We’ve navigated the old canals
Since the roads were blocked with cars,
And we were stuck when the highway truck
Rolled over the top of ours,
They poured a layer of bitumen
Across the roofs of them all,
Then crushed them under a steam roller
Until they were flat, and small.

They didn’t bother to pull them out
The ones who were trapped inside,
Just wrote them off the accounting books
And made a note that they’d died,
They needed to halve the ones who lived
Or the earth would sputter in space,
Spinning across that great divide
With the death of the human race.

But we got out, and we made a break
For the fields and the old canals,
And found a deserted barge afloat
Thanks to the help of pals,
We got some paint and we cleaned it up,
Made it all right to roam,
Then once inside it was quite a ride
And started to feel like home.

Most of the waterways were clear
With some of them overgrown,
I’d send Gwen Darling back to the rear
To steer while the weeds were mown,
I’d scythe them out of the way ahead
And steer the barge through the gap,
Then rest at night by a harvest moon
With Darling Gwen on my lap.

I’d bag a hare on a winter’s night
And steal the milk from a cow,
The earth was dying, but we survived
And Gwen kept asking me how?
‘We’re going back to the way it was
Before computers and such,
Before the Banks had us by the throat
When love was lived by a touch.’

So still we wander across the land
As they did in the days of old,
Those ancient barges, covered in dust
But laden, carrying coal,
There’s a merry fire on a metal hearth
And an oven, full of a goose,
And a woman’s wiles, to gladden my heart
As her stays are coming loose.

David Lewis Paget

I said that we shouldn’t place it there
When first we surveyed the town,
The only place for the dead, I said,
Is six feet underground,
They shouldn’t be way up there on a hill
When it rains, their bones will leach,
And run down into the drinking water
Pumped on up from the beach.

But no, they wouldn’t listen to me,
The Town and the Council ****,
He said, ‘we’ll set it up in the trees
I think that that will work.’
So the town was built on the valley floor
And the dead stuck up on the hill,
I told them what I had said before
When the first became so ill.

The older ones were the first to go
They’d fade away in the gloom,
There wasn't enough flesh on their bones
To warrant a marble tomb.
But then the young had begun to fade
Were beginning to be so ill,
That soon the hearses making their way
Were all lined up on the hill.

The population began to grow
But not down there in the town,
The figures seemed to reflect and show
They were six foot underground,
And then the copse of surrounding trees
Began to glow in the night,
Give off a pale evanescent glow
Some said was blue, others white.

When lightning struck in that grove of trees
It forked and struck on the hill,
And burst some bodies, with their disease
From coffins, wriggling still.
I heard reports of a walking corpse
That tried to kick in a door,
And when they saw who the corpse had been
They found he’d lived there before.

I said that we shouldn’t place it there
When first we surveyed the town,
The only place for the dead, I said,
Is six feet underground.
The town has paid for the Council ****
Who buries them up there still,
On days that the dead come walking down
From the cemetery, up on the hill.

David Lewis Paget

‘All that I do is eat and sleep,’
The surly monster said,
Chewing away on a piece of thigh
From the woman in his bed,
He sat in the tower of Castle Grymm
And surveyed the countryside,
And the pile of bones by the Castle walls
That he’d tossed, once they had died.

His hair was clean but his skin was green
As a tear squeezed from his eye,
Pondering what his bride might be
And who, and where, and why,
The villagers sent him virgins up
But they weren’t quite to his taste,
A single bite and they screamed in fright
So he ate the rest in haste.

His goblins scoured the countryside
For a girl with golden hair,
The myth had said she would be misled
And her steps would lead her there,
But every blonde in the neighborhood
Had fled, as if forewarned,
Leaving only the russet crop
Or the brunette’s that he scorned.

They printed a notice in the town
And pasted on every wall,
It said that Igor would never eat,
Not once, a blonde, at all.
It said that he wanted just one bride
A blonde, to stop his moans,
But everyone saw the Castle walls
And the heap of gnawed on bones.

He even offered a huge reward
For any who’d bring him in,
The golden girl to his Grymm old world
He would give them gold to spin,
So some with greed in their eyes set out
To trap a golden girl,
And drag her up to the Castle Grymm,
That girl was known as Pearl.

Somebody said they were on their way
So she painted on her skin,
What some old witch said would bewitch
Igor and the Brothers Grymm,
They dragged her up to the topmost tower
Where the monster kept his bed,
And chained her up in his inner bower
Till the monster could be fed.

His eyes had gleamed when he saw the sheen
Of her silken golden hair,
He reached on down beneath her gown
Where he felt her skin so fair,
She lay and shuddered within his bed
As he bent to take a lick,
Then screamed a note as he clutched his throat
And doubled up, was sick.

They say Igor let out a roar
Like the folks had never heard,
He’d only munched on his own before
Wouldn’t mutter a single word,
But now he jumped from the parapet
With his mouth and his throat on fire,
To land himself on the pile of bones
That would be his funeral pyre.

So here is the nub of the story,
If you’re looking for a bride,
Forget about the colour of hair
For they’re all the same inside,
And when you come to that bridal night
Just be careful who you pick,
Or give her a scrub in that wedding tub
Before you begin to lick.

David Lewis Paget

She didn’t want her to be with him,
She wanted Anne for herself,
Since ever he had been on the scene
It was like she was on the shelf.
Anne never called for a girl’s night out
As she’d done in the days before,
So tears had streamed in her nightmare dreams
And Cathy had said, ‘it’s war!’

She painted her lips and shortened her skirt
And tied her hair in a plait,
The hair that now was a lustrous blonde
Not the straggly brown of a rat,
She sprayed some perfume under her arms
And more down under her skirt,
Then pulled on stockings with straightened seams,
A suspender belt that hurt.

She rouged her cheeks till she looked quite flushed
Like an innocent girl at play,
So when she wanted, it seemed she blushed
Pretend to be looking away,
Mascara darkened her cunning eyes
And dimples formed in each cheek,
A pencil arched where she’d plucked each brow
And her lips would pout when she’d speak.

She tried it out when she went to town
And bumped right into her friend,
For he was hanging on Annie’s arm
Like a drunken man on the mend,
He clung so tight it was surely love
She’d be lucky to tear them apart,
And Annie smiled as she told her friend,
‘My man has a lovely heart.’

But Cathy stood in the fellow’s way
Her bodice spilling her *******,
He seemed to stare at  her open cleavage
This was the ultimate test,
He didn’t flinch then or look away
And Annie gave her a frown,
But patted him on the wrist, to say,
‘He seems to be looking down.’

Cathy turned as to walk away
But then looked down at her shoe,
And bent right over, her skirt rode up
He looked, but what do you do?
‘You should be careful,’ then Annie said,
‘You’ll show someone your behind,
It doesn’t matter to me, or he,
My darling lover is blind!’

David Lewis Paget

Often I sit at the soul’s soft reach
Where the tide sweeps in to a lonely beach,
Where the rollers roll and the breakers break
To tug at the strings of an old heartache.

Where the swell will rise till it reaches the sky
When it breaks with the spume, so white and high,
To race to the shore with a fume and a roar
Then retreats to the sea as it will, once more.

And then comes the girl I see in my dreams
As she wades in the tide to the waist, it seems,
I watch as she walks, her hair flying free
Her shawl dripping wet with the spray from the sea.

And each time I see her, down at the shore
I think of some maiden from old folk lore,
Her skirt in the water right up to the knee
She leans at the wind, but she never sees me.

One day he rose from the spume and the spray
A man grim-faced with his hair so grey,
He lurched from the water and reached for her wrist,
And when she resisted, he gave it a twist.

Then she called out with a voice like a bell
A sound, if you like, like a cockleshell,
I heard her cry he should let her be,
Not plague her with love, she’d like to be free.

I knew I should help, but the tide was high,
And where I was sat it was warm and dry,
He dragged her through rollers that covered her head
As far as I know, that girl must be dead.

So often I sit at the soul’s soft reach
Where the tide sweeps in to a lonely beach,
Where the rollers roll and the breakers break
To tug at the strings of an old heartache.

David Lewis Paget

The rain swiftly flowed down the gutters,
The thunder roared out overhead,
The wind whistled in through the falling leaves
Of the trees that were thought to be dead,
And Annie stared out of the window
Was trapped at the height of the storm,
She should have been down at the hospital,
Her baby was soon to be born.

But she saw that the driveway was empty,
For Tom had gone out with the car,
She hoped and she prayed that he’d reappear
For surely he hadn’t gone far.
Contractions were now just a minute apart
That she timed on the clock on the wall,
And let out a moan when the clock chimed a tone
She knew she was weak, and might fall.

She’d not really wanted this baby,
Had argued with Tom when he came,
The shadow that climbed through her window that night
Had brought her perpetual shame,
It wasn’t as if she had known him,
He came under cover of night,
Then planted within her his darkness,
She felt there was something not right.

And now there was no-one to help her,
No nurse or midwife at her bed,
The doctor expected a troubled birth
To go by the things that he said,
And now the involuntary pushing
That ****** her down onto the floor,
Three fingers dilated, the birth that she hated
Would leave her both chastened and sore.

The child started coming despite her,
She screamed as the head became free,
Then felt as if claws and the ripping of jaws
Were tearing her clear to the knee,
But then it lay out on the carpet,
Its little dark face creased with joy,
And Tom, looking down, had said with a frown,
‘It has horns, but at least, it’s boy!’

David Lewis Paget

The sculptured mermaid hung at the prow,
And breasted the highest waves,
Her hair flew back from the salt and spray
Was carved from some wooden staves,
She never smiled in a cruel sea
But watched for the distant shore,
In hopes that one day, try as they may
They’d leave her behind once more.

She’d had enough of the fuming foam
Of the white capped waves by the shore,
The heaving swell made her feel unwell
And each storm brought a taste of Thor.
She’d once been used to a merchant’s lot
Had sailed to the East and West,
Her arm was shattered by cannon shot
When the French attacked at Brest.

But now she was tied to a Man-of-War
She couldn’t escape her fate,
She knew she’d end on the ocean floor
If support was a little late,
Her skirt was ragged, was chipped and torn
And her paint beginning to fade,
She lived in dread of the Dutchmen’s horn
Or the sound of a fusillade.

The only time she was known to smile
Was back in the port once more,
She’d meet and greet with all of her friends
The carved figureheads of war,
She’d will the ship run into the pier
To tear her away for good,
And hope the break would be clean and sheer
To pamper her aching wood.

The salt and damp got into her pores,
The rot set into her bones,
Then one fine day when a world away
She dropped to a bed of stones.
She sits below where the sailors go
When their ships cast them to the deep,
And as they pass she will smile at last
As they enter their endless sleep.

David Lewis Paget