She wasn’t a striking beauty, but
I loved her with all my heart,
I know that I always meant to tell,
I should have done from the start,
But her presence had overwhelmed me
Every time that I saw her face,
I was far too shy as she passed me by
For she moved with a gliding grace.

She wasn’t a social butterfly
But was always circumspect,
Was rather solemn and thoughtful but
Was all that I liked, direct.
I doubt if she even noticed me
Beyond becoming her friend,
I’d hoped for more, but I wasn’t sure
It would turn out in the end.

And then a man had moved in next door,
With the moniker Richard Pace,
He had all the bling, was covered in rings
With assets all over the place.
He drove a mauve Lamborghini that
Spoke volumes about the man,
And it wasn’t too long, he seemed to belong
For Esther was holding his hand.

I withered, retreated inside myself,
Retracted back in my shell,
My hopes and dreams, and my forward schemes
Were lost, and my heart as well,
I watched them drive in that magic car
While knowing that all was lost,
For all I had was a beat up Ford
At a fraction of the cost.

They say that money’s not everything
But it’s sure much better than none,
There wasn’t much I was offering
But a heart, quite overcome.
I went for a while then I wandered out
While Esther was there on her own,
‘Where have you been, I haven’t seen you,
Have you been there on your own?’

I managed to mutter, my eyes cast down,
‘I’ve watched you all over the place,
You seem to be settled, and riding round
With your new friend, Richard Pace.’
‘Oh, him,’ she chuckled, ‘Old Diamond Rick,
He’s full of himself for sure,
He thinks he’s a gift to the ladies, but,
Me, I’m looking for more.’

My heart beat once, and it came to life,
I saw the spark in her eye,
‘Now here’s your chance,’ said a tiny voice,
‘All you can do is try.’
But my tongue was tied in its usual way
I never could blurt it out,
Then Esther said, ‘I wish it were you,
You love me I know, no doubt!’

David Lewis Paget

We lived in a house a cleric built
In fifteen sixty-three,
Deep in a copse of Roman Elms
A grand and mighty tree,
The place was Tudor, half timbered,
And it creaked in every storm,
The wind was rattling through the eaves
Before we both were born.

We saw it up in the window of
The Realtor, going cheap,
It needed some TLC because
Its look would make you weep,
It badly needed a paint job and
Some timbers plugged with tar,
The years of rot had disfigured it,
‘Are you interested?’ ‘We are!’

Dead leaves had cluttered the downstairs rooms
And damp had swelled the floor,
The leadlight windows were dark with gloom
There were rats down in the store,
We worked and slaved on it, Jill and I,
Till it soon became a home,
Nestling in a hollow that
The locals called a combe.

I’d lie awake in the poster bed
That had been since Cromwell’s day,
The beams and curtains were overhead
And the wind would make them sway,
While Jill slept soundly, I still could hear
The wind sough through the trees,
Come rattling up to the shutters and
Slip gently past the eaves.

But then some nights, I’d hear some muttering
Down there by the elms,
Like ghosts of soldiers, loud and stuttering
Underneath their helms,
And then I’d hear the sound of marching
To a Roman beat,
There wasn’t even a pavement but
It sounded like a street.

A street that clattered with cobblestones
To the sound of chariot wheels,
I’d stare on out from the window-sill
To see what night reveals,
But nothing moved in the shady wood
To make those strangest sounds,
I searched and searched in the daylight, through
Those ancient wooded grounds.

Then one day digging a garden patch
I came across a stone,
That held a funny inscription on
The face, that smacked of Rome,
I think it mentioned a Lucius
From Legion Twenty-Nine,
I pried it out of the ground and then
I knew what I would find.

He lay there still in his breastplate
With his helmet and his sword,
His sandals still on his feet and tied
On tight, with a rotted cord,
The skull stared up at me in dismay
As if to say, ‘Who’s there?
You’ve broken into my endless sleep,
Invaded my despair.’

I swiftly covered him over so
That Jill would never see,
A sight to give her the nightmares that
I knew would come to me,
But then I settled his stone upright
That he might rest in bliss,
And that was the end of the mutterings,
From that day until this.

David Lewis Paget

I got a job at the Carnival,
All the fun of the fair,
With its Carousels and its Wishing Wells
And The Ferris wheel up there,
With a Gyro Tower and a Gravitron
You could hear the squeals of glee,
As they whirled about, and one fell out,
Nothing to do with me!

My only job was to strap them in
And I went from ride to ride,
They told me to familiarise
Myself with every side,
I loved the whirling Octopus
And the Swinging Pirate Ship,
But of them all, the Matterhorn
Was the one I found most hip.

I ended up on the Enterprise
At the closing of the night,
‘Just two more rides,’ the man announced,
‘For a journey into fright!’
I strapped them into each Gondola
As the twenty patrons paid,
And heard their screams as they soared aloft,
I could tell they were dismayed.

The ride came down with a grinding halt
And I went to let them out,
But no-one sat in the Gondola’s
Then I heard the Barker shout,
‘Last ride, last ride in the Enterprise,’
And the twenty folk got in,
I said, ‘What happened to all the rest?’
But he cried, ‘Don’t fuss now, Tim.’

The Enterprise had begun to spin
And carry them all aloft,
Then disengaged from its base and floated
Over a farmer’s croft,
The sky was an inky black that night
And dotted with glittering stars,
And I swear today, I heard him say:
‘They’re heading on up to Mars!’

David Lewis Paget

Marion Carrion, she was a tease,
She really knew how to flirt,
Would shake her hips and her moving bits
That were hidden under her skirt.
She’d beckon me out to the hockey field
And raise her skirt to the knees,
Said I could look at her secret nook
For only a simple ‘Please.’

She had all a woman’s mysteries
Although she was only a girl,
And knew the power of her nether bits
Would put my mind in a whirl.
So she showed her thighs with her flashing eyes
And then would have shown me more,
While I would share with a candid air
That I knew what she had in store.

Out there on the side of the hockey field
In the shade of the only bush,
We’d hide behind, so my hand could find
Whatever would make her flush.
I thought that I was the favoured one
While playing about with her toys,
But then I found on the soccer ground
She was sharing with all of the boys.

That moment of disillusionment
I thought would have broken my heart,
But I was tough and had seen enough,
There were other girls in the park.
So I thank Marion Carrion now
For her retrospect revelation,
She taught me well on the road to hell
And saw to my education.

David Lewis Paget

We’d been together so long, it seemed
That nothing could tear us apart,
We lived our lives in a world of dreams
And Barbara lived in my heart,
But frost had covered the window pane
And then it began to snow,
As Barbara turned, with a look of pain
And said, ‘It’s best that you go.’

I didn’t know what she meant at first
As I looked up from my book,
“Go where?’ I questioned, but thought again
As she quelled my heart with a look.
‘I said I want you to leave,’ she cried,
And her face was set in stone,
‘We’ve come to the end of the path,’ she sighed,
‘I want to be left alone.’

Then suddenly all confusion reined
I didn’t know what to say,
Whatever had brought this mood on her,
I wished it would go away.
But she was firm, and she packed my things
And ushered me out the door,
I stood there shivering in the cold
To be back on my own once more.

I found a flat and I camped the night
There was barely a stick or chair,
I’d have to buy all the furniture
To make it a home in there.
But I sat and cried in the empty room
As the question came back, ‘Why?’
I’d loved her so and my heart was torn,
I thought I wanted to die.

I went to her with my questions, but
She slammed the door in my face,
Whatever love she had had for me
Had vanished, without a trace.
It hurt so much that she cut me off
With never so much as a sigh,
I called that all that I wanted was
To tell me the reason, why?

The roses had bloomed so late that year
Were still in the garden bed,
We’d always tended the bush with joy,
We both loved the colour red,
So I snipped one off as I left one day,
And planted it under her door,
To let her know that I loved her still
I didn’t know how to say more.

Her brother called in a week or so,
Said she was in hospital,
She’d gone in just for a minor cure
And thought that he’d better tell.
So I caught the bus and I went on down
With a quaking fear in my heart,
She hadn’t said there was something wrong
Before she tore us apart.

The doctor came in his long white coat,
His brow and his face was grim,
I said, ‘Don’t tell me the news is bad,’
He said, ‘I’m out on a limb.
Your wife just passed from the surgery,
But she pulled, from under her clothes,
And asked if I’d pass this on to you,’
In his hand was a red, red rose.

David Lewis Paget

There once was a wicked Warlock
Who lived on Crabtree Hill,
He lured the Witch of the Morning there
Who was my mother still,
My father, he was the patient type
Said, ‘Son, she’s just a witch,
And she’ll be back in the morning, once
That Warlock’s scratched her itch.

I didn’t know what he meant just then,
I was far too young to know,
What people did in the darkness once
Their feelings overflowed,
But I was forever curious
And suppose that I am still,
I wanted to know, so had to go
On a trek up Crabtree Hill.

The Warlock lived in a copse of trees
In a tiny little shack,
A goat’s head hung up above his door
I remember, looking back,
A window covered in mud and dust
Was the way I looked inside,
To see my mother down on her knees
Like a nasty Warlock bride.

I knew that I shouldn’t be looking
Then she turned, and saw my face,
And stopped just what she was doing
Though I’d seen her loss of grace,
I turned to run, then I heard his voice
As he called my mother, ‘Cath!’
Then caught me running off through the trees
As he stood, and blocked my path.

The man was a massive mountain,
And he wore a hat with horns,
His arms like a pair of Christmas hams
As he called, ‘This one of yours?’
I fought and struggled and kicked like mad
As he took me into his shack,
While ever the Witch of the Morning smiled
And said, ‘He’s just my Jack.’

‘I think we should cook him up for tea,’
Said the Warlock, with a wink,
And Cath, my mother said, ‘Let me see,
I must have a little think.
I hope that he didn’t see the act
Of love that I did for you,’
Then took my hand and opened the door
And motioned me out, said, ‘Shoo.’

Now I’m a man, and I think on back
To that day on Crabtree Hill,
And just like the Warlock, I will stand
In front of my darling Jill,
While she gets down on her knees for me
On the floor, without a stitch,
To show me the love she has for me,
Just like the Morning Witch.

David Lewis Paget

The sun went down on a Sunday night
And didn’t come up again,
The clouds above were crimson and bright
And they shed life-giving rain,
The news came on at seven o’clock
In the morning, in the dark,
And said, ‘No sign of the morning sun,
The view from here is stark.’

I bounded up and got out of bed
And I hit the ceiling fan,
My arms and legs and my head were light
So I turned about and ran,
With every step, when I floated up,
I hit my head on the door,
And when I tried to jump, I hovered,
Six feet off the floor.

The news came on for a second time,
A comet had hit the earth,
And halted the rotation of
The planet that gave us birth,
It seemed that one side would overheat
And the people there would roast,
While we would freeze on the dark side,
When the sea iced at the coast.

The temperature dropped down through the floor
And it soon began to snow,
The wife lay huddling up, and said:
‘Now where are we going to go?’
But then the news had come through again
That a second comet hit,
Deep in the Russian tundra, and
The ground had shook with it.

It seems the earth had begun to turn
Once more, from the aftershock,
With everything back to normal then,
Whether it would or not,
But when the sun had come up again
We saw it rise in the west,
The week is reversed from Saturday,
What will they think of next?

David Lewis Paget