While wandering on a local beach
Half buried in **** and sand,
The sparkle of something caught my eye
The shape of an old tin can.
I kicked it loose from entangling ****
And saw there was something within,
A colourful creature there indeed,
An octopus in a tin.

I thought it cute so I took it home
To put in the garden pond,
Then added salt for a briny mix
So it wouldn’t think to abscond.
It swam on out of the tin to feed
And seized on a goldfish there,
I said to Diane, ‘He has a need,’
While she just tore at her hair.

‘What were you thinking?’ Diane said,
‘It’ll eat all the fish we’ve got,’
‘They’re only a couple of bucks,’ I said,
‘I’ll get some more at the shop.’
He settled right in, our strangest pet,
And cost us to feed the least,
I said that I’d name the tinker, ‘Jet’,
Diane just called him ‘The Beast’.

He started to grow, outgrew his can,
So settled down in the depths,
He couldn’t be seen for thick pondweed,
Diane said,’It’s for the best.’
The dog would bark when The Beast came up,
Would stand there, wagging his tail.
We loved that dog, though barely a pup,
Then Diane began to wail.

‘It’s eaten the effing dog,’ she said,
Her language was more than coarse,
And Rin-Tin-Tin in the pond was skin,
She said, ‘Keep it away from my horse!’
I poked around in the pool for him
Just trying to make him rise,
He bit the end of my pole clean off,
He must have grown to a size.

She said I had to stop feeding him
But that only made it worse,
He looked for food, and he got the cat
As it chased a couple of birds.
Diane was walking down by the pond
When I suddenly heard her scream,
A tentacle wrapped around her leg
It looked like a nightmare scene.

I tried my best to peel it away
The octopus was too strong,
Diane went struggling over the edge
And fell right into the pond,
It took her down to the lower depths
And ate her, clean to the bone,
I tell this tale, so you won’t forget,
Don’t take an octopus home.

David Lewis Paget

The house dated back to the Tudors,
Half timbered, in need of repair,
They offered it me for a peppercorn rent
If I’d do some work on it there.
Right next to it stood the Catholic Church,
All pillars and deep seated vaults,
I thought I could make it a comfortable lair
Despite its old timbers and faults.

But Kathy was not so enamoured,
She said that she’d rather a flat,
‘There’s dry rot and beetles,’ she stammered,
‘So what will you do about that?’
‘I’ll think about that in the morning,
For now you’ll just have to be brave,
You’ll love that old bed, and its awning,
And think of the money we’ll save.’

We got settled in and explored it,
The wainscoting seemed to be fine,
With three rooms upstairs, and an attic,
I seized on that, told her, ‘It’s mine!’
She wouldn’t come down to the cellar,
‘It’s too dark and creepy for me.’
I thought it would do for a storeroom,
It had its own hearth, and chimney.

One day I had leant on the mantle
When something had moved in the wall,
A bookshelf slid back near a candle,
Revealing an ancient priest hole,
But way beyond that was a tunnel
The led all the way to a crypt,
So this was their ancient escape route
For anything termed Catholic.

I thought I would wait to explore it
Till Kathy would like to come too,
But she had just shivered, ignored it,
And said, ‘you just do what you do.’
I couldn’t contain my excitement
As into that tunnel I went,
Imagining priests that had used it,
To burn at the stake, or repent.

Then halfway along in an alcove
I flashed the light, looking in there,
And there was a man in some red robes,
He sat, sprawling back in a chair,
And there on his skull was a mitre
That headdress for bishops of old,
And down by his side was a crozier,
All glittering, fashioned in gold.

But lying between his skeletal feet
Was a sight that I couldn’t absorb,
I felt at a loss, on top was a cross
On a gold and magnificent orb,
Caught short in his flight from the protestant’s might
He was stealing these treasures away,
In hopes that the realm of England returned
To the one true religion one day.

I picked up the crozier, picked up the orb
And I took them from where he had fled,
I didn’t tell Kathy, but thought it was best,
So I hid them both under our bed.
That night we heard chanting, a hymn in the dark
That had Kathy awake and in tears,
While I could see phantoms surrounding our bed
Giving form to a host of my fears.

There was an abomination of monks
That were filling the room from the stairs,
And chief among them was a bishop who stood
At the base of the bed, and just glared.
I leapt out of bed and recovered the orb,
And I handed the crozier to him,
He gave a faint smile, and then in a while
He was gone like a ghost cherubim.

I never went back to that tunnel again,
To tell you the truth, I was scared,
I knew that a fortune was hidden within
But to go back again, never dared.
I’m hoping that bishop has saved me a place
In a heaven for those who are saved,
So I can tell no-one where he lies in grace,
That knowledge I’ll take to my grave.

David Lewis Paget

So many years have passed us by,
So many great events,
Sometimes I smile, or sit and cry
At some of the incidents.
Those were the days when we were young
And love an affair of the heart,
But love came and went, remained unsung
By tearing us all apart.

All we have left are photographs
And many are stained by tears,
Where did they go, those joyous laughs
Echoing through the years?
The love that was made has disappeared
Swallowed by Father Time,
And even the children that we reared
Have left for another clime.

Where are the friends that brought us joy,
Where is the merriment,
Where are the girls who acted coy
We thought they were heaven sent.
Scattered to where the four winds blow
And lost to each chilling breeze,
A fading memory, fluttering by
Like the scatter of Autumn leaves.

And those we lost loom large in the dark
When we lie on the verge of sleep,
They flit on by like the vital spark
They lost, when the mere was deep,
For those that died will never return,
They left on the final bus,
That grim old hearse, pulled by a horse
That now is waiting for us.

David Lewis Paget

The trees are dry, have a withered look
And the wheat has gone to seed,
The skies are grey on a summer’s day
And the river’s filled with ****,
The brook that babbled is sad and still
And the sea lies flat beside,
A lonely shore that had offered more
Till the day the poet died.

Gone is the sound of merriment
And the party jokes fall flat,
The folk just wander aimlessly
As they turn to this and that,
The traffic’s down to a sullen crawl
As the lights turn red beside,
And silence falls like a dreadful pall
Since the day the poet died.

The colours leach from the neon signs
And they turn a pavement grey,
There is no yellow or green chartreuse
To be seen since that dreadful day,
The liquor’s flat as a pieman’s hat
And you can’t get drunk, they sighed,
The children say they will run away
Now they know that the poet died.

And love has curdled in every heart
It was captured in his verse,
The sweet young bride has been left outside
Where no bells ring, which is worse,
The Moon at night is without its light
That it once would shine outside,
And lovers look for its beam in vain
Since the day that the poet died.

There is no poetry left in life
That was back in another time,
When the poet cursed as he wove his verse
And he sprinkled it well with rhyme,
But it’s sad to say, now he’s gone away
We must learn to feel inside,
And colour our world a different way,
Now that the poet’s died.

David Lewis Paget

I’d always wanted a castle, so
I bought one in the Spring.
It wasn’t much of a castle,
Overgrown with everything,
Ivy covered the castle walls
There were trees on the battlements,
And bushes grew in the courtyard,
But I bought the place for cents.

They said it hadn’t been lived in since
The days of Charles the First,
And Cromwell’s troops had reduced it with
A mighty cannon burst.
The gatehouse lay in a ruin where
The Army stormed inside,
And hunted down the defenders there
Who, to a man, had died.

The women, hid in the kitchen there,
Eventually were caught,
The older ones had their throats cut,
But the young ones kept for sport,
And Lady May in her boudoir, she
Was seized by a Captain Clyne,
Who dragged her out by her hair, and said,
‘Not this one, she’ll be mine!’

He ripped and clawed at her bodice till
She was exposed to view,
She screamed that he was an animal,
‘I’ll never lie with you!’
He laughed and shackled her hands and feet
And he took his wicked will,
She sobbed to say he would have to pay
For the ****** blood he’d spilled.

‘I’ll hunt you down like the cur you are,
I will follow you through time,
My downline will seek yours to ****
For vengeance will be mine.’
He laughed, but fate, it had lain in wait
When a pile of shattered stones,
That hung so perilous by the gate
Had crushed his evil bones.

I took delight in the story when
I purchased this ancient pile,
And sat in the ancient boudoir where
I was pensive, for a while.
So this was the place that it happened,
Just above a flagstoned stair,
The **** of an ancient beauty, that
Had seeped in the walls in there.

It took some months to clean up the place
Ripping out each bush and tree,
Till Castle Krake was taking shape
And making a home for me.
I slept up there in the boudoir
During those long, cold winter nights,
With only a blazing brazier
And a sputtering torch for lights.

One night I heard a commotion, it
Was down by the Castle Keep,
A sound, a clashing of soldiers,
I woke from a shallow sleep.
And then was a woman sobbing,
It echoed within the walls,
For soon she screamed, ‘I will hunt you down,’
As I lay there, quite appalled.

Since then, there have been accidents
Of masonry falls and such,
The brazier set my bed alight
I escaped by just a touch,
It’s all to do with that Captain Clyne
And the curse of Lady May,
For Captain Clyne’s in my mother’s line
So I don’t feel safe today.

David Lewis Paget

She stared at him out of the paper
And he recognised her eyes,
He knew he’d seen them before, somewhere,
But her face was a different size,
There wasn’t a dimple in the cheek
And her lips were rather thin,
It said that she was her sister, so
He sat, remembering.

The girl that he’d met in the nightclub
Who had stared across the room,
Their eyes had met in a brief vignette
And held, in the smoke-filled gloom,
They’d danced at the end of the evening
And he’d said he’d take her home,
The thought of a kiss from those ruby lips
Had driven his hands to roam.

She’d slapped his face, he remembered that,
But the rest was just a blur,
But now, from out of the newspaper
He was quite entranced by her,
He’d not read much of the article
For his reading skills were slight,
But he made his way to the same lane way
Where he’d held her sister tight.

The house was an old Victorian
With a gable above her room,
He saw the light on that winter’s night
That lit the surrounding gloom,
Her shape appeared in the window frame
As she stared down at the ground,
He thought he knew she would want him to
So he stayed, and hung around.

He stood right under a lamp post and
Was lit by a single beam,
While she stared down from the window, and
He knew that he’d been seen,
The door had creaked as it opened up
And she walked into the lane,
While he, now full of bravado, said,
‘It’s nice to see you, Jane.’

She paused, just inches away from him,
And she said, ‘my name is Joan,
You must have been with my sister
On that night she was alone.’
He looked confused, and then quite amused
At the harshness in her voice,
Then said, ‘I’d rather have been with you
If I’d only had the choice.’

‘I knew that you would come back one day,
Though I knew you’d take your time,
The killer always comes back, they say
To the place they did the crime.’
He stared right into her eyes just then
And he saw the eyes of Jane,
His fingers wrapping around her neck
As she stared at him in pain.

‘She really shouldn’t have slapped my face,’
He said, ‘it wasn’t right,
All that I did was touch her breast
Before a kiss goodnight.’
But then he staggered in shock and pain
To feel what her sister did,
As the kitchen knife slid in between
His first and his second rib.

David Lewis Paget

The day the devil came down to earth
And lodged in Katrina’s heart,
It took me suddenly by surprise
When she shot his poisoned dart,
I’d known he was out to get me since
I’d got wised up to his tricks,
But I didn’t think that he’d use my girl
To blow my world to bits.

She’d always been such a loving girl
With her pure and slothful eyes,
I didn’t know that behind that smile
Was a cesspool full of lies,
He’d burrowed deep in her afterglow
And had twisted her inside,
I didn’t know it was him not her,
For her purity had died.

The day she opened her mouth I saw
That her tongue was hard and black,
The words she uttered were never hers
But a blatant, harsh attack,
I sat there stunned for a moment with
My face as white as a sheet,
‘Where on earth is that coming from,’
I said to her, ‘my sweet?’

She said that she’d never loved me and
That love was just a crock,
She felt that she was above me, well,
I stared at her in shock,
She said she’d lain with another man
On just the night before,
I’d thought that I was a lover, but
She said he was so much more.

She pressed all my tender buttons and
She made me feel quite sick,
She knew how to disarray me and
Her poison acted quick,
I asked her if I had done something
To spawn this stream of stuff,
She said that I didn’t need to,
Being me was quite enough.

I said that I’d better leave then, if
That’s all that I meant to her,
She called me a craven coward, and
A crawling, slinking cur,
Her tongue rolled back and it blocked her throat
She began to gasp and choke,
So I reached inside and I grabbed her tongue
As she screamed in a long, high note.

The tongue came out like an evil snake
It was long, and black as ink,
It came away in my hand and left
A small one, that was pink,
It wriggled over the floor and I
Then stamped it into a pulp,
While Katrina drew a massive breath,
All she could do was gulp.

She couldn’t remember a thing she’d said
So I said, it’s up to us,
Whatever it was, that blackened tongue
Was the devil’s incubus,
She cried and said that she loved me
It would be just as it was before,
But I look out for that incubus,
A seed from the devil’s spore.

David Lewis Paget