‘What’s at the end of the garden,’
I would ask my Lisa May,
Each time she came through the garden gate
With that look of pure dismay.
She’d shake her head, ‘It’s the garden bed,
Overrun with weeds and toads,
I’ve said before we should move it more
Away from the old crossroads.’

It didn’t seem to be logical
To remove a garden bed,
‘What difference, if it goes east or west,’
Is what I plainly said.
But Lisa May was intractable
With her fixed ideas and views,
She said she hated the crossroads that
Still ran beside the mews.

I never used to accompany her
I’m not a gardening man,
I tend to let it run riot as
It does, in nature’s plan.
But Lisa wanted to tame it, by
Applying stakes and rules,
To straighten this and align with that,
She’s one of nature’s fools.

I never took her too seriously,
She’d come back and complain,
‘Those toadstools seem to be spreading from
The vermin in the lane.’
I didn’t know there was vermin so
I said that I’d take a look,
Reluctant, as I was always but
I sighed, put down my book.

We made our way down the garden, and
I noticed that there were toads,
Their croaking seemed to be loudest
From the site of the old crossroads,
And toadstools clustered around the base
Of an ancient weathered post,
As I heard a sound that came from the ground
Like when a victim chokes.

‘The mud there seems to be heaving,’ said
My naive Lisa May,
She didn’t know that the post had been
A gallows in its day.
And felons, hung for a week or so
Were buried at its base,
I hadn’t dared to reveal it or
We’d never have bought the place.

‘The land’s a little unstable here,
I see just what you mean,
Perhaps we can move the garden bed
To the other side of the green.’
But Lisa May wasn’t hearing me
For she stood stock still in shock,
She was staring down at the muddy ground
At what I’d thought was a rock.

‘That’s not a rock, but a skull,’ she cried,
And I must admit, it’s true,
That skull rose up of a killer
Buried in 1822.
Then Lisa May, who screamed and ran,
Now leaves the garden alone,
So nature’s riot has run amok
And the grave is overgrown.

David Lewis Paget

He was sitting alone by the window
In hopes that the phone would ring,
Just as he’d sat there every day
Since she’d disappeared last Spring,
But snow now lay in the gutter,
Was glistening up in the trees,
And his thoughts would stray fom the words he’d pray,
‘Won’t you please come home, Louise!’

The phone lay stubbornly silent,
The snow untouched in the street,
There wasn’t a cart or a tyremark,
Nor even a sign of feet.
The sky was louring grey outside
As it was, the day she went,
He wished he knew, but hadn’t a clue
There had been no argument.

He’d thought perhaps she’d been taken,
Had struggled, against her will,
But there’d been no sign of a ransom,
The phone had stayed silent still.
He’d asked her friends in the neighborhood
What she’d said, could they recall?
But all of them said Louise was good,
That nothing stood out at all.

Her clothes still hung in the wardrobe,
And gave off their faint perfume,
As days went by he would sit and cry
Could barely go in the room,
The Police were as good as useless,
Inferred she’d taken a walk,
‘She’s probably got a new boyfriend,
If only your walls could talk.’

The only clue that he’d ever found
Was a script in a bag she’d left,
He found the word unpronounceable
But strange that the script was kept,
She wasn’t a one for keeping things
She said there were bins for that,
She’d thrown out even a friendship ring
And an old and beaten hat.

One day there were footsteps through the snow
Wound up at his own front door,
He raced to open the doorway up
But the footsteps stopped at the floor,
There wasn’t a sign they’d gone away,
There wasn’t a sign of retreat,
Whoever had come to his front door
Was still out there in the street.

He went back into the study then
And gazed through the sudden rain,
He never knew when the phone rang through
It would cause him so much pain.
A voice intoned, ‘If you’re on your own,
Sit down, are you Brian Drew?’
And then went on with its dismal song
‘I’ve a message to pass to you.’

‘This is the Somerhill Hospice, with
A body, ready to claim,
It’s up to you, but it’s Louise Drew
She left a note with your name.
She finally died this morning from
That tumour, found on her lung,
We didn’t know she was married, though,
That note was under her tongue.’

‘She didn’t want you to suffer, it
Was better she went away,
She wrote she hadn’t told anyone
But came in as Louise Grey.’
Brian’s face became bloodless at
The wet footsteps in the hall,
Then took in the silent nothingness,
And threw the phone at the wall.

David Lewis Paget

The hearse set off through the mansion gates
Pulled by a pair of greys,
Stepping high, so they’d not be late
For the church’s hymns of praise,
Lord Gordon Knox on the catafalque
Awaiting his final ride,
Just down the hill where the graveyard spilled
And spread on the eastern side.

But staring out from behind the grass,
From between each tree and bush,
There gleamed the beam of a hundred eyes
In a sacred kind of hush,
The word was out it was Gordon Knox
Set to take his pride of place,
And from the woods had come every fox
To afford his lordship grace.

For Gordon had been the Master of
The Aldermaston Hunt,
Had chased them across the countryside
More than a man can count,
But somehow managed to lose the fox
As it turned, became covert,
And often seemed to confuse the hounds
As the fox returned to earth.

Three generations had come and gone
Since the young Amelia Knox,
Had left to walk in the countryside
And found a secluded copse,
The peasants say that she fell asleep
By a well protected earth,
And Reynard Fox had uncovered her
Before she had given birth.

So Raymond was the first of the breed
In a mix of fox and man,
A Knox by name but a fox by shame
When his mother’s guilt began,
And when he had a son of his own
He could see that the eyes were sly,
And every fox in the countryside
Could tell him the reason why.

Gordon carried the bloodline on
Though he rode to fox and hounds,
He ruled the hunt with an iron fist
They were hunting in his grounds,
And every time that the quarry went
He would make a lame excuse,
The scent was wrong, or the wind was strong
Or the hounds were far too loose.

And every time that the Master died
And the hearse had trundled by,
The foxes all came out to see,
In a way, they said goodbye,
But Gordon had left no son behind
Just a daughter, Elspeth Knox,
And I heard they’d given up on her
Till they found her in some copse.

David Lewis Paget

One minute she’s standing before me,
Is stridently screaming her claims,
And then in a moment of horror,
I watch as she bursts into flames.
There isn’t a fire around her,
Not even a spark to begin,
But then she erupts in a moment,
The fire bursts out from within.

I’ve heard that it’s happened to others
They burn with a spiritual flame,
Some essence of horror within them
Devouring their body the same,
But nothing will char things around them
It only destroys skin and bone,
Their chairs and their rooms are protected,
It doesn’t set fire to their home.

I try to remember what caused it,
What happened to scramble her brain,
What started the turmoil and forced it,
To burst out and drive her insane,
The flames started under her eyelids
Then roared in a burst from her throat
It seemed to be something that I did,
It may have been something I wrote.

I don’t dare to start a new friendship,
With women I knew from before,
There’s always some thing that might end it
With her flaming out on the floor.      
She always said I was controlling,
Was cold and was hard, and I am,
But maybe that’s why; she’s a woman,
And I, thank my stars, am a man.

David Lewis Paget

The house, an aristocratic pile
Sat nestled into the hill,
Hidden by trees and bushes, while
It harboured its silence, still.
No outward sign of its infamy,
No clue to the years before,
When men had described it, clinically
As being, itself, at war.

Designed and built by my grandfather
In a late Victorian style,
It had all the trappings of balconies
And of lacework in wrought iron,
The tiles were Italian marble
And the pathways local stone,
My Grandma, Jenny McArdle,
She gave it a heightened tone.

The gentry came for the parties,
They came for the dress-up *****,
I don’t remember a time they weren’t
Wandering through the halls,
It fretted Jenny McArdle
Who wanted a little peace,
But **** was a hunting sporting man
And he wanted peace the least.

He’d take his chums to the library
Where they’d play their six card stud,
There were threats and there was bribery
And before too long there, blood,
Then finally, on an ill starred night
That would hit my grandma hard,
Her husband wagered the house she loved
Just once, on a single card.

The moment she heard the house was gone
She flew at their deck of cards,
Split open the heads of more than one
Left acres of glass in shards,
‘You’ll not be taking my home from me,’
She screamed at the Earl of Vane,
Before she fell from the balcony,
Cursing her husband’s name.

And **** was never the same again
He had to vacate his home,
While Jenny McArdle’s blood was still
Staining the local stone,
They say her ghost wouldn’t leave the place
And that’s why it caught alight,
Once when her shape had leapt in space
From the balcony one night.

And now I sit in the clearing where
That once great house had sat,
Amidst the trees and the sounds of bees
When I’m feeling low, and flat,
That house, it should have been left to me,
I’m the only downward line,
But still I hear when the weather’s clear
My grandma’s voice, ‘It’s mine!’

David Lewis Paget

The woman walked up to the prison gates
But the guard wouldn’t let her through,
‘We only have room for the prison inmates
There’s certainly none for you.’
‘But I need to get in, I have to get in,
My love’s to be hanged at the dawn,
If you could show pity, show pity for me,
I need one more kiss, then he’s gone!’

‘You want dispensation, then talk to the judge,
His chambers are only next door,
He’s cold and he’s heartless, a hard man to budge,
Tell him what you’re looking for.
He came to the judgement that fastened the noose
Of death round your lover’s throat,
There’ll not be much pity to see in his eyes
As he watches your lover choke.’

She went to his chambers and knocked at his door,
He opened it up in surprise,
‘Why would you come knocking, it’s late in the hour?’
‘Tomorrow my lover dies!’
‘The judgement is given, it can’t be reversed,
He’s condemned by the law of the land,’
She looked for compassion, his message was terse,
‘When he dies, it is by his own hand.’

She quailed at his hardness, went down on her knees,
‘I just need to see him once more,
I’m willing to pay with whatever you please,
I’m begging you, down on the floor.’
The judge saw his options and wickedness gleamed
In the eyes of the law of the land,
He offered an avenue by which it seemed
She’d get one more glimpse of her man.

She’d made up her mind to not shrink from the task
That she’d set herself, nor would she slip,
From offering everything that he might ask
For her man was the prow of her ship.
He took his advantage, it was as she’d feared
On the bench of his Chancery Court,
And left with a pass he had signed as he leered
At the precious few moments she’d bought.

The guard let her in where her man was condemned
And he let them alone for a while,
Her urgency stemmed from the moments they hemmed
In between both a kiss and a smile,
The guard noticed nothing amiss when she left
Her tears hidden under her hair,
Not even a glance at the prisoner in rags
Who crouched in the corner in there.

The figure they dragged to the gallows floor
Was weak and unusually soft,
The judge had been waiting to see the despair
He had caused, with the figure aloft.
Then out called the hangman, ‘it isn’t a man,
You’ve brought me a woman to hang,’
A woman who’d already cut off her hair
And given her wig to her man.

‘Someone shall pay,’ cried the judge in his ire,
‘I’ll not have the law over-ruled.’
‘That someone is you when the things that you do
Allow you to ****, and be fooled.’
The judge then had bellowed, ‘we’ll hang her instead,’
And the hangman had knotted the noose,
She cried as the trap dropped, ‘My love is not dead,
And your law is of no further use.’

David Lewis Paget

She was everything I ever wanted,
Petite, with a shock of hair,
A dimpled cheek, and a smile so sweet
And my favourite name of Claire.
I’d watched her grow to adulthood
And thought that I’d made my mark,
Until the day that my world turned grey
When I saw her walk in the park.

For she wasn’t alone by the cedars,
She wasn’t alone by the pool,
For Edward Eyre had his arm round her,
A fellow I’d known at school,
He wasn’t exactly a heartthrob,
His eyes were too big for his nose,
His hair was like a rats nest in there
And he seemed too small for his clothes.

I couldn’t believe I was seeing
Her laughing and smiling with him,
At school we’d called him the village fool
An idiot under his skin,
But here he was with my darling,
The vision was somehow grotesque,
As I recalled how he once had crawled
Under the teacher’s desk.

It wasn’t as if he could smell too good
With the egg stains over his chest,
A shirt would have been an improvement,
But he wore a ***** old vest.
What on God’s earth could she see in him
I made up my mind to see,
To question Claire, what went on in there,
And what did she think of me?

Her words were a revelation,
To her he was handsome and tall,
But she was barely just five foot three
And he only five foot small.
She spoke of his wit and his humour,
She said he made her heart full,
Then what of me, and she said, ‘Let’s see,
I think you’re remarkably dull.’

I said she should see a psychiatrist
Perhaps an optometrist too,
‘For what you see is a travesty
That nobody sees but you.’
She said they were going to be married,
To tie them together for life,
‘But once you see what the others see,
You’ll make him a terrible wife.’

I went to their wedding reception,
And hung in the passageway hall,
Got Claire to see his reflection
In the mirror that hung on the wall,
She blanched, and gasped at his image,
She’d not seen him like that before,
She’d seen but dreams, and she grimaced,
Threw up on the passageway floor.

There are those who see what they want to see
And Claire had been one of those,
They dress their dreams in a web it seems
Made up of the Emperor’s clothes.
We’ve been together a year or so
And try to hang on to our youth,
Whenever reality strikes a pose
We look in the mirror of truth.

David Lewis Paget