The weather was starting to worry me,
The days were hot and the nights like ice,
The winds were gusting and hailstones
Were battering down on the roof, like rice.
Marie was listless and wandered about
She wouldn’t get dressed until way past noon,
She’d toss and turn in her sleep, and shout:
‘The man with the beard will be coming soon!’

I didn’t know what she had meant by that
I couldn’t be bothered to ask her why,
She said she soon had a sense of doom
The way of the world was passing by.
We stood outside on a starless night
And she pointed up to a cloud on high,
‘I saw a hand in the dawning light
That plucked each star from the morning sky!’

I slept but fitfully after that
My dreams were troubled by what she’d said,
They’d taken the blue from the morning sky
Had withered and rolled up the garden bed.
He’d come to ruin the countryside
Put all the trees in a cardboard box,
Took all the daisies and all the weeds
And ripped them out with the hollyhocks.

While strange marauders wandered the land
And one-eyed women disturbed my head,
They bred like rabbits and grains of sand,
‘We’re here to do what our masters said!’
The seas were suddenly drained and gone
All was that was left was a dusty plain
‘The earth is finished,’ a voice then said,
All I could see was a Moon terrain.

Then lightning crackled over our heads
And thunder rolled like a toll of doom,
I lay awake in my narrow bed
And watched Marie, who stood in the gloom.
‘A new Dark Age has begun tonight,
He said that he’d given us all he had,
Would try again when the time was right,
But packed the Moon in his travelling bag.’

David Lewis Paget

I sat up late with a Shoot-em-up
While the wife went off to bed,
There was a time I’d have joined her, but
She only had sleep in her head.
There was Gabby Hayes and a guy called Clint
Holed up in a barn, in Mo.,
And blasting away at the barn outside
Was an evil guy, called Joe.

I knew which was the good and the bad
Though they each wore a Stetson hat,
For Hayes and Clint’s were a pearly white
While this evil Joe’s was black.
He’d robbed the Stage, and hidden the loot
In the barn, where the good guys lay,
He yelled, ‘You’d better throw out them sacks,
If not, then you’d better pray!’

‘The Sheriff will come and kick your ****,’
Rang out the voice of Clint,
‘I’ll say, Dadburned if he don’t,’ said Hayes
‘You’re a pesky, bad varmint!’
Then it ended, as the old westerns did
With Joe laid out on a slab,
Though he starred again in a hundred films
He was always labelled bad.

I went out onto the porch to smoke
It was warm, a summer night,
While the Southern Cross shone up above
In the Milky Way, so bright,
And I pondered then on a single line
That Joe had snarled, to connive,
‘If you don’t throw out them sacks right now
You’ll never get out alive!’

The world is full of the likes of Joe
Who threaten and rob, and steal,
While the rest of us are lying low
And living a life that’s real.
But he said one thing that applies to us
To the bad and the good that strive,
Whatever the sort of life you live
You’ll never get out alive!’

David Lewis Paget

It was damp and cold at the office
Where he’d been caught up, working late,
He’d almost finished a gothic
For the collection, ‘Zorga’s Gate’,
The lights had fused and the heat was off
When a chill swept through the air,
Just as he typed that final word
On the screen, that word - ‘Despair!’

He’d written ‘The Pillars of Zorga’s Gate
Rise out of the mist out there,
So only fools and unearthly ghouls
Will gather and stand and stare,
The gates are sticky with blood and gore
From the many who came and tried,
To answer the sign, ‘You’re welcome here!’
‘Til they found that the gates had lied.’

He shivered once at the heartlessness
He’d woven into the plot,
When the evil Baron of Darkness
Turned the key in the dungeon lock,
Then blood flowed down the computer screen
With a font that reeked of  hate:
‘You dare to reveal the mysteries
At the back of Zorga’s Gate?’

Jack sat up straight in his chair in shock,
Peered warily round the room,
He sensed a muttering babble there
From somewhere deep in the gloom,
Then slowly the keyboard typed his name
In white, and the screen was black,
‘Wherever you’re coming from, my friend,
You’ll never be going back!’

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up
And a chill ran down his spine,
‘Somebody’s playing a stupid trick,’
He said, ‘I’ll get the swine!’
He went to type a reply, but by
The time that he hit the key,
The screen switched off, the computer locked
And a voice said, ‘Come with me!’

He fumbled around in the darkness
Staggered once, and he almost fell,
Touched a wall that was damp and cold
And he thought, ‘I can’t be well!’
He found himself on the battlements
Of a castle, cold and grim,
Where the wind howled yet at the parapet
And the thunderclouds rolled in.

A figure was standing behind him
Wearing a hood and a flowing cape,
He turned and backed to the battlements
With his mouth and his jaws agape,
‘I have your Jocelyn bound in chain
Awaiting her sad demise,
I told her I’d only cut her throat
In front of your mortal eyes!’

He prodded Jack in the small of his back
And along a winding stair,
The stone was old, and covered in mould,
And led to a dungeon there,
She lay, fast chained to the dungeon wall
In a bright red party gown,
Jack cried, ‘My God! What’s happening?’
And she said, ‘You let me down!’

‘You let the Baron of Darkness out
When you typed the word ‘Despair!’
And now he’s going to **** us both
For the tale that you tried to share.
He’s kept the secret of Zorga’s Gate
Since Zog and the demons came,
And now that you’ve let the secret out
He says you’re the one to blame!’

The shadow stood in the doorway
With a scimitar raised on high,
While Jack cried, ‘Wait! It’s not too late,
I’ll press the ‘delete’, I’ll try!’
And there was the cursor, blinking fast
At the end of the word ‘Despair!’
It took a second to backspace that
And it suddenly wasn’t there.

Jocelyn walked through the office door
In a bright red party gown,
She said, ‘Don’t tell, you fell asleep!’
He looked at her with a frown.
He’s never written a gothic since
And never will work back late,
But sits with a tome in his padlocked home
Since messing with Zorga’s Gate!

David Lewis Paget

We moved on into this neighborhood
When we couldn’t afford the rent,
So my pessimistic Uncle Jim said,
‘Next step down’s a tent!’
The house is set in the meanest streets
And the locals here are rough,
They’d steal the pleats from your mother’s skirts
If they weren’t nailed down, that’s tough!

So we put a chain on the old front door
We put a lock on the back,
We nailed all the lower windows down
In case of a night attack,
We put ‘hedgehogs’ in the garden beds
So intruders would step on the nails,
And stay away from the window ledge
Like Peeping Tom in the tales.

‘It’s best we’re prepared,’ said Uncle Jim,
‘The locals are all on drugs,
They break into houses on a whim,
Thinking we’re all just mugs.’
He kept a cricket bat by the door
And a baseball bat in reserve,
‘If anyone comes in here at night,
By God, we’ll give ‘em a serve!’

I’d stand my watch on the upper floor
If anything moved in the street,
And write it down for my Uncle Jim
On a crumpled, beer stained sheet.
I’d note the time by my digital watch
That had cost five bucks in the Strand,
‘It’s better for you, my lad,’ said he,
You can’t tell the time with hands.’

We crept on out in the dark one night,
He said it was Christmas Eve,
And took a saw and a flashlight out
Looking for Christmas trees,
We stole a tree from a neighbour’s yard
He’d planted the year before,
‘He’ll never know,’ said my Uncle, low,
He’ll never get through our door.’

We dragged it back to our house, and left
An obvious trail of green,
I pointed it out to Uncle Jim,
‘What if that trail is seen?’
He shrugged, and put on his thinking cap,
‘I’ll say someone stole our tree,
They dragged it along our garden path,
It’s nothing to do with me!’

We stuck the tree in a bucket inside
Then dangled some paper chains,
And some ancient pieces of glitter, that
Were worse for the winter rains,
He found a little fat fairy, who
Looked like she was six months gone,
And stuck her up on the top of the tree
With a Goblin called ‘Bon Bon’.

Lying in bed that very night
Something moved on the roof,
One of the rats from the neighborhood
No doubt, on forty proof,
I went and I woke my Uncle Jim
And we clattered on down the stairs,
Just as a pair of big, black boots
Came ‘Crash’ on the hearth out there.

I rushed and I grabbed the cricket bat
My Uncle Jim had a shoe,
This geezer dressed in a funny hat
Popped down, and out of the flue,
His suit of red was covered in soot
And he started to dust it off,
When I whacked him one on his ******* boot
And he yelled, ‘Hey! That’s enough.’

But Uncle Jim had pummelled his waist
And belted him with the shoe,
I whacked him once on his fat behind,
What else was a boy to do?
Then Uncle Jim had grabbed at his beard
All wispy white, like floss,
Swung him twice all around the room
Then said, ‘It didn’t come off!’

We let him go, then we stood and stared
While he cursed and swore at last,
Then clambered back up the chimney piece
My Uncle said, ‘What a blast!
I don’t know what he was hoping to steal,
There’s nothing in this old house.’
But looking out in the yard, I said,
‘The garden is full of cows!’

They were funny cows with great big horns
Like I’d seen in countless books,
Tethered fast to a loaded sledge
Piled up with frozen chooks.
‘I think we’ve made a mistake,’ he said,
My poor old Uncle Jim,
And true, I’ve not seen the man in red
Since we almost did him in!

David Lewis Paget

I was part of the crew of a Sloop-of-War
That had sailed in the Caribbean,
We were caught asleep in the port one night
By the crew of a Brigantine.
They loosed a broadside, seven guns
As the Skull and the Bones flew high,
And I was dragged to the pirate ship
Where they said, ‘You’ll serve, or die!’

There wasn’t a choice to be had back then,
So I climbed aloft on the mast,
Setting the rig of the fore topsail
And making the halyards fast,
They made me stay in the Crows Nest then
To be swept by the wind and rain,
With only a couple of tots of ***
To deal with my aches, and pain.

I kept lookout on the pirate brig
For His Majesty’s ships, and land,
They knew we wouldn’t stand much of a chance
As a Privateer Brigand,
We sought to shelter within a cove
In an island, not on a chart,
And rowed ashore in a longboat there
With the bosun, Jacob Harte.

Captain Keague had stayed on the ship
With the bloodiest of his crew,
The rest of us had been pressed to sea
To do what we had to do.
We filled our barrels with water from
A rill that flowed from the hill,
And gathered fruit that we’d never seen
From trees with an earthy feel.

The trees had tendrils that waved about,
And trunks that were black and charred,
Just like a fire had raged there once
And left them, battle-scarred.
A voice rang out in a clearing there,
‘Hey mates, head back to the sea,
Don’t let the tendrils fasten on you
Or you’ll all end up like me.’

And deep in the trunk was a human face
With its skin all burnt and black,
The pain was etched on his weathered skin,
‘Look out, these trees attack!
We tried to burn them away, but they
Caught every one of the crew,
That fruit you carry is poison, mates,
They’ll be the end of you!’

The tendrils whipped and the tendrils slashed
And they wrapped round Jacob Harte,
He hadn’t much time to scream before
They seemed to tear him apart,
And each of the crew was tangled there,
Was absorbed into a tree,
I made it back to the beach that day
Though I’m anything but free.

The roots of the trees had reached on out
To the Brigantine in the bay,
Curled like manacles round its decks
And torn its masts away,
They dragged it up on the sandy beach
And they crushed it to a shell,
Caught the crew in their tendrils too
And Captain Keague as well.

I’ll put this note in a bottle, send it
Floating off in the sea,
Hoping that someone picks it up,
It’s the last you’ll hear from me.
Don’t let them seed in the world out there
These tendril trees are cursed,
And keep this Island from off the map,
If not, I fear the worst!

David Lewis Paget

We’d moved on in to a clifftop house
When our babe was very young,
I had to ***** a barbed wire fence
To keep our darling at home,
For Ellen was a precocious child
With a beautiful, smiling face,
But for all our efforts to tame her down
It was hard to keep her in place.

She would bounce about, would run on out
The moment we turned our backs,
Many a time I would see her climb
And she’d give us heart attacks.
‘She’s halfway up the chimney, John,
She’s climbed right up to the thatch,’
The wife would cry, and I’d almost die
In bringing our daughter back.

She’d stand awhile by the cottage gate
That led on out to the track,
That wound its way right down to the bay
On a narrow, winding path,
I wired the gate, and I thought it held
Till the day she broke on through,
And made her little way to the bay
Before we even knew.

I found her at the mouth of a cave
That sat just up from the shore,
And breathed a sigh of relief as we
Embraced, like never before,
But she pointed in to the darkened cave
With her tiny little hand,
‘I want to go in the cave with him,
That funny old sailor man!’

‘There isn’t a man in the cave,’ I said,
‘You must have been seeing things.’
‘Oh no! He asked me to follow him
And he showed me lots of rings.
He had a black patch over his eye,
And a ponytail in his hair,
I want to go where the sailor goes,
Will you let me go in there?’

I carried her back up the winding path
Though she clung to me and cried,
‘That cave is simply an eerie place
And it’s cold and damp inside.’
I should have taken more notice then,
I thought it was just a rave,
For days, young Ellen would speak of him,
The man who lived in the cave.

I went to check at the library,
The history of the town,
And read that smugglers used that cave
When nobody was around,
And long before there were buildings there
A smuggler on the run,
Had sheltered there in that dismal cave
With his daughter, Ellen Gunn.

I raced on home to the clifftop house
To find young Ellen gone,
The wife was having hysterics there
And I was overcome.
I ran, pell mell down the clifftop path
It was such a deathly scare,
And searched to the end of that awful cave
And I found her Teddy Bear.

A fisherman on the beach had seen
Young Ellen on the sand,
Then watched as a sailor took her in
To the cave there, hand in hand.
‘I thought that he was her father,’ said
The rustic fisherman,
‘She seemed quite happy to go with him
And he looked a kindly man.’

I must have searched it a dozen times
And I called, and cursed, and cried,
And prayed to god that I’d find my girl
Hid somewhere deep inside,
When out of the depths, she toddled out
Stood still, turned back to the cave,
And that’s when I glimpsed that sailor man,
Who stood at the back, and waved.

David Lewis Paget

The toddler sat in the high chair,
And stared at his tiny hands,
He wondered, where had they come from,
And his name, they said, was Hans,
He seemed to recall another place
Where he’d lived, so long ago,
Before he was part of the human race
Though the words, he didn’t know.

His body felt like an alien
It was hard to make it work,
His legs and his feet were clumsy, and
He’d only just learnt to walk,
He found that his hands could pick up things
He could drop them, or could throw,
And watch the reaction of bigger things
When they’d shout, or tell him ‘No!’

They both were bigger and stronger
But the biggest one was rough,
He’d lift him out of his high chair, and
His voice was deep and gruff,
The other was soft and caring and
Had fed him at the breast,
Would carry him round and cuddle him
But the voice was shrill, at best.

Two spirits sat on his shoulders that
He didn’t know that he had,
One kept muttering, ‘You be good!’
The other said, ‘Be bad!’
‘Don’t listen to him, he’s always grim,’
Said the good one on the right,
The other had said, ‘Remember me?
He’ll make you feel uptight!’

He vaguely remembered the darker one
From the place that he’d always been,
And thoughts went fluttering through his mind,
Like scenes in a distant dream,
He knew, as a thrill spilled over him
That the good one made him sad,
And he couldn’t listen to both at once
But the dark one made him glad.

He’d watch as the bigs lit cigarettes
And the room filled up with smoke,
The haze had returned to comfort him
Though once in a while, he’d choke.
He’d stare and stare at the cigarettes
Intent on that tiny glow,
For it lit a spark in his memory
And he suddenly thought, ‘I know!’

One night while the bigs were fast asleep
He crawled on out of his cot,
Went for the box of matches that
He’d seen them use, a lot.
His tiny fingers had struck a match
And he sat and watched the flame,
As the darker one on his shoulder said,
‘We’re going to play a game!’

He struck a match for the curtains, and
He struck a match for the couch,
He then set fire to the tablecloth
And burnt his thumb, said ‘Ouch!’
An ancient memory stirred within
That would make his face perspire,
Caught in the middle of Dresden once,
And sat in a lake of fire.

The big ones woke, began to choke
And rushed on out to their fate,
They tried to rescue the baby Hans
But for all of them, too late!
He sat and chuckled within the flames
Felt nothing inside his pyre,
The dark one said, ‘So much for games,
You’ve had your play in the fire!’

David Lewis Paget

He told me that once he’d killed someone,
A long, long time in the past,
He’d held him down and he’d used a gun,
I said I was just aghast.
He said it merely to threaten me,
I don’t know if it was true,
He said if I kept on seeing her,
‘In future, that could be you!’

He shocked me so that my hands had shook,
I reached and grabbed at his coat,
I said, ‘Don’t ever dare threaten me
Or you’ll feel my hands at your throat!’
His face went white and he backed away
He wasn’t the bravest one,
But turned to say as he walked away,
‘Next time, I’ll carry a gun.’

I asked Joanne if she even knew
Just what he was really like,
She laughed, and said it was said in fun,
‘Just tell him to take a hike.’
She’d once gone out on a party date
With him, but only the once,
He seemed to think they were drawn by fate,
‘But really, he’s such a dunce.’

‘Do you think that we should tell the police,
You know, it might have been true,
How would you feel if someone died
And all on account of you?’
‘Believe me, he wouldn’t have the guts,
He’s just a weasel at heart,
Put him next to a skunk, you’ll see,
You couldn’t tell them apart.’

Joanne and I went our different ways,
It hadn’t been working out,
I found her nice but her heart was ice,
That’s not what it’s all about.
She passed me by with a man called Guy
And I wished them well to begin,
She said that Ted had gone off his head,
Had started his threatening.

It must have been only a month or more
That I heard how Guy was done,
His body lay in the city morgue
After a hit and run.
Joanne was almost beside herself
In fear, and took to her bed,
‘It’s true, I should have listened to you,
It must have been Ted,’ she said.

The Spring had faded to Summer when
I ran into her again,
Clung to the arm of the hated Ted,
I couldn’t believe it then.
But the fear was there in her startled eyes
It was all too plain to see,
He looked at me with a faint surprise
And he said, ‘Now look at me!’

I wasn’t surprised when the news came down
Along with the winter flood,
A woman ran from a house in town
Upset, and covered in blood,
A man lay stabbed in the bed in there
It seems that she’d cut his throat,
She said it was more than a saint could bear
In a hasty, scribbled note.

I don’t know what will happen to her
They say it’s up to the court,
But I’ll be there as a witness for
Joanne, and the justice sought.
She’d known it wasn’t an idle threat
When she saw what happened to Guy,
And said that he had her terrified
When he mouthed the word, ‘Goodbye!’

David Lewis Paget

The wind grew chill on a summer’s day
And the clouds built up outside,
‘It looks like a storm is coming our way,’
Said the folk of Ezra’s Pride,
The sea rose up in a mighty swirl
And it swamped their coastal town,
‘I think there’s something wrong with the world,’
Said the blacksmith, Helmut Brown.

He left the forge as the fire went out
Under the tidal surge,
And looked to heaven as folk would shout
‘The sea and the sky have merged.’
For the clouds above were purple and gold
The horizon coloured the same,
The ground beneath had rumbled and groaned
As it came, the pelting rain.

He went to look for his Isabelle
In the cottage down by the shore,
The water there was draining away
Then it hit the eaves once more,
And she clung onto the cottage roof
Where it swept her there in fright,
She cried to Helmut, ‘Just get me down,
I fear for my life tonight.’

So he took her down in his brawny arms
And he waded through the flood,
‘I’ll keep you safe from the world’s alarms,’
As he walked through seas of mud,
He walked her up to the higher ground
As the lightning lit the sky,
‘I’ll not let anything happen to you
For in truth, I’d rather die.’

But then the ground had opened up
In a crevice, ten feet deep,
And he was parted from Isabelle,
Who stood on the side more steep,
‘How can I come on back to you,’
The love of his life had cried,
As he stood still as the crevice grew
So wide, on the other side.

‘The world is trying to tell us things,
It’s tearing us all apart,
Perhaps we haven’t been kind to it,
It’s punishing us, sweetheart.’
And she had moaned, his Isabelle,
Stood out in the pouring rain,
‘Well what have I ever done to it?
The planet is going insane.’

Then the thunder growled up overhead,
As if to refute a lie,
‘It’s you who are insane,’ it said,
‘Get ready to say goodbye.’
And a lava flow came down the hill
In a stream, and glowing red,
‘Don’t let it come near you, Isabelle,
Just a touch, and you’ll be dead.’

We’ll leave them there on that distant hill
Where the world keeps them apart,
‘Why should you be untouched,’ it said,
‘When you folk have broken my heart.
You have drilled through me, and spilled on me,
And have fouled my lakes and seas,
Why should I leave your perfect love
When I’m filled with your disease?’

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

My friend signed on to a coastal ship
His name, John Escobar,
He said, for only a week long trip
On the Steamship Southern Star.
While I worked out of the office of
The Southern Shipping Line,
To keep in touch with our fleet of ships,
But the Southern Star was mine.

They said that ship was a special case
It was fitted out so well,
They joked of equipment so refined
It could sail clear through to hell.
I’d noticed bulges down on the hull
But under the waterline,
They told me to keep an eye on it
When they said that it was mine.

It sailed on out of Ascension Bay
When the tide was running high,
The motor gave out a whisper like
The sound of a woman’s sigh,
It wasn’t supposed to leave the coast
But it went far out to sea,
And kept in touch with the dit-dit-dit
Of John on the morse code key.

He tapped a message out every hour
And I let him know I knew,
The ship was sailing way off its course
And lost to the coastal view,
He said the Captain was acting strange
He was locked up by the wheel,
That all the maps had been rearranged
And that something wasn’t real.

At midnight there was a message came
To me in a darkened room,
It said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on
But we just sailed past the Moon.’
I sent, ‘Just lay off the Bourbon, John,
If this is John Escobar,’
And he replied that the Captain died,
‘And I don’t know where we are.’

He sent more messages on the hour
And they seemed to grow apace,
By midday out on the second day,
‘We’re somewhere in outer space.’
I didn’t know if he’d gone berserk
But we’d lost the Southern Star,
It disappeared, and the thing was weird,
When I lost John Escobar.

The messages gradually petered out
So I don’t know if he lied,
He said some things about Saturn’s rings
And then the battery died.
I lost my job at the shipping line
For they put it down to me,
They said, ‘your ship was the Southern Star,
And you’ve lost the thing at sea.’

David Lewis Paget

The SatNav said, ‘Turn left ahead,
There’s going to be a crash,
A dozen cars are headed in
For one almighty smash!’
I slammed my foot down on the brake
And pulled off to the verge,
As other drivers honked and cursed
And flew past, in a surge.

I think my mouth fell open as
I stared down at the screen,
An LED was pulsing red
Ahead, at Winson Green,
‘Would you repeat the last command,’
I muttered, still in shock,
‘Sit here and wait, avoid your fate,
Five minutes on the clock!’

The papers said the lights had failed
When they came out next day,
A dozen cars had met head on,
Three died in that affray,
I didn’t dare say anything
In case they thought me mad,
An Oracle SatNav indeed,
I shook my head - How sad!

I lay awake in bed at dawn
I hadn’t been to sleep,
The automatic toaster by
The bed began to speak,
‘Get up, get up,’ and popped the toast,
Its usual discourse,
But then, ‘you’d better get downstairs
And check the neighbour’s horse.’

The horse was in the living room
Had come in from outside,
Had gifted us a steaming pile
Right there, on Maggie’s pride.
‘That rug will never be the same,’
I shouted at the horse:
‘I saw the door was open, so
I just came in, of course!’

A talking horse? It couldn’t be,
I went to see the quack,
‘I keep on hearing funny things,’
I said, he turned his back.
‘I think my ears are playing up,’
I motioned with my thumb,
He shook his head, I’d quite forgot
The Doc was deaf and dumb.

My life is quite impossible
I must admit defeat,
As phones and televisions all
Abuse me in the street,
But I never seem to hear the wife
Who tends to scream and shout,
So it seems there’s still an upside
When you’re going mad - No doubt!

David Lewis Paget

The little boy with the shining eyes
Was skipping along the street,
They said that he was autistic, that
He never would learn to speak,
He laughed and played in the open air
And he chattered away inside,
But he couldn’t utter a single word
That anyone recognised.

His mind was cluttered with happy thoughts
Of colours and sounds and things,
He couldn’t make sense of the what-they-were
Or anyone’s utterings,
He thought they spoke in a special tongue
That nobody understood,
They kept on saying the same old thing,
‘Now Oliver, you be good!’

He thought that ‘Ubble ee yuli dood,’
Was the sound of a creaking chair,
Or maybe the voice of a ‘Wotsigot’
When his mother was tearing her hair,
His father would just say ‘Geepimin’
When he wanted to go out late,
And she’d say, ‘Wotdid yalass slayv dyeov?’
Locking the garden gate.

He’d learned to scale the iron fence
That was built to keep him in,
And he took his chattering Umblevorks
That were gambolling within,
He filled the street with his Landyplatts
Where they lay on every lawn,
Waiting to play with the neighbour’s cats
That he knew as Gratzendorn.

But down the road was a nasty man
With a name like Hubbrygast,
Who would grab the lad by the scruff of the neck
And drag him home at last,
‘Keep your idiot son at home,
Away from my place, at least,
If I catch him out on the road again
I’ll be calling the local police.’

The day was Doodly Wangle with
The Flubber up in the Guy,
When Hubbrygast saw a Landyplatt
From the corner of his eye,
The boy was singing a Wollygong
To a two-tone Grindlepick,
When Hubbrygast poked the Landyplatt
With the sharp point of a stick.

The Landyplatt gave a gorble that
Had enraged the Umblevorks,
And Hubbrygast was surrounded by
His own sharp garden forks,
They poked and prodded and brought him down
‘Til the nasty man had bled,
While a bright red volluping Corple
With a *****, took off his head.

The people hide in their houses when
The boy comes out to play,
And nobody tries to speak to him,
They wouldn’t know what to say,
They weave their way through the Landyplatts
That have taken over the street,
And try to avoid the Umblevorks
That chatter, under their feet.

David Lewis Paget

‘Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye,
Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye
The Black Douglas shall not get ye’
(Northern English lullaby)

The Scottish records call him ‘The Good’
The English call him ‘The Black’,
They never knew just where he was hid
Before he would launch his attack,

He stood alongside Robert the Bruce
And they learned from their defeats,
Hit hard and fast with a mobile force
And be swift in their retreats.

They captured Roxburgh Castle at last
To the ire of Edward’s spleen,
Disguised as cows so they wouldn’t arouse,
They scaled the walls unseen.

And so the English called him ‘The Black’
For his many heinous deeds,
But he saw them off at Bannockburn,
When his spearmen killed their steeds.

The Bruce was weary and short his breath
With his soul bowed down by sin,
He told of his need to atone the death
Of his rival, ‘The Red’ John Comyn.

They’d come together at Greyfriar’s Kirk
And had fought, they’d both be king,
And there in front of the altar, Bruce
Had murdered his rival, Comyn.

‘So take my heart from my Scottish shores
To the Holy Land, to atone,
My heart will help you defeat the Moors
And my soul may then come home.’

The Black Douglas took on the task
And he went to fight the Moors,
But Alfonzo held his army back
And the Douglas fell from his horse.

They took his flesh and they boiled his bones
But they first embalmed his heart,
Then sent them back to his Scottish home
Though they somehow came apart.

The heart was found in the Douglas vault
In the ancient Kirk St. Bride,
But when they opened the old stone vault
His bones were not inside.

Perhaps they wander the Holy Land
In a search for the heart of Bruce,
He’d flung it at the advancing Moors
Before he fell off his horse.

But Melrose Abbey has Bruce’s heart
So his wanderings are in vain,
Though his soul will search ‘til his bones are found
For the sake of the Douglas name.

David Lewis Paget

I look for you in the twilight glow
When the sun dips over the rim,
When it’s night time here and it’s daytime there
And I think of you there with him.
Though you said, ‘It’s just for a holiday,
And I promise that I’ll be good,’
Well I’m sure you were, as he stroked your hair
In the shade of the underwood.

Whenever the twilight’s coming on
And the Moon moves up in the sky,
I sit and dream in a cold moonbeam
And mull over the question, ‘Why?’
You said that you had two itchy feet
In a sense, they wanted to roam,
And though you were trying to be discreet
I knew you were leaving home.

So now I sit, and cry in the dark
Of the twilight’s utter gloom,
And think of you in a pleasure park
Where you flew on your witches broom.
I know you couldn’t be on your own
I can see the dark shape of him,
He’s there when you ought to be alone
As you taste of the fruits of sin.

The sun peers over the morning rim
As I bid goodbye to the night,
And see where I shattered the mirror in
That I look like a sleepless fright.
The silence shrieks with a telephone ring,
As I answer it, you say:
‘I’m looking forward to coming home,’
And, ‘Thanks for the holiday!’

David Lewis Paget

The children wanted a puppy dog
But I always told them no,
We only had an apartment, with
No place for it to grow,
They groaned and wailed ‘til the wife had paled,
‘You’ll have to shut them up!
They’re driving me stone crazy,
All they want is a tiny pup.’

‘It can’t be done, they make a mess
And they’re always underfoot,
I’ll get them something inanimate
From the net, I’ll look it up.’
I finally found a Russian site
Where they sold some crystal seed,
‘Try growing your own Dorazamite,
It’s the only pet you’ll need!’

I sent away for a starter kit
And it took a week to come,
A couple of packets of crystals
So I bought an aquarium,
The screed said ‘Just add water, then
Sit back to watch it grow,’
The kids weren’t very impressed, they said:
‘It seems to grow so slow!’

‘It takes a while,’ I began to smile,
‘But Rome wasn’t built in a day!’
‘We only wanted a puppy dog
To take outside, and play.’
It had started forming crystals, but
I gradually forgot,
And failed to check the aquarium,
Whether it grew, or not.

One day the kids were excited, said:
‘It’s starting to move about,
It ate the couple of skinks we found,
And keeps on getting out,
I found it down on the kitchen rug
In its blues and greens and golds,
But cut my hands when I picked it up,
Too sharp for me to hold.

A week went by and I heard them cry
‘It’s taken a lizard shape,
Has run right under the microwave,
It’s trying to escape.’
‘It’s only a pile of crystals, it
Can’t walk, or snap its jaws…’
‘It can,’ they said, when they went to bed,
‘It’s become a Dorazasaur!’

That night, the sounds of a tinkling had
Prevented me from sleep,
Like chandeliers in the wind, the sound
Was making my flesh creep,
The door burst open at three o’clock
With a jangling-wrangling roar,
And there was a glittering lizard, standing
There at the shattered door.

With a crystal eye, and four foot high
Its teeth were red, and sharp,
Its claws were very like amethysts
That tore at me in the dark,
It chased me out to the balcony
When I stood aside, it leapt,
Down to the concrete driveway
Where it shattered across the steps.

We live in a dangerous neighbourhood
Where we have to be on guard,
Where crystal birds, and crystal rats
Run out in your own backyard,
There are crystal dogs and crystal cats
That attack, and eat, and fight,
All from that lousy crystal pack
They called Dorazamite!

David Lewis Paget

From the time the land had fallen away
He could only see the sea,
And the billowing sails, the wooden rails
And the halyards, struggling free,
While a silence gathered beyond the creak
Of the masts, that seemed quite odd,
As up in the crows nest he could see
The massive domain of God.

For out to the far horizon, there
Was nothing to catch the eye,
But the heaving swell that he knew full well
And the vast expanse of the sky,
They merged in a distant thin blue line
On the curvature of the earth,
That disappeared as the evening fell
And the stars were given birth.

And there in the glow of the hanging lamp
He heard the bells of the watch,
As they hauled on the final moonraker
Above the sky sail, top,
The bow bit in to the salty swell
As the frigate picked up speed,
And dipped and sprayed on the carronade
In a race for a monarch’s need.

For down below was a courier
Locked in by a cabin door,
Who carried a secret parchment scroll
God speed to a distant shore.
Dressed as a pale midshipman, but
In truth, and without a lie,
The courier was a fretful girl
And the crew would have wondered, ‘Why?’

Why take a ******* a Naval ship
Who would bring bad luck to the crew?
Nobody was supposed to know,
But he in the crows nest knew.
He’d seen her shower in a secret place
He could see from the top of the mast,
But kept his lip, for he knew the ship
Would be wrecked if the crew had guessed.

She came on out for a breath of air
Just after he came off watch,
Deep in the dark of the after deck
With the gun deck all awash,
A giant wave swept her to the rail
So he seized, and held her tight,
As the water dripped from her frightened face
And her hair shook out in the night.

‘Pray sir, don’t let them discover me,
I am only here for the King,’
He smiled at her in the darkness, said
‘You must grant me just one thing,
A tender kiss from your perfect lips
And I swear, I’ll let you be.’
She said, ‘You swear?’ and she kissed him then,
But a grumble rose from the sea.

And thunder off in the distance rolled
As the girl then turned and fled,
Back to her locked in cabin then,
Back to her cabin bed.
But lightning flashed, and a thunderbolt
Crashed over the masts and stays,
While the lightning flash destroyed the mast
Where he’d spent so many days.

The crew were cutting the mast away
And cast it over the side,
While he hung on to a rail and stay
As the ship tossed in the tide,
A shadow rose from the deep that night
A demon known to the crew,
‘There must be a woman here on board,’
They screamed, ‘but nobody knew!’

The ****** went to her cabin door
Then knocked, and she let him in,
‘Your secret’s out, you’ll have to leave
If you want to save your skin.
I’m going to let out the painter now,
And set you out in a boat,
I’ll join you there if I can, I swear
For this ship won’t stay afloat.’

And somewhere out in that great domain
That God has kept for his own,
There floats a tiny clinker boat
With a couple, all alone.
The frigate lies in the heaving deep
On the bed of a fretful sea,
One kiss had cost a King his throne
And the loss of a colony.

David Lewis Paget

‘Cata, pick up the children, then
We’ll all away to the woods,
They say there’s a mighty army come
To steal our homes and goods,
They’re capturing slaves along the way
So we need to be aware,
These men of steel with their breastplates on
Take children with fair hair.’

Sca had looked at his wife, she had
The hair of ripened corn,
And so had both of their children from
The day that they were born,
But he was dark, from the Iceni
And his face was painted blue,
He’d come from the beach they’d landed on
Where the blood was mixed with dew.

‘I’ve never seen quite so many ships
They’re standing off in the bay,
And way on out, the horizon seems
To be filled with ships today,
They’re crushing all that’s before them,
Our chiefs are down on their knees,
They know we can’t over-awe them
With our spears and charioteers.’

‘This army’s bringing its mighty gods
And they have this one called Mars,
He rules, they say, each clashing of arms
From way up there in the stars,
Their shields are linked in a solid wall
That we can’t get through to fight,
They’ll rule us now as they rule the Gaul
So we must be gone tonight.’

They made their way to a hermit’s cave
And they found some shelter there,
But the Legion came and they took his wife
For the sake of her golden hair,
His children too, were taken away
From the land of their loving home,
And the people gasped in the marketplace
When the two were sold, in Rome.

While he fled back to the Iceni
And he waged guerrilla war,
Served in the army of Boadicea
Once she had come to the fore.
She stood, six foot and her tumbling hair
Was red, right down to her waist,
‘A terrible sight,’ the Romans said
As she laid their cities waste.

They’d stolen all of her lands and laid
The lash across her back,
They’d ***** both of her daughters,
They were fond of doing that,
They didn’t know that the Iceni
As a tribe were more than bold,
Or of the terrible price they’d pay
When they cast her out in the cold.

She wiped out Camulodunum,
And slaughtered the Romans there,
Went on to sack Londinium,
This woman with flame red hair,
She burnt the city down to the ground
While the population fled,
The only people that stayed in town
Were lying in heaps, the dead!

They slew the Hispana Legion
That had marched down from the north,
Went on to Verulamium
And carried a flaming torch,
The Romans there were slaughtered,
The city razed to the ground,
But not before the warrior Sca
Had saved the wife he found.

She’d been enslaved in a Roman house
Had disappeared for years,
And when he pulled her out of the flames
She couldn’t see him for tears,
So they fled to the northern borders where
The Romans held no sway,
And their blond haired, blue-eyed offspring,
They still live there today.

David Lewis Paget

We had come across this grotto in
The cliff near Cater’s Pride,
And were swimming in the shallows
When we took a look inside,
There was just a tiny entrance that
Had broadened to a hall,
And the strange effect of lighting seemed
Reflected off each wall.

There were seashells, there were gemstones
Shining, in the rocky face,
And a narrow path around a pool
With depths we could not trace,
But the water was so clear and blue,
And warm, it must be said,
That Cathy cried, ‘Can this be true?’
While I just shook my head.

We sat back on the ledge and dangled
Feet down in the blue,
We didn’t know that danger loomed
And nor, I think, would you,
But then some minor turbulence
Disturbed the perfect pool,
And suddenly three heads appeared
To laugh, and play the fool.

Three nymphs with sparkling eyes and teeth
Who splashed, their laughter pealed
And echoed round the grotto, as
Their presence was revealed,
They saw us and they beckoned us
As if to swim and play,
If only caution reckoned in
The thoughts I had that day!

But Cathy laughed and waved at them
From just beyond my reach,
And two of them came swimming and
They seized an ankle each,
They pulled her off the ledge and laughing
In that pool so blue,
Then swam around her teasing so
I knew not what to do.

Now Cathy was a swimmer, she
Could more than hold her own,
But when they swam around her
What I saw would make me groan,
For as they broke the surface I
Could see her face was pale,
And each of these fair maidens, well,
They had a fish’s tail.

They whirled around and tumbled her
And pulled her by the hair,
And soon I saw her fighting them
As if in need of air,
I dived in then to free her but
They saw me coming down,
And took her to the depths with them
Until poor Cathy drowned.

I totally lost sight of them
And had to clamber out,
Sat weeping by the pool until
Just like a waterspout
Her body shot up from the depths
And then the mermaids three,
Swam clinging to each other, looked
Apologetically.

They didn’t know we had to breathe
They had no need of air,
They made me signs of penance but
My Cathy simply stared,
And in her eyes a look of awe
As if in death she’d seen
A world that was worth dying for,
A dream within a dream.

David Lewis Paget

I’ve followed you out in the yard,
And then when you mounted the stair,
I thought I was watching an angel,
But you didn’t know I was there.
You moved with such elegant grace,
That I couldn’t help but stare,
You seemed so above and beyond me,
That all that I felt was despair.

We’d pass in the pit of the stairwell,
Your latté, you held in a cup,
When I’d see you coming toward me,
I’d hope, but you’d never look up.
My heart would rebound in my ribcage,
I’d turn and I’d stare at your back,
I wondered how I could approach you
And worked on a plan of attack.

Perhaps I could trip, and I’d stumble,
And push you right into the wall,
Then clutch at you, ever so humble,
And tell you that I was appalled.
At least I could get you to see me,
You couldn’t ignore me again,
But when it came down to it, clearly,
An angel’s beyond mortal men.

The love that I felt was like heartburn,
It plagued all my nights and my days,
I’d torture myself with each notion,
And plotted in various ways,
I constantly thought of your beauty,
And hardened myself to the task,
‘I wondered,’ I said, ‘ if you knew me?’
You sighed, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

David Lewis Paget

The train chugged on in the darkness
Past meadows and cattle asleep,
And the night revealed its starkness
Puffing smoke on the backs of sheep,
Its livery was as black as the soot
That covered its ageing paint,
It couldn’t be classed as beautiful,
Though it might have been thought as quaint.

The night was such an inky black
As a cloud obscured the stars,
The train was sensing a nothingness
In the vast expanse to Mars,
The fireman sprayed its feed of coal
As the boiler felt the strain,
As tired pistons and tired wheels
Drove on the exhausted train.

A thought came out of the empty sky
And mixed with the sulphur stream,
‘Why can’t I be like the other trains
That little boys love, and dream,
Instead, I’ve spent my whole life long
Tied to an endless rail,
I’ve done all the driver wanted to
But I may as well be in jail.’

There was only an empty signal box
Unmanned at that time of night,
And miles and miles of dark ahead
With never a single light,
So an angry feeling was building up
At that Great Train in the sky,
That only commanded, ‘what thou shalt,’
But never explained, ‘but why?’

So into the dark it chugged along
With carriages in its wake,
While deep inside, the fireman asked
‘Did anyone fix the brake?
The driver shook his gnarled old head
As if in a quick reply,
‘There hasn’t been time for the loco shed,
But they’ll fix it, by and by.’

The boiler started to grumble so
They stopped at a water trough,
The fireman pulled the spout across
And turned it on, then off,
They pulled away with the tender full
Though the train was feeling pain,
‘I’m always doing the same old things,
I’m not going to stop again.’

So on they steamed to Hunterdown
Where at last the brakes had failed,
All they got was a steady sçream
As the wheels spun on the rails,
And though the driver cut the steam
Still along the track it sped,
While the driver and the fireman
On the footplate, stood in dread.

‘The rail runs out at Dead Man’s Eye
Said the driver to his mate,
If we can’t slow down this blessed thing,
I’m afraid, it’s much too late.’
They chose to jump as the rail ran out
But the train still plunged ahead,
Over the untamed landscape
Riding on meadow grass instead.

The carriages piled behind it
Were detached in an awful wreck,
But still the locomotive drove
On a joyous final trek,
It rambled over a grassy ridge
And fell over a pleasant hill,
Next to a colourful flower bed,
And today, it lies there still.

Now children gather to play on it
This pile of rusted steel,
A train that had a tender heart
And for once could see and feel,
If all of its life were memories
Then the one it’s surely got,
Is riding unfettered across the green
To a bed of forget-me-nots.

David Lewis Paget

Down in the grotto we’d go to swim
Whenever the tide was high
And pouring into the basin there,
At low tide it was dry,
I’d go with the Percival sisters
Who would laugh and call and dive,
While bursting out of their suits, it seemed
A time to be alive.

While Carolyn had the bigger *******
Brittany had the thighs,
Carolyn had the sweetest smile
But Brittany had the eyes,
I never could choose between them for
I loved them both the same,
They’d flaunt themselves in the grotto pool
To them it was just a game.

The light would glimmer within the cave
Reflect off the grotto walls,
And from the roof would echo again
The sound of the girls catcalls,
We’d swim, then climb on a ledge of rock
To dry ourselves in the air,
And listen to water lapping in
From the mouth of the cave out there.

They often would try to bully me
To say who I loved the best,
I’d always say that I loved them both
And they’d say I failed the test,
So one day, standing upon the ledge
They both peeled their costumes off,
And said, ‘now tell us the one you love
Or haven’t you seen enough.’

The sisters’ beauty caught at my throat
And took the most of my breath,
I’d never seen them naked before
Nor since, I swear on my death,
I couldn’t answer, so they got mad
And flung me into the pool,
Then swam around me, ******* and legs
Determined to play the fool.

Brittany trapped me between her thighs
While Carolyn pushed me down,
The water swirled at my head so long
I thought I was going to drown,
But finally they’d had enough of me
Holding me down, submersed,
And I shot up to the surface then
Thinking my lungs would burst.

It’s years since ever we went to swim
Together again, all three,
For finally I had to make a choice,
Which one would marry me.
Brittany’s now my loving wife
For I found between her thighs,
In the grotto swim, when she squeezed me in,
The truth in a world of lies.

David Lewis Paget

The trees were talking in foreign tongues,
The leaves had plenty to say,
As he stood deep in the golden grove
Watching the treetops sway.
A gentle breeze had caught at their breath
To carry their whispered tales,
From tree to tree in the woodland depth
While the Autumn winds prevailed.

And golden leaves lay thick at their feet
A magic carpet of death,
Fluttering down with their lives complete
At the time of their final breath.
But she lay still on a mound of leaves
And smiled at the man she loved,
While he looked up like a man who grieves
At the sway of the trees above.

‘Why is the Autumn fall so sad,
Could it be that they feel like us?
Their Summer went, and at last they’re spent
And fall from the trees like dross.’
‘They’ve had their season of love,’ she sighed,
‘While ours is still ahead,’
‘But even we,’ he had then replied,
‘Face the day when we’ll both be dead.’

He joined her down on the bed of leaves
And she kissed his lips and his brow,
‘I never think about death,’ she said,
‘But only the here and now.’
‘Don’t you listen to what’s been said,
Those fluttering leaves in the air,
They’re asking, what’s it like to be dead
In a tone of utter despair.’

‘How could you know just what they say,
They’re swaying trees in the breeze,
There isn’t a dictionary, per se,
That a man can follow with ease.’
‘Haven’t you heard the tender moan
They make, when the wind soughs through,
Their sadness echoes in every tone
And it kills me, looking at you.’

‘You have to stop, you’re frightening me,’
She said as she pulled away,
‘I thought that we came to make sweet love
On a beautful Autumn day.’
‘But what will we think when our skin is dry,
And wrinkled, so many years,
Maybe the love that we feel today
Will lie in a horse-drawn hearse.’

He looked again and he watched her age
So brittle, an Autumn leaf,
Dry and brown, he was looking down
While she stared with eyes of grief.
‘You’ve taken away our springtime, Joe,
And reached for the Autumn rain,
I only know that I have to go
And I’ll not come here again!’

David Lewis Paget

He was leaning against the wall, backed up
And staring through fumes of gin and whiskey,
Glaring at all the toffs, dressed up
And ravelling through his sordid history.

But never a sense of ‘us’ with him
He was more like a raging arcane animal,
Caught and caged, as they looked right in
To poke and pry at his painted trammel.

Oils and charcoals, water colours,
Pinned like an insect by their gazing,
Pointing fingers would **** his skin
Pick through his pockets, grinning, gaping.

What would they know of his woods and fields,
The towering oak, or the dew at dawning?
Only the light that a lamp post yields
In the mean streets when the world is yawning.

Theirs was a world of tile and brick
Of diesel fumes and the rail line snaking,
His were the hills of hay and rick
The tumbledown cot and the farmer, raking.

‘What did you bring me here to spill?’
He said to the shyster gallery owner,
‘There’s nothing you couldn’t print at will
With a Laser print, and a barrel of toner.’

‘They’re coming in hordes to see your myth,
You’re a breath of air in a jaded Autumn,
A genuine Primitive, Jordan Griff,
I lured them in, and your work has caught them.’

But Jordan scowled and he curled his lip
As the crowd milled using an unknown language,
‘I’d rather be down at the ‘Rope and Skip’
With a pint of ale and a cold meat sandwich!’

‘You’re really an artist?’ said the woman
Who stood at his shoulder, pale and shaking,
‘I like the one at the farmer’s gate
With the girl, head bowed, as her heart is breaking.’

Griff looked deep in the woman’s eyes
For the chord she’d struck was his secret mourning,
‘How did you know?’ He’d sobered up,
‘I was the girl your paint was born in!’

Jordan halted his glass, mid-sip,
He seized her hand as his heart was pacing,
‘Years have slipped between cup and lip,
I’d give them all for a second tasting!’

He led her into a lumber room
And she locked the door as they pulled apart,
Then found some cushions and in the gloom
They lay on the floor there, making art.

That’s how his Primitives came to start
With a joy not there at his god-rot dawning,
A horse and cart with his palette heart,
And a tousled woman each tumbledown morning!

David Lewis Paget

I only wanted a quiet life
Was the first thought that I had,
When the woman beat on my cedar door,
I thought that she must be mad.
She beat and beat, and would not retreat
Though I begged her just to go,
But she cried, ‘He’s going to ****** me,
You must let me in, I know!’

I peered out through a crack in the door
Just to see the woman’s face,
Her lips were ******, her eye was black
And the tears had left their trace,
I groaned I wouldn’t become involved
But knew in the end I would,
I opened the door and let her in,
Her hands were covered in blood.

‘Don’t drip that blood on the carpet!’
She just turned to me with a shrug,
‘I’ve taken the carpet cleaner back
I borrowed to clean the rug!’
Too late, too late, as she smeared the blood
All over my pristine wall,
‘Are you callous or just plain crazy?
He’ll be coming to **** us all!’

‘Then why did you come to me,’ I cried,
‘There’s a hundred doors out there,
Go pick on another married fool
With a life lived in despair.
I never fell for the gender trap
For it always ends like this,
A bottle of Jack with a drunken lout
Who had promised married bliss.’

I steered her into the bathroom, ran
The taps as I heard him roar,
‘Come out you blanketty wilful witch
Or I’ll have to beat down the door!’
My cedar door with the frosted glass
That I only installed in June,
I heard a splinter, and then a crash
As he burst on into the room.

I pointed the shaft of the toilet brush
At him, from under a towel,
‘I’ve got a gun and I’ll use it!’ But
All that he did was howl.
A bullet whistled on past my head
And shattered the shower screen,
‘I swear I’ll blow you to Kingdom Come
If you don’t come now, Doreen!’

‘For God’s sake, give it a rest,’ she said,
As she washed the blood away,
Wiped her hands on my nice clean towel
As I groaned in my dismay,
He put the gun in his pocket, dropped
His head and began to weep,
‘Is this the guy you’ve been seeing then?’
‘What him? The guy is a creep!’

‘He’s more concerned with his carpet
Than a lady in distress,
I’d rather you with your ****** Toons
Though you tend to make a mess.’
She walked on up and she kissed him
And they walked out hand in hand,
‘Who’s going to pay for the damage, then?’
I called, but they had gone.

I never answer a beating door
No matter how long they knock,
I call out, ‘Sorry, I’m not at home,’
As I click the fifteenth lock,
A beaten wife is a world of strife
For the man who intervenes,
The bodies may pile outside my door
But I keep my carpets clean.

David Lewis Paget

The Cormorant was the darkest ship,
As dark as a ship could be,
Not only the paint was pitted black
From the funnels to the sea,
But deep inside in its rusted gloom
In the echoes from its shell,
It was like a monster roamed abroad
Released from the depths of hell.

It roared and echoed by day and night
As the boilers turned the *****,
Lurching across every wave that might
Try to break its hull in two,
It was laden down with a thousand tons
Of a cargo that made it groan,
While breakers slapped its quivering sides
As it made its way back home.

The Captain stood on the shuddering bridge,
A man with a heart of steel,
He tried to control this raging beast
As he lashed himself to the wheel,
He gave no quarter to any man
Who would shirk, avoid his task,
But called the crew to witness his due
As the man was soundly lashed.

Down in the depths of the engine room
The firemen shovelled coal,
Each shovel sprayed like a black dismay
In the light of that glowing hole,
And steam built up on the pressure gauge
Of each boiler, one and two,
As men would fret, while running in sweat,
To do what they had to do.

The seas built up and the rain came down
As the Cormorant rolled and swayed,
Then lightning flashed and it ran to ground
Like an imp in a masquerade,
It left three dead on the afterdeck,
They hurried to help them there,
But the captain roared, ‘Throw them overboard,
We’ve more than enough to spare.’

A mutter grew up among the crew
As dark as the bosun’s hat,
I never knew what the crew would do
So I wasn’t in on that.
But the Captain disappeared from the bridge
And the wheel was swinging free,
With the Cormorant broadside to the waves
At mercy of wind and sea.

They said it must be a miracle
When we finally entered port,
The bilge half full of water, they said,
And the Captain fell overboard.
But the ship was done, had made its last run
As the fires went out in the hull,
Then raking through the mountain of ash
I found the late Captain’s skull.

David Lewis Paget

It started when he had brought a box
He’d bought, back home from the fair,
The size of an average tinder box
In brass, and embossed with care,
The scene was the site of a battlefield
Where the redcoats marched as one,
In the face of the French artillery
Looking down the mouth of a gun.

And on the right was a drummer boy
Who drummed to the marching feet,
He gazed ahead but his eyes were dead
As he kept up a steady beat,
A moment of peril embossed in time
When nations ruled by the gun,
The redcoats all in a staggered line
With the battle not yet won.

‘And how did you come by that,’ she said,
His wife, when he brought it home,
‘I should know better than let you out
With a pound, when you’re on your own.
The gypsies see you abroad, my lad
And they say, ‘Now there’s our mark!
They’d pick you out of a thousand folk
Out there, a-stroll in the park.’

‘It wasn’t a gypsy, Jen,’ he said,
‘But an old, sad military man,
Struggling on a pension for
His bread, as best he can.’
‘You’re just as soft as the next one, Bill,
They’d steal a beggar’s cup,
But now that you’ve got your tinder box
Let’s see, just open it up.’

‘I can’t, it’s locked with a type of lock
That I’ve never seen before,
It’s rusted on, and there is no key,
It’s a work of art for sure.’
He set it down by their rustic hearth
Where it looked so very fine,
A piece from their ancient history
Where the soldiers stood in line.

That night they woke to the distant sound
Of a battle, lost and won,
The sound of cheers, of clashes, tears
To the beat of a distant drum,
And Jen was lying there frozen as
She clung to her husband’s arm,
‘What have you brought on home to us?’
She cried, in her alarm.

The morning saw her attack the lock
With a hammer to no avail,
The lock, it might have been rusty but
Was solid, strong and hale,
And Bill said ‘Stop! You will ruin it,
There’s nothing there to hide,
I bought it more for the picture than
What might there be inside.’

Each night the sound of a battle filtered
Out of that tinder box,
The sounds of the muskets firing, of
Whizz-bangs and battle shocks,
And through it all was the steady sound
Of the little drummer’s beat,
It rose up out of the battleground
With the sound of marching feet.

They finally cut the lock away
With a coarse old hacksaw blade,
It took a couple of hours that day
So sturdy was it made.
Then Bill said ‘Your curiosity
Has made me wreck the lock,
So now, there’s nothing to stop you, Jen,
Just open up the box.’

The lid flew up and the sight she saw
Was enough to make her faint,
For there, the skull of the drummer boy
Lay with its coat of paint,
And blood, red blood was the skull in there
Though the teeth were pearly white,
A bullet hole in the frontal lobe
That had kissed the boy goodnight.

And folded there, but beneath the skull
Was the skin of the drummer’s drum,
Blackened, torn and beyond repair
It had sounded for everyone.
It’s buried now with the drummer’s skull,
It’s resting beneath a tree,
And never sounds, for its war is won,
It’s where it was meant to be.

David Lewis Paget

There once was time to sit and spin
The dream without, the light within
When young ideals like creed and rote
Would wreathe their blue tobacco smoke!

When wine was certain at each sip
When answers leapt at every lip,
Such were the days, when we all knew
If we were asked, what we would do.

But life began to call us in
And time, as such, has grown so thin,
We rush to do the things we must
While dreams, ideals, are things of dust.

And soon we turn our backs on them
Those shadows that were once young men
Who never dreamt hypocrisy
Would spill their dreams, philosophy;

And rule them with a rod of steel
And teach them well how not to feel,
And lead them blindly through their days –
They spare no thought for younger ways.

And where that dream, ideal, that once
Was held to spell deliverance?
Well we might ask, and well we might;
It’s life, not death, puts out the light!

David Lewis Paget

‘I used to work for the council here,’
Said ‘Ripper’ Jones at the bar,
Fortified with a Beam or two
And a pint of the best, Three Star,
Trelawney winked at the barman and
The barman, he winked back,
‘We’re in for another ripper yarn,’
Said the bearded Cousin Jack.

‘They always gave me the ***** jobs,
It was always just my luck,
They’d point to me, say, ‘Ripper’s free,
Break out the tipper truck!
You know, that beast with seven gears
But only three of them worked,
The brakes were non-existent, and
The Foreman, he was a ****!’

‘We used to call him Father Time
He was always on the prowl,
Calling time to the Smoko breaks
With an ever present scowl.’
He said, ‘Pick up that giant rock
In the Commer Tipper Truck,
The ocean’s sprung a giant leak
And we have to seal it up!’

‘It took us a crane to lift this rock
It was seven feet across,
‘This mother has to be fifteen tons,’
Said my mate, crane driver Ross.
‘What did he say you need it for?’
He yelled, in a sort of screech,
‘I have to drive it down to the shore,
There’s a great big hole in the beach!’

‘The Commer sank right down on its springs,
This rock, a hell of a load,
I had to drive it in second gear
With the tyres flat on the road,
I finally made it down to the shore
And thought, ‘I must be a mug!’
The sea was circling round the hole
Like a bath when you pull out the plug.

I had to wait for an hour or two
‘Til it emptied out the bay,
All you could see was a dry seabed
For a mile or so, each way,
Then I drove the truck right up to the hole,
Thinking to tip it in,
When a giant geyser of steam shot up,
The sea was turning to steam.’

‘You know what the brakes on that truck were like,
They hadn’t been fixed for years,
I thought I’d better get out of there
Or it all would end in tears.
But the truck rolled forward, over the hole
And began to sink right in,
While I climbed out of the window there
Determined to save my skin.’

‘The truck sank down, under the rock
And it plugged that head of steam,
You could barely see the tip of the tray
When the tide came rolling in,
And that’s the rock you go fishing off,
You can say it was down to me,
While you were throwing your schooners back
I was out there, saving the sea!’

David Lewis Paget

‘Be waiting up at the window,’ said
The note he sent by hand,
‘I’ll come and collect you at midnight,’
Said the note, ‘the way we planned.’
She heard the clatter of hoofbeats in
The courtyard down below,
And waved to him from the window
As she seized her portmanteau.

She quickly skipped down the staircase
Holding both her shoes in hand,
Trying to avoid the clatter as
She raced down to her man,
It only took but a moment then
To seat her on his horse,
And gallop out of the courtyard on
Their way to the watercourse.

A light appeared in an upper room
And they heard her father roar,
‘By God, you’ll pay for your insolence,
I told you once before.’
He’d promised her to a Banker’s clerk
Who had paid him for her hand,
Though she had said that it wouldn’t work,
She had bowed to his command.

But then the couple had plotted,
He was sworn to break her free,
‘If anyone is to marry, it
Will just be you to me.’
They headed down to the water where
The sloop, ‘The Esperance’,
Was waiting for their arrival
Before sailing off to France.

It took an hour to set the sails
And wait for the tide to turn,
They hid themselves below the deck
In a cabin at the stern,
But soon the thunder of hoofbeats said
They must have been found out,
For then they heard her father’s call,
‘It’s best that you come out,’

He ventured slowly out on the deck
To reason with the man,
Then saw the flash of the powder that
Was loaded in the pan,
The ball cut straight through his windpipe,
Left him sprawling on the deck,
While she was dragged from below, and screamed
‘All curses on your neck.’

He locked her into an attic room
And he wouldn’t let her out,
Though she would wail, and would scream at him,
And curse and yell, and shout,
She waited up till the early hours
Then she set her room alight,
The fire spread till they all were dead
From that single candlelight.

It sits as a blackened ruin now
With soot on the standing walls,
A testament to a daughter who
Refused to be overruled,
And still some nights when the moon is bright
There’s a whisper, close at hand,
‘I’ll come and collect you at midnight,
And we’ll leave, the way we planned.’

David Lewis Paget

I wake and prowl the house at night
And wander through the gloom,
The only light that streams are beams
Of silver from the Moon,
While every room is silent
And the passageways are dark,
There’s just one sound, the beating of
My misbegotten heart.

But no-one else is stirring
And the atmosphere is thick,
With dreams and ancient memories
From some old sailing ship,
They rise up from the midden of
A thousand journeys sailed,
That came to grief on some dread reef
As each one said, ‘You failed!’

And long-lost faces turn away
Before they’ll meet my stare,
I try to capture them again
And say, ‘I know you’re there!’
They shake their heads in silence and
Then drift into the night,
‘I know that I was wrong,’ I call,
They whisper back: ‘You’re right!’

So on then through the early hours
My vigil seeks the past,
Re-visiting each love I lost
As if it were the last,
And tears stream like some sad dream
Repeating: ‘Well, you know
Just why I turned away from you,
I really had to go.’

The years have mounted up, and now
Lie on me like a tomb,
Reflected in the silence of
This darkened, empty room,
And just as dawn is breaking I
Cry out, ‘I cared, you know!’
My voice, it echoes in the gloom,
‘Why do you hate me so?’

David Lewis Paget

When the sun sank low in the midday sky
And the clouds came in from the south,
He knew that the winter was coming in
And it made him down in the mouth.
With a hint of rain in the morning dew
The breeze cut in like a knife,
And he went to fetch the firewood in
For the sake of his invalid wife.

She sat and shivered before the hearth
When he opened the outer door,
As the wind whipped icily round her legs
A trail of leaves on the floor,
‘My love, be still, I’m lighting the fire
And you’ll soon be warm by the hearth.’
‘I fear it’s settling into my bones
And I’ll soon be deep in the earth.’

‘You’ll not get away so easily,’
He said, and gave her a smile,
‘We’ll settle this ague with bark and tea,
I’ll heat your bath in a while.’
‘I’d rather not leave the fireplace
While my thoughts are making me brood,
So put your spill to the wood fire, Will,
Then sit, and lighten my mood.’

He lit the fire and he made it roar
And he checked each draught, at last,
Jammed the rug right under the door
And he made the windows fast,
Then he sat and held his Helen’s hand
That was freezing to the touch,
And said, ‘Now winter’s sat on the land
I needn’t go out so much!’

She smiled, and ran a hand through his hair
And said that she loved him so,
‘Tell me a tale of foreign lands,
It will help the time to go.’
So he plucked a single hair from his head
And he said, ‘Each hair’s a tale!’
Then he told of sailors swinging the lead,
Of mariners under sail.

He told of pirates, walking the plank
Of treasure chests in the deep,
And saw that she was slumbering there,
Was slowly going to sleep,
He sat beside her all through the night,
Was piling wood on the fire,
And nodded off in the broad daylight
Right next to his heart’s desire.

The squalls came in, it began to rain
And the rain then turned to snow,
He only went out to chop some wood
And to make the cabin glow.
Each night he’d sit there, holding her hand
And he’d pluck a hair from his head,
‘Now here’s a tale from a northern land
Where the snow lies deep,’ he said.

He thought that she’d get better in time
And he brought her gruel and soup,
Fed her a tincture of laudanum
Made from the ***** group.
But she still sat listless, pale and wan
And she slept more than she woke,
Though he plucked a hair from his head each night
And he whispered as he spoke.

He spoke of the place that lovers go
Away from the world of cares,
Of bubbling springs, and diamond rings
And a love that everyone shares,
But the snow outside was packed in a drift
Right up and over the door,
He couldn’t get out for the firewood
But shivered, asleep on the floor.

He woke next day when the sky was grey
With the cold set deep in his bones,
And looked at his wife in a mute dismay
For he knew that he was alone.
The undertaker was there by ten
With a coffin as cold as ice,
And he wept as he plucked a hair from his head
And wished her in paradise.

They buried her down in the cemetery
Not far from their cabin home,
And every day he would make his way
To her headstone, on his own.
The snow had finally melted when
They found he was there, stone dead,
Draped all over her headstone, but
There wasn’t a hair on his head.

David Lewis Paget

He hadn’t lived in the world of men
Since he’d tossed his job, and quit,
He’d told his boss, ‘There’s no future here
And so, here’s an end of it!’
The grimy city was getting him down
And the noise was driving him spare,
So he said goodbye to the world of fumes
To head for the open air.

He found a tumbledown cottage that
Nobody seemed to own,
The roof was keeping the weather out
So he thought to call it home.
He cobbled together some furniture,
A bench and a rustic chair,
And sat in the shade of the eucalypts,
And bagged the occasional hare.

The cottage was back off an ancient track
Unsealed, and long out of use,
The nearest cottage a mile away
In a similar state of abuse,
The pioneers had been and gone
Leaving just these standing stones,
A testament to a rugged life,
They were now just piles of bones.

Though at first the silence suited him
It would give him time to think,
He would lie at night awake and cite
That the sky was made of ink,
An ink shot through with pinpricks so
That the stars came shining through,
And feel, as the Autumn dampness fell
On his face as morning dew.

But Autumn shivered to Winter and
It would rain and pour for days,
He’d look on out to the distance where
All he could see was haze,
He’d keep a fire in the ancient hearth
With wood, when it wasn’t wet,
And curse himself for short-sightedness
When it was, or he’d forget.

Then his hearing tuned to the many sounds
That he’d missed before in the bush,
The slightest sound of a twig that cracked
Or a breath of wind, at a push,
He heard the echo of silences
That whispered over the plains,
A spirit stirred that he’d never heard
Before, in his city pains.

But someone back in the world he’d known
Was worried that he had died,
And found the tumbledown cottage where
His friend was lying inside.
He wouldn’t answer his queries when
He spoke in a human voice,
Such sounds were strange to a mind that ranged
When given a different choice.

Then the doctors came to check on him
And the police turned up en masse,
They said, ‘We’re having to take him in,
He’ll harm himself at the last.’
But he raised one hand when they closed on him
In a manner distinctly odd,
And whispered ‘Hush! If you strain you just
Might hear the voice of God!’

David Lewis Paget

I sit in the silence of my room
And stare at the stucco walls,
From morning glare to the evening gloom
The coming despair appals,
For I know that it’s sneaking up on me
That memory of your face,
So cold and still in the evening chill
And pale, once you’d run your race.

You always gave me a joyful wave
And said you’d be there for me,
But what you gave from a shallow grave
Was only more misery.
You couldn’t reach out to hold my hand
As you did in the days before,
When once a kiss was the source of bliss
But of kissing, there was no more.

Your skin was an alabaster white
Once your blood had ceased to flow,
Where was the warmth when I held you tight
On those nights, so long ago?
And where the spark that shone at your eyes
From the recess of your soul?
It leaves the eyes when a lover dies
And the touch of the skin is cold.

But now you form on the stucco wall
And wave, like you waved to me,
Before you ran from the narrow hall
And out by the willow tree,
A car came leaping into the room
As it did, and it knocked you down,
It’s then I cradled you in my arms
Like a man who’s about to drown.

I see these visions, day after day
When I stare too long at the wall,
I cry and weep, and I get no sleep
When I dream of your funeral,
I reach right into the plaster where
I think I can touch your face,
But only can feel the stone cold wall
Of another time and place.

David Lewis Paget

I was sat in a Tavern in Pompey Town,
Sipping a tipple of ***,
When I watched a Jack make an axe attack,
Chop off his finger and thumb!

I couldn’t believe the blood that flowed
From the cut of that rusty blade,
But the barmaid Flo, said ‘You’ve done it, Joe,
Now look at the mess you’ve made!’

She cleaned it up with a swill of ale,
Walked off with the finger and thumb,
‘I’ll nail these up on the balustrade
With the rest that have been as dumb.’

But Joe sang out when he’d had a drink
‘It’s better than being a tar!
I spent three years, under the lash
On His Majesty’s Man o’ War.’

‘They ‘pressed me when I was still a kid
And treated me like a dog,
I suffered scurvy and couldn’t work,
The answer to that, was flog.’

‘They flogged me around the Southern Cape,
They flogged me a-ship and ashore,
Whenever I thought that I might escape
They dragged me onboard for more.’

‘And Cap’n Foggett’s abroad tonight
With his cut-throat parcel of rogues,
Impressing the able-bodied men,
They’re lining them up in droves.’

‘For Nelson’s lying abaft the lee
With barely a half a crew,
He needs more men for the ‘Victory’,
And that means me and you!’

‘In every tavern they’re moving in,
In every alley and quay,
At first they offer the King’s shilling,
To war with the enemy.’

‘But the Frenchies rake with the carronade
That will rip the flesh from your bones,
And the decks run red from the men who bled
Impressed from their wives and homes.’

‘They say he sails on the tide tonight
So they’re doing a quick Hot Press,
Even a gen’lman walking late
Won’t meet with their gentleness.’

‘A cudgel whack on a squire’s head
Then dragged to the bilges, free,
They’ll never know ‘til they all wake up
That they’re headed on out to sea.’

‘That Nelson’s got but a single arm,
He’s got but a single eye,
If that’s not enough to be alarmed
By God, then I wonder why!’

The Press Gang came to the Tavern door
But couldn’t come on inside,
They tried to sell me a Man o’ War
But Joe had made me decide.

I took a gulp of Jamaica ***
And I steeled myself to the task,
‘The Press are waiting outside,’ I cried,
‘Just hand me that rusty axe!’

David Lewis Paget

I was staring at the horizon on
A clear and balmy day,
The sky was blue and the sea a type
Of aquamarine in the bay,
There wasn’t a sign of storm or squall
Till the sunset turned dull red,
And then the sky, of a sudden turned
From blue to the grey of lead.

And you were stood there, Geraldine
With your collar turned up high,
You shivered once, then looked around
Took note of the darkening sky,
‘Is that a barque or a barquentine
I see ******* to the pier?’
And slowly, filtering into my view
Was a ship that wasn’t there.

It hadn’t been there all afternoon
It hadn’t sailed into the bay,
I’m sure that I would have noticed if
It was fifteen miles away,
But there it sat with its stays and sails
Reefed in and sitting becalmed,
But dark and ever so threatening
I was right to feel alarmed.

Then Geraldine ran along the pier,
I was trying to call her back,
When lightning lit the sky above
With a sudden tumultuous crack,
She turned just once and she called to me:
‘Don’t follow, it’s my fate!
The ship’s the Admiral Benbow,
I’m a hundred years too late.’

She ran, and her coat flew out behind
Like an ancient type of cape,
And on the deck of the barquentine
Were men, with mouths agape,
A single plank lay across the pier
And up to the wooden bow,
Which Geraldine clambered up to board
While I stood, and wondered how?

No sooner was she aboard, than then
The men gave up a cheer,
And she I saw in the arms of one,
A brigand privateer,
She waved just once, then she went below
To my ever present pain,
The love of my life, my Geraldine,
I never saw again.

The wind blew up and the rain came down
And the barque then raised its sails,
Was cast adrift in a heaving sea
In that coastal port of Wales,
And then I swear, the Captain came
To the bow, and then he leered,
And by the time that I turned around
That barque had disappeared.

David Lewis Paget

Someone said ‘look to the future
When you have a minute to spare,
For life is a force of nature,’
When I looked, it wasn’t there,
I thought I might see the lights on
But all I could see was dark,
The shutters were on the horizon
There wasn’t a single spark.

But there, back over my shoulder
Was the way that it always was,
When all that I’d ever told her
Was hurrying on to loss,
For love was a broken promise
That followed the same old round,
It failed when I was dishonest
And ended up broken down.

Then time had finally failed me
There wasn’t any to spare,
I’d used up all my allotment
To find there was nothing there,
I stood alone in a corridor
Leading to empty space,
Where far ahead was a mirror for
Reflecting the loss of grace.

There isn’t the time to start again
To mull over gross mistakes,
Making new vows when time allows,
There isn’t the time it takes,
We carry the burden of our fame
If it all amounts to dross,
And all of the failures in each name
Are carved on a headstone cross.

David Lewis Paget

I wish that we’d never found it now,
I wish that we’d stayed away,
Avoided the twisted mansion that
Was fashioned in Cromwell’s day,
But we were just a couple of lads
Out there, and having fun,
We wouldn’t have thought to change the world,
Nor hurt just anyone.

The place sat deep in a bluebell wood
Surrounded by a marsh,
I said, ‘Should we?’ and he said we should,
My friend was a little harsh,
We waded up to our knees out there
Until we reached the porch,
The rooms within were as dark as sin
Till Joe took out his torch.

The house had once been a splendid place
Though the floors were deep in mud,
Of fetes and ***** there was still a trace
Then the fields submerged in flood,
The house sank on its foundations then
No doubt, to cries and tears,
Its noble crew had deserted it
For all of two hundred years.

I raced my friend to the stairway that
Led up from the central hall,
Half of the rail had fallen away,
Was resting against the wall,
When up above in a tiny room
Stood a bureau, finely made,
Inlaid with delicate parquetry
That lay concealed in the shade.

But over the lintel of the door
Was the carving of a man,
His wings spread wide, with the sharpest claw,
He was from some evil clan,
His teeth protruded over his lip
And his eyes were fierce and black,
I caught at Joe and he almost tripped
But he shrugged, and turned his back.

And on the dust of the bureau lay
A long, fine feather quill,
I knew I shouldn’t disturb it there
But I thought, ‘I can, I will!’
And beside the quill was a manuscript
In an old and faded hand,
Calling for the death of a king
That I couldn’t understand.

I knew, I’d read in my history books
That a cruel, evil one,
A man called Oliver Cromwell had
Caused pain for everyone,
He’d raised a citizens’ army and
Had thought to **** the king,
But fell to the King’s Own Cavaliers,
Was beheaded in the spring.

I knew this, yet I still signed my name
With that awesome feather quill,
It seemed to have me so hypnotised
That I quite had lost my will,
So then when a roll of thunder shook
The house right through to the floor,
The man in black that was carved, alack,
Came bursting in through the door.

He snatched at the parchment manuscript
And let out a howl of glee,
Then screamed, ‘I’ve waited forever just
To play with your history.’
I know that you think the civil war
Took the head of a rightful King,
But how could I know the power of a quill
That could upturn everything?

David Lewis Paget

She stood in front of the mirror, staring
Combing her long dark hair,
A black cat jumped on her shoulder, purring
The Witch of Aberdare.
She took in the curve of her fulsome lips
And the dimple in each cheek,
‘Why can’t I find a lover for me?’
But the mirror didn’t speak.

She’d watched the girls from the village, keeping
Trysts with the ones they loved,
As hand in hand they kissed on meeting
Down in the darkening wood.
But nobody sought out Alison Gross
Where she stood by the wishing well,
Dropping her pennies in hopes that any
Would lure a man to her spell.

Her mother, Isabel Ingpen once
Had been ***** by Jonathon Dread,
But then had spelled by the wishing well,
Put him in a garden bed.
She’d witched him into a barren seed
But the evil in him came through,
Sprouted there as a deadly nightshade,
Tall, and blocking the view.

She told her Alison, on her honour
Her father had come and gone,
‘But better avoid the Belladonna
You don’t know where it’s from.’
She taught her all of the witchcraft rules
Of philtres, potions and spells,
‘But try to avoid the world of fools,
And men, who fancy themselves!’

But Alison had a disposition
For loving, though no-one saw,
The teacher who gave her impositions,
The boy who stood by the door,
The Baker’s lad and the Butcher’s boy
And the gardener, mowing the green,
But nothing would turn their heads her way
She was Alison Gross, unseen.

She sighed and cried as she cast her spells,
She wept as they sauntered by,
So deep in love with one another
And gazing up at the sky,
But Halloween was a day away
And Alison formed a plan,
‘I’ll weave my spells out in the heather,
I’m going to get me a man!’

The children were out, were trick and treating
As Alison took her broom,
She flew to the local witches meeting
At Heatherdale, under the Moon,
She looked at the other witches there,
So old, so sad and alone,
She swore before she was old as they
She wouldn’t be left a crone.

She slipped away and she left the coven
Then stripped off her hat and cloak,
She lifted the cauldron off the oven
Went down to the giant oak,
The young were dancing and dunking apples
She wandered into the throng,
And a young man said with his laughing eyes,
‘This is where you belong.’

He danced her under the Hunter’s Moon,
And he stole the witch’s heart,
She knew, without a potion or philtre
They’d never be far apart.
She holds a baby high on her hip
As she combs her curling hair,
And her lover stays, to trade her kisses
The Witch of Aberdare.

David Lewis Paget

She said, ‘Let’s go to the Devil Park,’
At noon, on a summer’s day,
I said, ‘We’d better go after dark,
They hide themselves away.
They only come out to feed at night
So that’s when you see them best,
By day, they never come out to play,
That’s when they get to rest.’

We packed the car and we took a torch,
A powerful, bright spotlight,
The only way we would see them there
On a dark and gloomy night,
We waited till it was just on dusk
Then finally hit the road,
The Park was seventy miles away
Or an hour, I’d been told.

The gate of the park was locked and barred
But we scaled and climbed across,
That’s when Giselle had torn her dress,
It was old, so no great loss,
We could hear the scrabbling and the screech
Of the small marsupials,
Grubbing around the park for food
And giving out grunts and squeals.

The torch lit up in a long wide arc
As we scanned across the ground,
The first one that we saw had roared
When it knew it had been found,
Its jaw was wide and its evil teeth
Could give you a nasty bite,
I wasn’t going to get too close
On that warm and sultry night.

We’d wandered round for an hour out there
Had seen groups of two’s and three’s,
And some that were more adventurous
We could see were climbing trees,
When out of the darkness came a voice
That was grating, cold and hard,
‘What do you think, by coming here
To spy in my own backyard?’

It made me start, for the torch wheeled round
To illuminate a stump,
And there a figure in shiny black
Was sat, and it made us jump,
The face was narrow and pointed, leered,
Was capped with a pair of horns,
While a long black tail with snake-like scales
Flicked up, like it meant to warn.

‘We came to see the marsupials,’
I stuttered, in my distress,
‘We meant no harm, but you just alarmed
Us both, in your fancy dress.’
‘You broke in here, but I see the fear
That I cause you, out in the dark,
What did you think you’d find out here,
You’ve come to the Devil’s Park.’

The Devil slowly uncurled himself
And he stood up, ten feet tall,
I saw his claws and his evil jaws
And his goat-like legs, and all,
‘You both may need to redeem yourselves
By paying your court to me,
I’ll make you the lord and lady of
All of the land you see.’

And suddenly all the park was lit
In a ghostly, evil glow,
He said, ‘I can give you all of it,
I have the power, you know.’
‘I think that you’ve tried that line before,’
I said, in a sudden shot,
‘And “get thee behind me Satan” was
The answer that you got.’

A flame curled out of the Devil’s mouth
As he opened up his jaw,
And fixed me with a piercing glare
As he beat his chest, to roar,
‘You’ll not escape, for I’ll cast my cape
To capture your sinful souls,
And when we meet, it will be a treat
In your seat of glowing coals.’

He threw his cape in a whirl until
It covered him like a shroud,
And then went up in a puff of smoke,
As Giselle cried out, aloud,
We raced on back and we scaled the gate
In a massive leap in the dark,
I said, ‘Don’t ever suggest again
We visit the Devil Park!’

David Lewis Paget

She plaited her hair in a love-knot,
And stared at the crystal ball,
Sat in the gloom of a curtained room
At the end of a dim-lit hall,
And ghostly images floated in
Constrained by the curve of the glass,
She tried to reach, but beyond the breach
She could only sigh, alas.

His face was reflected from the light
That shone on the crystal ball,
He turned his eyes, not once but twice
To peer, as she tried to call,
For tears rolled desperately down her cheeks
As she stared at him, and cried,
‘If only I’d stayed with you, my love,
If only I hadn’t lied.’

But he’d caught the lie on her blushing cheek,
And he’d turned in pain away,
Oh, what she’d give to just relive
That scene on a summer’s day,
The moment he knew her love was false
It ate away at his pride,
And what was reflected on his face
Now churned at her, inside.

Those present images in the ball
Gave way to a future spell,
And what was spawned from the present seed
Was reflected there, as well,
She saw him walk by a future love
Who was hid in her own doorway,
Who reached on out as he passed, to offer
Her lips, as he passed that way.

Then anger had her convulsed as he
Succumbed to that ****** kiss,
How could he turn to one so young
Had he had enough of this?
She seized a knife by the crystal ball
And ****** in the table top,
That future girl was a friend of hers
And she screamed at the image, ‘Stop!’

She rushed on out to her friend who sat
Alone in the dim-lit hall,
‘I’ve seen what you have planned, don’t set
Your eye at my lover, Paul.
He’s only gone for the moment now
But I know that he’ll be back,
He’s far too old for a girl like you,’
She had screamed in her attack.

‘Well, listen now to the woman who
Is calling the kettle black,
You’ll not be telling me what to do
For the loyalty you lack.
I’m well aware of the nights you spared
For another, now and then,
I have it straight from the horse’s mouth
That you slept with my lover, Ben.’

The friends now stared at each other, in
A look that you’d call aghast,
There’d be no room for a friendship now
That the truth was out, at last.
And back in the gloom of a curtained room
In the unwatched crystal ball,
There stood the two in a different view
With blood, in the dim-lit hall.

David Lewis Paget

When the King rode off to the old Crusades
He was leaving his Queen behind,
Safe in the hands of his former aids
He was coy, but he wasn’t blind.
He kept her locked in a chastity belt
And hid the key in his gaol,
Then swore the Gaoler to guard it well
Though the gaoler went quite pale.

How could he give a ‘No’ to a Queen,
Or ‘No’ to her favourite Earl,
So he perspired when the King retired
And travelled half round the world.
The Queen was troubled, she said it chafed
And demanded he give her the key,
‘But no, My Lady, I wouldn’t dare,
It would mean the end for me.’

‘Do you think he’ll even remember your face
By the time that he gets back home?
I’ll have you gutted, and then replaced
While he’s still out there to roam.
I’ll ask the headsman to bring his axe,
The hangman to bring his rope,
And six fine horses to tear you apart
If you think there’s a spark of hope.’

‘Your pardon, Lady, I gave my oath
And am bound by the King’s decree,
He swore I’d burn in a barrel of tar
If ever I give up the key.’
‘Then I shall boil you in oil,’ she said,
‘And strip the skin from your bones,
I’ll feed your fat to the pigs,’ she said,
‘And take delight in your moans.’

He sought protection from higher up,
The Earl had noticed his plight,
And said, ‘I’ll send you my personal guard
If you lend me the key one night.
I’ll guard it well, and you’ll get it back
When the sun comes up at dawn,
Not a word of this shall pass my lips
As I stand, an Earl has sworn.’

The gaoler gibbered in fear and grief
He could see his head on a spike,
‘I can’t conspire with your lord’s desire
No matter how much I’d like.
The key is hid in a secret place
That is only known to the King,
He hid it where there would be no trace,
It’s only a tiny thing.’

The Earl then sent his guards to the gaol
And they tore the place apart,
While searching for the chastity key
To settle his troubled heart.
The Queen sat in her apartments, on
A cushion of fine brocade,
It helped to ease where the belt had teased,
And hid where the Earl had played.

The key they found, hid under a slab
At the base of the dungeon door,
And soon the lovers were lain together
The chastity belt on the floor.
The months went by in a lovers sigh
Til the King and his knights rode back,
Their shields and helmets worn and dented
In Saladin’s fierce attack.

The Queen’s trim figure was rather big
When the key was put to the belt,
It’s hard to know what a King would show,
And harder to know what he felt.
But he burnt the Earl in a barrel of tar
And the gaoler did what he said,
He lowered the Queen in a barrel of oil
Til it bubbled up over her head.

David Lewis Paget

Back in the tiny town of Hamm
In a province best unknown,
Is an ancient sandstone prison tower
Where the grounds are overgrown.
The locals still in the town are few
Were wary of us at first,
But ventured out when they heard me shout
To tell me the tower was cursed.

‘Don’t venture there if you fear despair,’
They said in a foreign tongue,
Then slunk back, each to his rundown lair,
But we were too smart, and young.
‘They’re peasants, what would they know,’ said Kym,
‘They’re superstitious and fools,
We’ll test their funny old tower now.’
We should have played by their rules.

It was built in a grim and Gothic style
But had sadly been run down,
Hundreds of years of standing there
Put a torpor over the town.
The rusty railings, falling apart
Had never been breached by them,
The peasants whispered and looked away
In the manner of Holy men.

We made our way through the bushes, sedge
And weeds that grew in the grounds,
But then up close to the building saw
Some features that astound.
The walls had flying buttresses,
A door with a pointed arch,
And a gargoyle leering from above
Next to soldiers on the march.

We didn’t go in the first time there
But wandered around the site,
It was Kym who had the bright idea
We should go and explore by night.
I wish that we’d known its history
For that might have broken its spell,
I wouldn’t have sought its mystery,
And Kym would still be well.

We noticed an old Teutonic sign
Engraved, and above the door,
We couldn’t translate it at the time
It should have been done before;
Before we entered that cursèd place
And risking our sanity,
For I came out with a twisted face
Though Kym was worse than me.

The moon was casting a yellow glow
As we stood before that door,
Directly under the gargoyle that
Let out a fearful roar,
Then a stream of ectoplasm flowed
From its jaws, and down on Kym,
Covered her in this bluish light
And then, it dragged her in.

I followed, not that I had a choice
I was quite beyond control,
My legs did whatever they wanted to,
I had no choice at all.
Inside was a vaulted ceiling over
An old and blood-stained block,
And Kym was struggling, screaming,
As she was stretched across its top.

She glowed and glowed in this bluish light
Her neck was placed on the block,
And then a shimmering man appeared
I think I went into shock.
He held a shining scimitar sword
And he raised it up to strike,
And still I live that terrible scene,
Each and every night.

I saw it clearly pass right through
The base of Kym’s long neck,
And watched as this bluish head fell off
Went rolling along the deck.
But her head was there, was still in place
As I dragged her screaming out,
It was then I noticed my twisted face
That I can do nothing about.

They say that it’s called Bell’s Palsy, that
I must have suffered a shock,
The right hand side of my face is numb,
My eye and my mouth have dropped,
But Kym just utters the weirdest moans
As if blood was starved from her brain,
Her eyes astare at the horror there
I think she must be insane.

The last I saw of that evil tower
The gargoyle seemed to grin,
As if to say there is hell to pay
For those who might come right in.
And the screed engraved above the door
The letters were filled with lead,
‘You’ve come to the Tower of Grimm von Gore,
Enter, and lose your head!’

David Lewis Paget

There once was a tiny cupboard, where
We kept our groceries there,
Just enough room for two to squeeze
Inside, and under the stair,
And Karen would beckon me go to her
With just an arch of her brow,
She wouldn’t take no for an answer, but
Would say, ‘Just come to me now.’

Then I would go in and close the door
And feel her close in the gloom,
Her skirt would rustle, I’d feel her thighs
And would smell her sweet perfume,
She had such a sense of urgency
When she pulled me down to her breast,
But I would be telling old secrets to
Reveal what’s happening next.

But that was a million years ago,
It seemed the beginning of time,
When we were young, and I’d taste her tongue
Sweeter than strawberry wine,
Those nights were the nights of passion, but
Then nothing could really compare,
With the times when Karen called to me
To meet her under the stair.

But the years unfolded fatefully,
And Karen began to stray,
Her eyes that once had been more than wise
Would seem to have gone away,
She’d stare out into the distance to
Some place that I’d never been,
And when I’d ask her just where she went
She’d mutter, ‘What do you mean?’

I found her wandering down the road
Just down from St. Michael’s dome,
She looked at me, most piteously,
‘I don’t know how to get home.’
I took her hand and I led her back
Through the early morning frost,
And when we got to our gate, she said,
‘Oh God, I seem to be lost.’

The days ahead were a nightmare, she’d
Forget where she’d put the pans,
Then look at me like a stranger, when
I’d reach out, and hold her hands,
But worst of all, she would bring my tears
When she stood by the cupboard stair,
And say, ‘I seem to remember, but
Just what did we do in there?’

David Lewis Paget

He lived in a fine old country house
Befitting a man of means,
With everything a Victorian Squire
Could aspire to, in his dreams.
He owned four-fifths of a colliery
In the days when coal was gold,
And topped that up with a Brewery,
But the mean old man was cold.

For Benjamin John Fortescue ruled
His house like a would-be Earl,
His son had never felt welcome there
Since he’d married a country girl,
The mother had gone some years before
Who protected, in his youth,
But now, the **** of his father’s whims
The lad found out the truth.

He treated them like the servant class
Expected to fetch and bring,
But paid a pittance to keep them there,
His purse on a miser’s string,
‘I keep a fine roof over your heads
And you eat each day for free,’
He’d say, whenever they asked for gilt,
‘What more do you want from me?’

Their toddler Tim wore cast-off clothes
And was made to play outside,
‘I don’t want a ragamuffin’s mess,’
He’d say, till the mother cried.
‘You don’t seem to love your grandson,’ said
His son, his head in a whirl,
‘I would if he had some parentage,
But not from some country girl.’

As time went on there was something wrong
For the father suffered fits,
At first it would start with a seizure,
He would seem to lose his wits.
He’d lie for days in a sort of haze
And would scarcely draw a breath,
And Caroline would look hard it him,
‘It’s as if he’s caught in death!’

It happened enough to make him plan
Should the doctor be deceived,
‘I don’t want the fools to bury me
Alive, so I’m not retrieved.’
He bought a coffin with space inside
And a tube, out to the air,
With a little bell he could ring as well
If he found himself in there.

‘Be sure to follow instructions if
You think that I am dead,
Affix the bell to the tube as well
With a cord down to my head,
Then check the grave for a week or more
To see if the bell should ring,
Then hurry to dig me up, and I
Will give you anything.’

The day came that on the seventh fit
They could swear that he was dead,
‘There isn’t even a breath of air
And his eyes are up in his head.’
Three doctors came, and they all concurred
That his life was now extinct,
‘It had to happen,’ the couple heard,
‘He’s been living on the brink.’

They laid him out in his coffin, and
They fitted the tube to breathe,
Attached the bell, and the cord as well
Before they rose to leave,
But Timothy stayed to play that day
As he did, down in the Dell,
And a week went by till his mother cried:
‘Where did he get that bell?’

David Lewis Paget

When once we dived on the San Miguel
Off the coast of old Peru,
We little knew that under the swell
Was an Aztec treasure, too.
I scuba’d down, and the vessel lay
Tipped onto its starboard side,
And mostly covered in silt that day
That buried its Spanish pride.

The wreck had never been seen before
So my heart began to pound,
We’d found the ship we’d been looking for
Submerged, and under a mound,
While whisking some of the silt away
My eyes had caught a gleam,
The helmet of a Conquistador
Lay trapped, and under a beam.

But as the silt was dispersed I saw
That the helmet still was full,
For glaring out from beneath its brim
Was a fearsome human skull,
The skeleton was intact, and lay
Still trapped, where once he fell,
His legs were caught in a cannon bay
Of the fated San Miguel.

I had no time for the niceties
That I should have shown to him,
But seized the helmet from off his head
And I left him, looking grim,
I took it up to the surface as
The first of our spoils that day,
And told the crew that I claimed it,
It was mine, so come what may!

The treasure trove was incredible
Of jewels and gold moidores,
I didn’t think that my helmet would
Be missed, once taken ashore,
But in my mind was a picture that
I’d seen on the ocean bed,
Of that struggling, drowned Conquistador
And that helmet on his head.

I sat that helmet in pride of place
As a conversation piece,
Tricked it up with a piece of lace
Thanks to a helpful niece,
But then the sounds had begun at night
The clashing of steel on steel,
And shadows, moving in passageways
From something that wasn’t real.

One night, the door with a mighty crash
Fell into the passageway,
I must have been feeling more than rash
To venture toward the fray,
For standing there in the open door
Was a skeleton, with a sword,
Who slipped the helmet onto its head
Not saying a single word.

I watched it wade back into the sea
This pile of ancient bones,
And think I know where it’s sure to be
Back where it lay, alone,
It seeks its brother Conquistadors
Where each had perished as well,
Guarding the store of gold moidores
In the hold of the San Miguel.

David Lewis Paget

My first wife went with a guy called Bob,
The carpet cleaning guy,
The second left with a man called Rob,
She said I was far too shy,
The third, an exotic dancer, I
Had met dancing round a pole,
And she took off with a guy called Sly
With a band called ‘Rock ‘n Roll.’

I never seemed able to keep them
Once I’d signed on the dotted line,
For everything in my bank account
Would suddenly be, ‘That’s mine!’
They’d take the house and they’d take the car
And they’d take my only suit,
The one that I had married them in,
(I’ve never been that astute!).

So I swore off women and wedding bells,
And lived in a boarding house,
I thought I’d keep myself to myself,
Was quiet as any mouse,
The landlady was a tall ash-blonde
Who would prowl outside my door,
At ten each night she would want to fight,
‘Come wrestle me on the floor!’

She’d married a German Wrestler,
Whose name was ‘Attack-Me Karl’,
He’d watch for tenants, flirting his wife,
And then you would hear him snarl,
So I’d keep the lock on my door up-tight
When his wife tapped on my door,
‘I’m not going to let you in tonight
While Attack-Me Karl’s abroad!’

I met Elaine in the common room
Where she made me toast and tea,
She’d wait ‘til it was quiet as a tomb,
Come over and sit by me,
She said that I fascinated her,
For I’d not even made a pass,
And Sundays, she would follow me out
Sprawl next to me on the grass.

She told me she was free as a bird,
Was anyone’s there to choose,
She’d drop her top while sunning herself
While I stayed lost in my muse.
She said divorce was a terrible thing
That marriage was sanctified,
I told her I’d not marry again
And she lay on the grass, and cried.

I moved to live in a river flat
And she moved right in with me,
I said, ‘You come and go as you please,’
And gave her a duplicate key.
We’ve lived together for twenty years
And she’s never looked at a man,
But marriage has never been on the cards,
It’s not been part of the plan.

She stays because she can walk away,
She stays because she is free,
She says she’d love to be married again,
While I say, ‘Not to me!’
I think that women are too perverse
To be held to an altar vow,
She has no genuine hold on me
Though I love her, even now!’

David Lewis Paget

They moved right in to the house next door
To our great regret, and pain,
It sounded as if they’d gone to war
Or the two were quite insane,
We should have kept right away from them
But did the neighbourly bit,
Went over and introduced ourselves
And watched them hiss and spit.

They couldn’t seem to control themselves
Not even in front of us,
If Jill had spoken to me like that
I’d have pushed her under a bus.
And if I’d shown her the same contempt
That Ray had shown to Liz,
She’d fly at me with a kitchen knife
Because that’s the way it is.

We left them there and we went back home
But appalled, with eyebrows raised,
‘Thank god that we’re not like them,’ we said,
Our relationship we praised,
They never stopped, we could hear them both
As they each tore each apart,
‘Why do they stay together that way?
It’s not an affair of the heart.’

We found that we had to go to them
On a crisp, September night,
They asked us both to adjudicate
After a terrible fight,
So I sat down with Liz, and Jill
Sat listening to Ray,
And after we got back home again
We had different things to say.

‘That Ray is the monster of the two,’
I said, ‘for he’s always wrong,’
‘That Liz is a shrew, I’m telling you,’
Said Jill as she sang his song.
We couldn’t agree on anything,
We even began to fight,
We had to agree to disagree
As I slept on the couch that night.

Then Jill took to walking in the park
With Ray as the nights wore on,
While I sat with Liz, here, in the dark,
And hugged her, while they were gone,
But never a word amiss was said,
You wouldn’t believe it true,
‘For Ray is a perfect gentleman,’
Said Jill, ‘and nicer than you.’

‘Well, Liz would have been my heart’s desire,
If I’d only met her first,’
The terrible jibes were steel and fire,
It seemed that we both were cursed,
And then came the day Jill ran away,
With Ray, and I slept with Liz,
I said that I’d love her every day
For that is the way it is.

A year went by and I saw Jill cry
When we met at night in the dark,
And I was miserable too, I sighed,
To Jill in the midnight park,
‘What happened to our relationship,
We seem to have come off worse,’
‘They’re both as bad as each other, Jill,
Meeting them was a curse.’

But there was never a going back
To capture what we had lost,
We’d been the tools of a pair of fools
And now were paying the cost,
For Liz flings terrible barbs at me
While Ray tears Jill apart,
We pay the price, and it isn’t nice,
It’s not an affair of the heart.

David Lewis Paget

It was always a hassle on Fridays
To sort my weekends out,
If Angela said, ‘Those are my days,’
Then it left me in no doubt.
I would have to travel to Moira,
Come up with a good excuse,
‘I couldn’t drive to the north, my dear,
I have a wheel bearing loose!’

So I’d have to put the car on a jack
And then unscrew the wheel,
Take my time in putting it back
I had to make it real.
Then Monday kissing her and the kids
A fond and a long goodbye,
‘Make sure you wear your bicycle lids,
I’ll see you, bye and bye.’

And Angela would welcome me home
She’d had a rough weekend,
She’d taken the kids to their grandma’s, then
Had tended a sickly friend.
We had three days to rumple the bed
Until I had to go,
Arriving back at Moira’s, just in time
To take in a show.

It wasn’t a set routine because
It varied from week to week,
Angela was the stay-at-home,
Moira the dancing freak,
I’d married Angey at twenty-one
For she loved to stay at home,
And Moira, wed just five years on
Who always wanted to roam.

I managed to keep the two apart
And I led a varied life,
A quiet romp with the stay-at-home,
A fling with my roaming wife,
But the kids had come, with three for one,
And two for the other half,
And what once seemed the perfect dream
Became an ironic laugh.

Lucky I had a well-paid job,
Lucky I held it down,
Keeping the one a stay-at-home
While the other raged in town,
I thought I must be the only one
To have complicated my life,
But that was until a man called Bill
Spoke of his second wife.

He must have been drunk, he said he was
Or he wouldn’t have said a thing,
He said that it only started off
As a mad, misguided fling,
He’d met the first in a ladies bar,
And she’d gone to his lonely bed,
It became a loose, irregular thing
And before he knew, was wed.

She always wanted to gad about,
She never would stay at home,
He got so sick of the nightclub clique
That he lost the will to roam.
He met another who liked to sit
And cuddle up by his side,
And in a moment of madness then
She became his second bride.

‘It seems to work, but it’s hard to plan
For they both have days away,
I have to coordinate my time
With the one that’s free that day.’
‘The same with me, I’m never free,
I haven’t sufficient time,
When I want a quiet night at home
She wants to dance the line.’

A week went by since our talk, and I
Was sat in the Scarlet Lounge,
Waiting for Moira to come by
When I spotted Bill with Ange!
They walked right by, and I heard a sigh
As Bill saw Moira Freeze,
I hid behind a pillar as Ange
Went off by herself to sneeze.

I waited till she was on her own
Then went and confronted Ange,
‘What are you doing here, my dear,
Here in the Scarlet Lounge?
You always wanted to stay at home
Are you on your own out here?’
While Bill on the other side of the lounge
Was questioning Moira dear.

So Moira was Bill’s quiet one
While she led me quite a dance,
And Ange, who was my stay-at-home
Was going with him to prance!
We thought that we were the bigamists
But it’s left us in some doubt,
We think that they may be trigamists
On the days that we’re both shut out!

David Lewis Paget

‘There’s a crafty witch in Willow Vale
Putting spells on all the men,
She lures them out with a lurid tale
Of what they might miss, and then…
She chews them up and she spits them out
And they go home looking pale,
She just wants to prove to fretful wives
That she governs all things male.’

Pamela stood in the door and paused
And she looked direct at me,
‘If you should fall for her witches charms
You can go, I’ll set you free!
I’ll not take seconds from lovesick men
Who come when the witch is through,
You’ll not come in through my door again,
That’s right, I’m looking at you!’

So I threw my hands up in the air
And I said, ‘Why pick on me?
Have I so much looked at a scheming witch
When she’s up to her deviltry?’
‘That may be true but your time is due
You’re the last one in the Glen,
She’ll get to you when she sees you’re new
For a perfect score of ten.’

‘I promise Pamela, I’ll be true,’
But she said to call it quits,
‘An easy promise that you can’t keep
Is a lie upon your lips.’
Then I got mad and I said I’d had
Being judged up front, was lame,
I said I’d travel to Willow Vale
Play the witch at her own game.

‘Well just remember that if you do
A touch is all it will take,
A simple kiss that will bring you bliss
That would be your first mistake.
Don’t think you might get away with it
For I have my little spies,
I even know how the spell will grow
If you look deep into her eyes.’

So I set off for the witch’s haunt
In a cottage, in the vale,
And hearing Pamela’s final taunt
‘You won’t live to tell the tale!’
I pursed my lips, and gritted my teeth
As I knocked on the witch’s door,
It swung out wide, to show her sat
By a cauldron on the floor.

She didn’t even look up at me
She was sorcering a spell,
Dropping roots in the cauldron there
And muttering as they fell,
Her hair fell over her shoulders and
Her face was in the shade,
And then she stopped and she looked at me
‘Did you come here to get laid?’

I blushed and stammered and caught my breath,
This wasn’t going well,
My blood was running as cold as death
As I fell beneath her spell.
She’d painted her lips and eyelids black
And her fingernails like claws,
She said, ‘I’m ready to claw your back
You need only say, ‘I’m yours!’’

Her dress she slid up above her knees
To reveal her silken thighs,
Her bodice open, she leaned right back
And I had to shut my eyes.
‘I came to tell you you’re not for me,
That you weave your spells in vain,
I have a love that is true, you see
I don’t need to play your game.’

She bounded up to her feet and cried
‘A kiss for a lonely witch!
I’m only asking a single kiss,
What could be wrong with this?’
I shook my head and I turned to go,
And I reached for the cottage door,
Then the wig came off and I heard her laugh,
And there lay Pam, on the floor!

David Lewis Paget