I came home to an empty house
To find that you were out,
That you’d be home much later, then
I hadn’t any doubt,
But the day stretched into evening
Without a sight of you,
And you didn’t even call me
Like you always used to do.

When you’d not returned by midnight
I was worried, and was stressed,
I’d thought to call the police, but didn’t
Know just what was best,
You might have been embarrassed if
I’d simply jumped the gun,
And you came home unharmed to say:
‘I went out, having fun.’

The day stretched into weeks and still
You never came back home,
Though everyone was looking, saying
‘Jen’s gone off to roam.’
I couldn’t quite believe it for
We’d never had a spat,
Some evil had befallen you,
I was so sure of that.

A year went by of heartache but
I hadn’t given up,
The house became so lonely when
I had to bite or sup,
To say I cried a river for
A year would understate,
That desolation feeling that
I’d lost my only mate.

And then down on the jetty of
A distant coastal town,
I thought I saw your figure, with
A man, and looking round,
I followed you and caught you
As you got into his car,
But you had simply stared at me,
‘I don’t know who you are.’

The man was quite aggressive, said
‘You’re talking to my girl.
You’d better not annoy us, I’ll
Reorganise your world,’
I cried, ‘Don’t you remember me?’
And called her name out, ‘Jen,’
She simply stood and stared at me
And said, ‘My name is Gwen.’

He dropped you at a hospital,
I’d followed in the rain,
And saw you go inside alone,
While all I felt was pain,
I waited till the man had left
And went in through the door,
Sought out the doctor tending you
Up on the second floor.

He said you had amnesia
Were picked up in the street,
That you had wandered aimlessly
He thought, about a week,
I told him how you’d left one day
And walked out of my life,
And that your name was Jenny, you
Were certainly my wife.

There wasn’t much that he could do,
I’d visit every day,
And talk about my life with you,
You’d stare in your dismay,
‘My life was just a blank,’ you said,
‘Before you came along,
But if I can’t remember you,
To love you would be wrong.’

I left you there and went back home
But gave you our address,
And hoped that you would call one day,
I couldn’t ask for less,
And when you did, your eyes lit up,
‘I do remember now,
I’d fallen out of love with you,
And had to leave somehow.’

David Lewis Paget

Christmastime was lurking at
The corner of the street,
Just waiting for the 25th.,
It tried to be discreet.
It didn’t want to force itself
On Muslims or on Jews,
On atheists, agnostics, or
On skepticism views.

It checked on all the homes that hung
Their holly in the hall,
Dressed up their trees with mistletoe
Hung greetings on the wall.
It wants us to be jolly
It’s a giving time of year,
Of gifts of Roses Chocolates,
And cartons full of beer.

For Christmastime is such a gift
To every creed and race,
It doesn’t have the time to check
On every scowling face,
For all of those believers it’s
The birthday of their Lord,
The one and only saviour
With the favour of his word.

So think on Christmas morning
Of the Lord and of his grace,
Watch emerging little children with
A smile on every face,
And kiss all your beloved ones
Standing by the Christmas tree,
So that Christmas won’t be lurking
At the birth of Jesus C.

David Lewis Paget

There wasn’t a lot of the Castle left,
A couple of Towers, and Keep,
Most of the walls had fallen in
To a courtyard, full of sheep.
It stood up high on a Scottish hill
Now all enclosed by a farm,
But once there was always blue-blood there,
Brought in by its Highland charm.

It ruled all over the countryside
That it mastered, looking down,
Bolstered by the power of a Laird
With a royal court and a clown,
The Laird was a noble, Ralph McClair,
And his wife, a Lady Ann,
A beauty brought from the Western Isles
But from quite a different clan.

The clown was a kinsman, Rod McBain
Who’d been held from a local feud,
At court he’d been made to entertain
For the peace that his kinsmen sued.
They never ceased to humiliate
McBain for his royal blood,
And dressed him in bells and motley there,
Simply because they could.

From what one knows, as the story goes
When McClair rode far and wide,
Taxing the poorest peasants there
For the sake of his royal pride,
It came one day he returned, they say,
To discover his Lady Ann,
In flagrante delicto in
The arms of a naked man.

The man just happened to be McBain
Who was seized, and his features spoiled,
They ripped the flesh from his back and dropped
Him into a cask of oil,
The oil was heated to boiling point
Till his screams rang out, and loud,
While she was naked, paraded there
In front of the courtyard crowd.

His screams and cries and the lady’s sighs
Ate into the castle walls,
And that they say is the only way
To explain the stonework falls,
A fungus grew in the mortar there
And destroyed the Castle McClair,
And as I say, if you go today
You will see the result right there.

For up on that distant Scottish height
You will see the remains of love,
Especially when the Northern Lights
Light up the sky from above,
For stones still fall from the Towers and Keep,
At night, and in winter rain,
And crash down into the courtyard, but
Sounding like screams of pain.

David Lewis Paget

He was only a simple storyteller
But looked much like a clown,
He wore red, yellow and jingle bells
When coming to our town,
He’d sit outside by the wishing well
And gather up all the kids,
Who’d laugh, and clap their little hands
At everything he did.

The parents, they didn’t like him much,
Their eyes were filled with fear,
They thought, like the Pied Piper, all
Their kids might disappear.
He seemed to be so harmless, though
He won their trust, despite
The stories that he would whisper by
The wishing well each night.

He set up a little pay booth at
The well, and scrawled a sign,
‘I only charge but a dollar each
For the stories that are mine.’
But no-one left any money
At his tiny little hut,
So everyone woke one day to find
Their doors were nailed shut.

And then they found in their gardens
There were strange things in the ground,
All their veggies were growing square
That should be growing round,
He told a tale of ungrateful folk
Who proved to be so mean,
Their square was filling with artichokes,
Their lawns were blue, not green.

He asked, would nobody pay him
For his stories and his verse,
They said there wasn’t a way in hell,
But he could do his worst,
The beer was turned into water down
At all the local bars,
And when they went to go home, they found
They couldn’t start their cars.

They dragged him before a magistrate
Who said, ‘You’re quite a threat,’
He jingled his bells and said, ‘Oh well,
You ain’t seen nothing yet.’
The bench the magistrate sat upon
Was wood, cut down from trees,
And suddenly sprouted branches
Five feet high and thick with leaves.

They couldn’t admit what he had done,
He’d made them look like fools,
He had a rapport with nature and
He’d modified the rules,
‘I’ve only to tell a story, it
Becomes a new creation,
Anything that I want, I get
From my imagination.’

Everyone pays their dollar now
The streets are neat and clean,
The carrots aren’t growing upside down
And even the lawns are green,
But everyone’s still suspicious when
It comes to telling tales,
They still remember about their doors
And hide their hammers and nails.

David Lewis Paget

By a stream of running water,
Underneath a moonless sky,
Like a nightmare of a slaughter
The blood-spattered train goes by.
Where the rails have long been rusted
All along the valley plain,
There the train, so blood encrusted
Will repeat its run again.

I can hear the rails humming
To the rhythm of its wheels,
As the train, it keeps on coming,
As the driver’s mind, it reels,
And he stares out through the darkness
With each glaring, bloodshot eye,
He will have to face the horror
When he stops the train, or die.

There’s a skull smashed on the boiler,
There’s an arm caught on a ledge,
There is blood and guts and gore all spattered,
On the front, and wedged,
When the train ploughed through the gangers who
Were working on the track,
Then their blood sprayed through his cabin
And he didn’t dare look back.

Then the fireman had to ***** as
Their blood sprayed in his face,
But he heaped the coals upon it just
To keep their frantic pace,
And now both their eyes are crazy at
The slaughter they have done,
They are bound for hell, not heaven
On this final ghostly run.

It’s been sixty seven years now since
That train raced down that track,
And those seven men were slaughtered,
But they keep on coming back,
By a stream of running water,
Underneath a moonless sky,
Like a nightmare of a slaughter
The blood-spattered train goes by.

David Lewis Paget

My Uncle John was a woebegone
In the all out way of things,
Wherever he went, no sun had shone
And we all were ding-a-lings.

He had no time for the hoi poloi
Or women who rant and tweet,
He’d pick on their saddest attributes
When he said they had ugly feet.

But those that he hated most were men
With money, and stick-out ears,
He said they could overhear him when
He whispered to privateers.

When I was a boy, I looked for joy
But he only gave me grief,
He’d say a bloke with a silly joke
Was simply a petty thief.

He’d never praise original thought
He’d say that it sounded dumb,
His wife Elaine said he’d still complain
As long as he sat on his ***.

She once cooked him a glorious meal
He muttered, and spat it out,
So Aunt Elaine said, ‘it’s such a shame,
I thought it might give him gout.’

I have to tell it was just as well,
He came to a terrible end,
He fell right back with a heart attack
When somebody called him ‘friend.’

We planted a bed of chrysanthemums
On his plot in the cemetery,
It gives him something to ***** about
When the cats go there to ***.

David Lewis Paget

You sat in your chair, and read your book,
As often I’ve seen you do,
While each now and then I’d peek a look,
A glance filled with love for you.
The hour was late, but you didn’t stir,
I said I’d be off to bed,
I noticed your look was fixed on your book
So it went right over your head.

I lay awake for an hour or two,
And thought that you might come up,
We’d both had coffee before I came,
I’d made you a second cup,
You may have fallen asleep down there
All cuddled up in your chair,
I cleared my head, and got out of bed,
Thinking to call you there.

I ventured into a darkened lounge
And found that the power had failed,
While lighting flashed through the open blinds,
And thunder above assailed.
But still you sat in your cozy nook
And stared straight down at the page,
Clinging on to your open book
By an old, forgotten sage.

I called you once, and I called you twice
But you didn’t move or stir,
I tried to shake you awake, but you
Were cold in the cool night air.
Your face was pale in the flashing light
Of the lightning bursts outside,
And then the terrible truth came out,
You’d sat in your chair, and died.

I tried so hard to revive you, but
You didn’t allay my fears,
Your eyes were open, but dull and black,
While my own eyes filled with tears.
I laid your open book on the hearth
And tried to preserve the page,
The final one you were looking at
As you left this mortal stage.

And often now I stare at that book
At the final words you read,
As death crept up and it claimed you then
As those words rang in your head:
‘You must let go and come walk with me
To the green fields of the park,
Just take my hand and then leave with me,
Don’t be afraid of the dark.’

David Lewis Paget