She lived in a tiny cottage
On top of a sea-bound bluff,
Looked down on the cold blue waters
In fair weather, and in rough,
The smoke that curled from her chimney piece
Was snatched away by the wind
So couldn’t obscure the window where
She stood, and her eyes were pinned.

She saw the gaggle of soldiers
Rise up, and out of the marsh,
And remembered a past encounter,
Their treatment of her was harsh,
She snipped the lock on the window, then
She hurried to bar the door,
Raised the trap to the cellar, and
Slid down to the cellar floor.

She lay in hopes they would pass on by,
Would ignore her humble home,
Would think that there was a man nearby
Not a woman there, alone,
She knew of the fate of others who
Had invited the soldiers in,
For many a soldier’s bairn was born
The result of a soldier’s sin.

She heard them muttering round the house
And tapping the window pane,
Beating a tattoo on the door
Till she thought she’d go insane,
They’d seen the smoke from her chimney piece
And they called, ‘Hey you inside,
We need to shelter the night at least,
It’s wintry here outside.’

But still she lay on the cellar floor
As quiet as any mouse,
She wasn’t going to let them in
To her tiny little house,
She heard the crash as the timber gave
Away on her cottage door,
And heard the thump of their feet above
As they stomped across her floor.

She heard the sound of their puzzlement
When they found the cottage bare,
‘Somebody must have lit the fire,
But now, they’re just not there.’
She heard them smashing her crockery
And drinking beer from her ***,
She never had enough food to spare
But she knew they’d eat the lot.

Down below was a musket that
She’d kept well oiled and cleaned,
Along with a horn of powder that
She’d felt worthwhile redeemed,
She found the shot and she rammed it home
There was nothing left to chance,
The first to open that trapdoor would
Begin his final dance.

The night came on and they settled down,
Above, she could hear them snore,
She wondered whether they’d go away
When the sun came up, once more,
But then, sometime in the early hours
She heard the trapdoor creak,
And a pair of eyes were hypnotised
As they saw the musket speak.

There once was a tiny cottage
On top of a sea-bound bluff,
It’s now burnt out, just a shell without
A roof or a door, it’s rough,
While down in the cold blue waters
Lies a woman, drowned and dead,
And up on the bluff, a soldier’s grave,
Buried, without a head.

David Lewis Paget

He looked on down from the higher ground
At the village he held in thrall,
A gaggle of bowers, of steeples and towers
And he ruled them, overall.
They went their way each enchanted day
Unknowingly bound in his spell,
Not able to leave, to fret or to grieve
While he ruled their wishing well.

The wishing well in the village square
That had been since ancient days,
Nobody knew who put it there
Some sage with enchanted ways,
Its spirit was always known for good
Till they dragged her from a ditch,
That haggard harridan, Elsie Hood,
Known as the village witch.

They’d ducked her once in the village pond
To see if the crone would float,
Pricked her skin with many a pin
So the Witch Finder could gloat,
The sentence passed was the first and last
For a witch, in that village dell,
While some were stern, said a witch should burn,
She was tossed, head first down the well.

The well grew an ugly, creeping moss
That gave off an evil smell,
And everything good from it was lost
Some said, ‘It’s the witches spell!’
Then he had come to the village square
And tossed in a coin or two,
Said, ‘I command, let me rule the land
And the village surrounding you.’

And from that day they were cut away
From the villages all around,
Each road would twist with an evil mist
They were lost, and not to be found,
While he looked down from the higher ground
To gloat on each church and bower,
For then by stealth he had taxed their wealth
Though all that he had was power.

A maiden sat in the village square
Selling her flowers and blooms,
Each day, enchanting the people there
By night, in the Tavern’s rooms,
She caught his eye, and he breathed a sigh
When she smiled, so innocently,
So he went to tell the wishing well
‘That’s who I want, for me!’

The spirit flew from the wishing well,
The spirit of Elsie Hood,
‘I’ve done the thing that you want me to,
But now you want her, for good!’
It dragged him screaming across the square,
And tore at his eyes and skin,
His blood was spread almost everywhere
By the time that she dropped him in.

The mist has gone, it has moved along
The roads in and out are clear,
The moss dried up on the wishing well
And the girl, well she’s still here.
They filled the well to the top with sand
So no-one conjures a spell,
They’d rather be part of the greater land
Than wish in a wishing well.

David Lewis Paget

They’d shovelled her husband into the ground
Before she got to the grave,
She wasn’t able to keep good time
And her husband used to rave:
‘I spend my life, waiting for you,
You’ll be late for your funeral,’
That wasn’t due, but it may come true,
She was late for his, do tell!

He wasn’t a very pleasant man
He was known for his violent moods,
She’d married the guy, then wondered why,
He was often downright rude.
She knew what he was capable of
For he’d often flipped his lid,
And left a trail of destruction then
For that was the thing he did.

If only she had got to the grave
In time for a swift goodbye,
And with a spray, sent him away,
She may have just heard him sigh.
But he must have known she was still at home
When the hearse, with him inside,
Arrived at the local cemetery
On time, but without his bride.

She lay awake in the bed that night
And thought she could hear him breathe,
Just across from her pillowcase
And her breast began to heave.
The wind sough-soughed at the windowsill
And she heard a step on the stair,
She wished for once she had been on time
To know she had left him there.

But she hadn’t seen the coffin drop
And the hole was almost full,
She’d asked that they uncover it
But she didn’t have the pull.
She only hoped he was six feet down
Unable to get back out,
When there was a rattle, out on the porch
And she heard a dead man shout.

‘Late, you’re late, you’re always late,’
It moaned, in an eerie tone,
‘You couldn’t get to the grave on time
So you left me all alone.
You’d not come even to say goodbye
And for that, you’ll pay the price,
For I’ll reach out of the grave tonight
And I promise, it won’t be nice!’

The shutters began to rattle and bang
And the door flew out, ajar,
The wind howled in like a taste of sin
‘I know just where you are!’
She shrieked, and pulled the covers up
And placed them over her head,
‘You just can’t stay, please go away,
You can’t be here, you’re dead!’

The covers were torn from her huddled form
And from what the coroner said,
‘Her face was white, she died of fright,’
Curled up in her lonely bed.
There was just one thing in the autopsy
That was missed, and he made a note,
The thing was botched, for her husbands watch
He found, was lodged in her throat.

David Lewis Paget

She cooked the final meals at the gaol,
Collected the hangman’s clothes,
For he inherited everything
Of the hanged man, heaven knows.
She gave the widows the twist of rope
That he’d used to hang their men,
It all came down to the widow Crope
And whether she liked you, then.

She’d interview the widow-to-be
With a questionnairre or two,
About her man, was he handy, and
What did he like to  do?
Then later, in the condemned man’s cell
She’d say that she’d cut him free,
‘You’ll never see your woman again,
So all you have left is me.’

Her husband had died on the gallows, so
She’d known of that final *****,
A widow Kerr had done it for her
Before she was widow Crope.
Then down beneath that terrible drop
She would wait for him to appear,
Hang on his feet, as well as not
While he kicked at the air in fear.

Then once that the corpse was pale and still
She’d take it down to the morgue,
Lay it out on a slab, and then
She’d borrow the gaoler’s sword.
And while they were pouring the candlewax
For a later hanging in chain,
She’d slice a couple of fingers off
For the rings that were hers to claim.

But then she might, in an act of spite
Cut off a dead man’s hand,
Dip it well in the candlewax
And walk it late through the land.
She’d light the end of the fingertips
And carry it like a torch,
Making her way where the widow lay
And spike it, out on her porch.

And wives would say as their husbands lay,
‘Don’t mess with the widow Crope,
If ever the hangman comes, that day
She may be your final hope.’
And those awaiting a capital case
Would sit with their husbands there,
And tell them that it would be okay
In that final act of despair.

She’d never worn anything else but black,
She called them her widows weeds,
But never, she said, felt safe from attack
For her husband’s evil deeds,
She finally married the hangman, Jed,
And handed the job to her,
An hour since she’d hung on his legs
And made her the widow Claire.

David Lewis Paget

‘Why would I even look at you?’
She said, when I made my bid,
She must have been all of thirty four,
While I was just a kid.
‘I only have eyes for you,’ I said,
‘That’s just the way that it is,
I lie awake in my bed at night
And dream of just one kiss.’

Her hands had fluttered, waved me away,
She was flattered, nevertheless,
I knew, because the way that she turned
Flared out the hem of her dress,
Her legs were fine, and smooth and strong
With shape to her calves and thighs,
I stared at them, though I knew it wrong,
They were candy for my eyes.

‘You’re far too young for the likes of me,’
She said, a gleam in her eye,
‘You’re half my age, you’re seventeen
So I’ll have to say goodbye.’
‘I never think about age,’ I said,
‘I think about looks and grace,
And you have plenty of both,’ I said,
‘You have a beautiful face.’

She laughed then, showing her gleaming teeth
And the dimple in each cheek,
Her lips were crimson, egging me on
I could have stared at her for a week.
‘You do go on,’ were the words she said
But her cheeks began to flush,
While I was thinking of her in bed,
And that brought a sudden hush.

‘I really think you are serious,’
She said, as if in surprise,
‘Never more sure and certain,’ then
I caught the look in her eyes.
‘Maybe if you were twenty-one,
I might just give it a whirl,’
‘I’m old enough and I’m full of love,
To me, you’re only a girl.’

I reached on out and I held her hand,
The palm of her hand was wet,
I sensed that here was the promised land
I might be successful yet.
And then in a moment’s madness she
Had raised her face to my lips,
And heaven opened before me as
She gave me just one kiss.

David Lewis Paget

I’ve often received weird messages,
Nothing to do with me,
They come through the cyber passages
So called, that would set you free,
But then came one with an evil turn
It scuttled on out, then hid,
Accusingly, it appeared to me
And said, ‘I know what you did!’

Just that, ‘I know what you did,’ it said,
And nothing much more than that,
I had no idea just what it meant
It had just popped up, in chat.
There wasn’t a name, there wasn’t a face
To tell me who it was from,
I tried at first to ignore it, but
It dropped on me like a bomb.

In short, my friends had received the note
And saw it addressed to me,
It seems it had gone my contacts round
And roused curiosity,
For over the next few days they all
Called in, just one by one,
Asking the same thing, overall,
‘Just what was it that you’ve done?’

Of course, I replied in every case
‘I really haven’t a clue,
People make accusations but
It doesn’t mean they are true.’
It was then that the evil jokes began
For some of them like to kid,
To me, it wasn’t so funny when
They asked, ‘Where’s the body hid?’

I snapped on back, ‘Get serious!’
I wasn’t at all impressed,
‘How would you feel if this was you,
Do you think you’d be distressed?’
For some of my so-called ‘friends’ it seems
My answer raised their ire,
For more than one called a smoking gun,
And ‘There’s no smoke without fire!’

I felt determined to let it go,
To ignore the joke, at least,
But then appeared on my Facebook page
The Internet Police.
They said, ‘We need to investigate,
A complaint’s been made of you,’
I sent them back, ‘It’s a veiled attack
And it certainly isn’t true.’

But the police came round, kicked in my door,
And started to search the place,
Acting like thugs, they tore apart
What little I had of grace.
They packed my only computer up
To cart it out to their van,
That stood outside on the pavement like
I was a wanted man.

‘What do you want my computer for,
I need it to use for work.’
‘You’ll get it back when we’ve checked it out
If you’re not a total ****.
You might be a dangerous *******,
It’s evidence that we seek,
If not, then after we search your files
You’ll get it back next week.’

The neighbours were gathered around the van
With a scandal in their sights,
They knew that something was going down
That I must have been got to rights.
They pointed fingers and muttered low
In delight, this was a treat,
And for days they stared, and I despaired
When they spat at me in the street.

It matters not if you’re innocent,
It matters not if you cry,
Nobody listens to what you say
They mutter, ‘Deny, deny.’
Your name is suddenly tainted when
A finger points at you,
Forever you will be painted with
The words, ‘What did you do?’

I finally got my PC back
And it didn’t take a week,
But not a word of apology
Though I found that revenge is sweet.
They sacked the Police Commissioner
And I’m sure that it wasn’t fun,
When someone wrote on his Facebook page
‘I know just what you’ve done!’

David Lewis Paget

The sun had set on the mountain top
Before we could get away,
I hadn’t wanted to drive by night
But rather the light of day,
The sky was filled with a ghostly glow
The last few rays of the sun,
When I drove out to the open road,
Our journey had just begun.

I’d promised that I would get her there
I wasn’t going to renege,
She must have asked me a dozen times,
Was even beginning to beg,
I said, ‘They’re going to be waiting there
No matter how late we are,
They won’t be starting without you, girl,
For you are the principle star.’

That calmed her down, she was mollified,
Though she’d been upset for days,
She worried that she’d be there too late,
She’d said, in a blank dismay,
She thought it was such an honour to
Be picked as the chosen one,
‘I’ve never been picked for anything,
Before,’ was the song she sung.

We nosed down into the valley as
The darkness turned to grim,
With only the beam of the headlights
Like a tunnel we were in,
‘It seems to be taking a lifetime,’
Was the only thing she said,
‘I know, but the end of a lifetime is
The time that you are dead.’

She’d paid especial attention to
The dress she had to wear,
Had glossed her lips and had rouged her cheeks
And had tidied up her hair,
I paid her the best of compliments
That I knew she wanted to hear,
And told her that I was proud of her,
On this special night of the year.

We finally came to a grove of trees
And we turned our headlights in,
Throwing fantastic shadows as our
Wheels began to spin,
We stopped just under a giant oak
And I said, ‘We’re here at last.
You’re certain you want to go through with it?’
She said, ‘It will be a blast!’

Then shapes came out of the grove of trees
Wearing hoods and capes of black,
They gathered around the car, and stood
And stared, on that forest track,
When Emily went to join them they
Stood back to let her pass,
And led her into a clearing where
She lay down, on the grass.

It was then they began their chanting
Like a choir in a church,
Rising and falling, lilting, it was fine
And yet a dirge,
For then a man danced into the ring
Who wore the head of a goat,
From under his cape he drew a knife,
Leant down, and cut her throat.

David Lewis Paget