Have ever you noticed that liars
Cross their fingers when they lie?
They seem to think it absolves them from
A judgement, up on high,
For fingers crossed means they didn’t mean
The thing they’re telling you,
But if you’re silly, and fall for it
They make you think it’s true.

I knew a terrible liar once
His name was John Coltrane,
He always cried on my shoulder then
As if he was in pain,
He said that life was short-changing him,
That there was nothing fair,
It only took just a minor thing
To drive him to despair.

We both worked then at an auto plant
And used a giant press,
Knocking out doors and bonnets there,
And working under stress,
For time and motion had set a rate
That we could not fulfil,
And truth to tell it had seemed like hell
And was making Coltrane ill.

No matter how fast we put them through
The steel kept banking up,
Thanks to the other press’s crew
Who’d stop, and have a cup,
While we were struggling then to clear
The backlog, piled up high,
And John was constantly in my ear,
‘I think I want to die.’

I said that he didn’t mean it,
It was just a lousy job,
But he just kept on repeating it
And even began to sob,
To tell the truth, it got on my nerves,
It really began to grate,
I lost my cool, and I said the fool
Was really tempting fate.

He seemed to go a bit crazy then,
Lay backwards on the dye,
I tried to pull him away, but he
Lay staring at the sky,
The press came down with a mighty thump
And it flattened out his head,
Two hundred and fifty tons per inch
Said John Coltrane was dead.

We all of us stood around in shock
When the press released him there,
All that was left was a headless corpse
With blood and brains to spare,
His corpse let out a terrible sigh
At the judgement he had lost,
For though he said he would want to die,
He lay with his fingers crossed.

David Lewis Paget

You wake on a bitter morning,
To find that your love is lost,
You turn your head to an empty bed
On the eve of Pentecost.
You reach on out to feel the warmth
That was there in the days of old,
But now, in that empty space you find
That the sheets and the bed are cold.

And then you remember the night before
And that terrible tête à tête,
When you both dug deep for the love you lost
But all you could feel was hate.
You’d always sworn you would make it up
Before you went off to bed,
That chance was lost, now you count the cost
As demons roam in your head.

You think that your partner must recall
All the love that you’ve made till now,
On searching your head, that love is dead,
So how to remember… How?
The eyes that used to adore you, now
Have narrowed down to slits,
The mouth turned down at the corners that
Would pout, as you kissed those lips.

Love is a short term happiness
That doesn’t transpire for long,
For love will frown as it’s beaten down
And comes to the end of the song.
You wait in vain by the open door
In hopes that it reappears,
But time moves on, and you know they’ve gone,
The end of the tale is tears.

David Lewis Paget

The night was a night of thunder,
Of flashes of lightning too,
Her eyes had stared out in wonder
At what it was going to do.
She stood by the attic window
To stare outside in a trance,
While out in the breeze, the wind in the trees
Would flutter, and leap, and dance.

The bolts had zig-zagged like dragons
That fought in the eastern sky,
They carried their battle wagons
Of fireworks, sparked on high.
But now and then with a force like zen
They’d crash to earth on the ground,
And blight the night with a fierce light
And a most tumultuous sound.

It rattled the attic windows,
The shutters blew out like a sail,
The rain pit-pattered each window pane
And suddenly turned to hail.
The wind was humming and crooning
As it flitted up in the eaves,
The parting clouds let the moon in,
Tracing a path through the trees.

And she remembered the tales she’d heard
Of the thunder god named Thor,
Who beat with his mighty hammer
Downstairs on the outside door.
The wind was warbling, ‘Let me in,’
In a tone that meant to entice,
But Barbara shivered alone in her skin,
She wouldn’t be caught out twice.

For once she’d opened the outside door
In a storm when she was young,
And stood on the outside paving stones
When the lightning danced on her tongue.
And dragons crackled across her brain
While lightning flashed from her eyes,
‘Just come outside, there will be no pain,’
The wind was telling her lies.

She stood so close to the window pane
She wasn’t prepared for the flash,
A blinding light almost took her sight,
Her image was burnt on the glass.
And now if you stand in the garden there
Look up to the attic room,
And Barbara still stares down at you
Though she’s been long in her tomb.

She’d turned away from the window pane
And staggered down by the stair,
She was almost blind but she had to find
Just who was calling her there.
The outside door swung open and wide
She stepped on the paving stones,
And Thor delivered a hammer blow
That shattered Barbara’s bones.

David Lewis Paget

I asked the woman where she came from,
She didn’t utter a word,
But stood outside on the landing where
She wouldn’t be seen, or heard.
She glided into the bedroom then
And dropped her gown on the floor,
Then climbed up onto the four poster
A thing I couldn’t ignore.

The name embroidered upon the gown
Was one, a Lucie La Corte,
It lay there crumpled upon the ground,
A thing of beauty, I thought,
But far more beautiful, there she lay
Within the reach of my hand,
With silken skin that had reeked of sin
Inviting love on demand.

I caught the scent of wisteria
The fragrance rose from her breast,
I felt close to hysteria,
Like I was put to the test,
I lay and stared at her shapely form
And thought, how could I resist,
But then I noticed the branding mark
An ugly Fleur de lis.

It sat high on her shoulder there
To tell what she had done,
Some grim crime from another time
And an execution…
I heard her sigh as she raised one thigh
Then I saw her eyes had teared,
Her teardrops fell, and she broke the spell
For then she had disappeared.

If ever you’re visiting Paris
And those evil streets, and mean,
Beware, the hotel you stay is not
Called ‘Madame La Guillotine’,
Or you may lie in a poster bed
As I did, god help the thought,
And watch as the visitor sidles in
The one, a Lucie La Corte.

David Lewis Paget

I found I was left a mantle clock
The type that you wind by key,
It had stood upon my father’s shelf,
Now it came down to me.
Inside the clock I had found a note
Scrawled in my father’s hand,
‘You never must overwind the clock
For time is a shifting sand.’

That’s all that it said, that tiny note
And I’d wondered what he meant,
Surely he could have talked to me
And made it more evident.
But my father had been secretive
And never would say too much,
Just that his life had raced away
And left him behind, and such.

The end of his life had come too soon,
It certainly was a shock,
I found him sat alone in his chair
And pointing up at the clock,
It wasn’t until the afternoon
I noticed the clock had stopped,
Just as his heart had ceased to beat,
There wasn’t a tick, or tock.

I took it home and I placed it up
In pride of place on the shelf,
Over the wooden mantlepiece
And wound the thing up myself.
I just didn’t know how many times
I was meant to turn the key,
So probably over wound it then,
Not knowing what was to be.

Over the following week I found
The clock had been gaining time,
And thought, that’s probably what he meant,
Never to over wind,
I tried to adjust it back a bit
To change the rate of the pawl,
But found the cog was racing away
And speeding up overall.

No matter what I did to that clock
Its speed just wouldn’t be tamed,
I’d slow it down and it speeded up,
I felt I was being gamed,
But then I woke on a Wednesday and
I thought there was something strange,
The man on the news said ‘Thursday’,
Like the days had been rearranged.

The weeks and the months went flying by,
I still kept winding that clock,
Remembering how my father died,
I wouldn’t have dared to stop.
But then one day I forgot to wind
And it slowed, and took me aback,
I held the key, was about to wind
When I had my heart attack.

Luckily Joyce was in the room
Thank god for my lovely wife,
She seized the key and she wound it up
And probably saved my life.
I never forget to wind it now
That clock’s in sync with my heart,
But now my life is racing away
With the clock still playing its part.

David Lewis Paget

I like to dive on a sunken wreck
If the sea is not too rough,
The seabed’s littered with carcasses
I never can get enough,
They range from the Roman caravel,
With the huge, high mounted prow,
To the dinosaurs of steel, from wars,
Still roaming the oceans now.

Some of them lie not far offshore
So the water’s not too deep,
I can trail an oxy line down there
Up to a hundred feet,
But a scuba tank I would have to thank
For the freedom to explore,
Deep in the bowels of a sunken ship
In the search for gold moidores.

I dived one blustery Autumn day
In a well known coastal rip,
The sea rose up and carried me off
Away from my chosen ship,
But through the gloom of that Autumn storm
There loomed an exciting shape,
The remains of a Spanish Galleon,
Blown way off course by the Cape.

All I could see was the galleon stern
With the Bon-Adventure mast,
Broken off and above the mud
It had settled in, at last,
I wriggled in through a window frame
And I found the Captain’s den,
Complete with the Captain’s skull and bones
Back from I don’t know when.

The figure sat at a writing desk
Sprawled in an ancient chair,
The wood of each was well preserved
And so was the Captain’s hair,
A flintlock pistol lay on the desk
Next to the dead man’s hand,
A bullet hole in the bleached white skull
As the ship sank into the sand.

I knew that gold lay under the mud,
I’d have to come back and search,
But just as the storm was blowing up
The galleon gave a lurch,
It freed itself from its clinging grave
And started to float away,
And I swam out as it disappeared,
Lost to this very day.

For somewhere under the heaving sea
It sails, but under the swell,
Back where its sailors sailed before
When they were consigned to hell.
It roams abroad with its hoard of gold
And may well settle again,
Along with its phantom Captain, but
Will never be seen by men.

David Lewis Paget

I just got home in the past half hour
From a great weekend at the lake,
I can’t remember how I got home,
I think I’m about to flake.
The driveway’s empty, I lost the car,
The house, as quiet as a tomb,
And where the wife and the kiddies are?
Must be in another room.

The air round here had been highly charged
For weeks, till we got away,
So I suggested a trip from home
If only just for a day.
I thought we could sort our problems out
Just for our marriage’s sake,
I thought that we might find love again
Together, up at the lake.

The kids took buckets and floaties too,
They said that it would be fun,
And Jen took some of her own home brew,
She’s legless, after just one.
We packed them all in the four wheel drive
And headed up for the shack,
It’s on a reach that they call the beach,
It took an hour to unpack.

But Jen got drunk, as she always does
And spoiled the night of the first,
Her mood was black, while on the attack,
I said our marriage was cursed.
I saw no love in her eyes that night,
And even her smile was forced,
So stone cold sober the second day
She said, ‘I want a divorce.’

I thought that she might get over it,
I said, ‘We’re here to have fun.
Let’s call a truce for the kids at least,
Be happy, for everyone.’
She said she would, but she wouldn’t talk,
Just glowered, down at the beach,
While I and the kids would take a walk,
Have fun in the sun, at least.

Now in the drive, I can see a car,
A man has come to the door,
He says, ‘We pulled out your four wheel drive,
What did you do it for?’
I look bemused as he says to me,
‘Your children, for heaven’s sake!’
My heart stops for an infinity,
‘You drowned them all in the lake.’

David Lewis Paget