with just one look at his face,
The man was riddled with sin.

Our mother, bless her, was long divorced,
Our father was gone for good,
He never called, and we were appalled
That he never came when he should.
‘Why do you need that man in the house,’
I said, ‘You have me and Drew.’
But she would smile, ‘Well, it’s been a while,
And there’s things that you can’t do.’

We didn’t know what she meant back then
For we were too young to know,
How a woman’s won, or she bears a son,
Where a man and a woman go.
We only knew he was far too nice
When he first came into our home,
His creepy fingers, they felt like ice
So we wished he’d leave us alone.

He’d wander about the house by night,
We’d hear him mounting the stair,
And feigning sleep, not let out a peep
When we heard him breathe out there.
He’d come to a halt by our bedroom door
And stand and listen, we thought,
The tears in my brother’s eyes would glisten
In fear that we’d be caught.

His frightful stare gave a mighty scare
When he fixed on Drew and I,
Our mother said it was really sad
That he had just one good eye.
His other eye, it was made of glass
He had lost that one in the war,
It never closed, so we both supposed
That he slept, but still he saw.

Our house lay at the top of a hill
And a milk cart stood outside,
Its great cartwheels were covered in steel
And to hold it, it was tied.
One day we loosened the holding chain
As he came out into the street,
And watched the cart as it rolled on down,
Knocking him off his feet.

A wheel rolled slowly over his head
As he gave a deathly sigh,
His brains on the road were grey and red
And the pressure popped his eye.
It lay and stared at the two of us,
Was accusing us then, and still,
The memory sits and stays with us
For we’d never meant to ****.

Our mother wailed, and our mother mourned
And she kept his one glass eye,
She propped it up on the mantelpiece
‘So he’s with us still,’ she’d sigh.
Drew would shudder and I would shake
As it followed us round the room,
We both grew up with a complex that
We’ll never get over soon.

David Lewis Paget

The clattering wind came back again
In the cold, dark hours of the morn,
There must have been such a mighty wind
In the hour that I was born.
For I went outside to savour it,
I love the wind in the trees,
Anything from a sultry blow
To an ice cold winter breeze.

And Miriam always chided me
I should keep the door pulled to,
‘You may delight in the wind at night
I don’t share in that with you.’
‘Doesn’t it tell you the earth’s alive
When it’s breathing, Oh so hard?’
‘That may be so, but just keep the blow
Trapped in our own backyard.’

It rattles around the chimney pots,
It lifts the tin on the roof,
And drives the rain to the window pane
As if to say, ‘Here’s proof!’
Proof that the world’s alive and well
When it howls and plucks at the eaves,
And swaying each branch so you can tell
By filling the air with leaves.

‘I don’t see the purpose that it serves,’
Miriam used to shout,
The wind replied and she almost died
When it blew the hearth fire out.
Hurtling down the chimney flue
Like a gale she’d made inside,
I said, ‘Just watch what you say and do,
Even the wind has pride!’

I’d say that the two were enemies
From the time she opened her mouth,
‘It’s wrecking my pink anemones
When it blows from the freezing south.’
I told her to hold her anger in,
She was weak, the wind was strong,
She hadn’t the power to save her bower
While it knew not right from wrong.

It came to a head when she slammed the door
On an innocent springtime breeze,
And sealed her fate when she muttered hate,
She was brought down to her knees.
Walking along the clifftop path
As she did, and both of us must,
A sudden blow sent her over, though
It was merely a random gust.

I go each week to the cemetery
And I leave anemones,
While lurking around the headstones there
Is her ancient enemy,
If only she’d kept her tongue in check
She would still be here with me,
Not lying beneath a howling gale
In the local cemetery.

David Lewis Paget