It was Black Dog Night at the station,
With a Black Dog caught in my hair,
There were too many owls, there were shrieks and howls
There was too much intolerance there.

There were tales floating out and forgotten,
There were stories that claimed to be hype
There were nightmare things with handfuls of rings
There were things too awful to type.

There were nasties a-float in the darkness,
There were Gorgons, that looked for a fight,
There were these and more, and Griffins of yore
That gave any sentence respite.

In the dark, I could hear the farmer scream
He’d just cut the throat of his wife,
But the low of the cattle had masked her death rattle
And the slash-slash-slash of his knife.

There were monsters that sat on my keyboard,
They were growling, and screamed ‘Let me in!’
But I pushed them away, and I cried ‘Not today,’
They were creeping right under my skin.

Then a voice echoed up from the valley
Where the darkest of dreams lay at rest,
‘You may type in the grail at the end of my tale
If you’re sure that Milady is dressed.’

The night came and flew in the window,
To block all the plots I had kept,
It’s the Black Dog way, no story today
For the rest of the night, barely slept.

It was Black Dog Night at the station
With the rails outside rusted through,
But the Ghost Train came in the mist and the rain
With a story, at last, that was true!

David Lewis Paget

‘Why do you colour your lips so black,
Darken your piercing eyes,
What are you hiding behind your back,
Have you been telling me lies?
Why are you wearing those knee length boots,
Pulling that cloak round, tight,
Where are you going, under the Moon,
Where will you be tonight?

Christabel grimaced but wouldn’t reply,
She turned, with her hand on the door,
Gazing right through me, I’d thought that she knew me
But there was no love like before.
Her brows, they were furrowed, her eyes hard as glass,
Her lips they were pursed in contempt,
I should have left then when she’d put down the pen
But I didn’t know then what it meant.

I knew she was moody, I knew she was dark,
She’d flutter round blind, like a moth,
She always wore black, even out in the park,
They warned me, they said ‘She’s a Goth!’
I’d found her entrancing at first, I admit,
I tried to get into her mind,
But once in those raveling tunnels of darkness
The deepest of thoughts were unkind.

I picked up the note she left ******* on the floor
The moment she left for the night,
‘I have to see Jack,’ she had scribbled, ‘That’s that!’
I must put my nightmares to flight.’
I knew there was darkness and heartache to come,
She’d promised him plenty of strife,
But then I’d jumped in to his bucket of sin
As I thought she was out of his life.

I asked her at first was she over him yet,
And yes, she assured me she was,
But surely his name wouldn’t drive her insane
If it wasn’t a question of loss!
A terrible feeling came over me then,
I needed to know where she went,
So headed on out to where Jack hung about,
I shouldn’t have gone, I repent.

I saw through the window the angel of death
Her cloak streaming out, like a moth,
And he in the corner, not catching his breath
His throat in the grip of a Goth!
I tried to burst in but the door was deadlocked,
I saw the knife raised in her fist,
Then plunge, and a scream like some terrible dream,
For just as he died, she had kissed!

She came out toward me but covered in blood,
On hands, on her lips and her face,
While I backed away, I had nothing to say,
But,‘Heaven above, lend me grace!’
She ran away, stumbling, on through the dark
But she’d not seen her nightmares off,
I found she was hung on a light in the park,
In her mouth was a fluttering moth.

David Lewis Paget

I wanted to write an amazing piece
That was like a sock on the jaw,
A classical piece like the Golden Fleece
In the Gothic form of yore,
But every time I am caught in rhyme
In the telling of every story,
And then it would have to be dark and bleak
With an ending that was gory.

The heroine would be bludgeoned down
By the boyfriend, who was jealous,
He’d always proclaimed that his love for her
Was pure, and clean, and zealous.
But came the day that she looked the way
Of a ripe and young Adonis,
The boyfriend knew, and his anger grew,
He was violent, to be honest.

The rhyme and rhythm would lead me on
To describe the blood in puddles,
Seeping out of her auburn hair
While his mind was full of muddles.
He saw the blood on the iron bar
That he held, he must have hit her,
But couldn’t remember the fatal strike
And the thought just made him bitter.

Where could you go with a tale like that
Except to the judge and jury?
He put it down to the wine imbibed
And brought on the judge’s fury.
He watched him put on the hanging cap
And he knew just what he’d got,
So pulled the gun from its hiding place
And that’s how the judge was shot.

I’d like to say he was on the run
But a tale like that’s suspicious,
How would he vault the wooden dock
In a place that’s so judicious?
The sergeant actually gunned him down
To lie on the courtroom floor,
A pool would spread as he lay there dead,
Stretched out in his blood and gore.

And that’s where we’ll have to leave it now
For lack of a decent ending,
It wasn’t such an amazing piece
And I know it’s needed mending.
But rhyme and metre has bogged me down
To give a twist to my story,
I’ll try to do better next time around
With a tale that’s not so hoary.

David Lewis Paget

The night outside was a solid mist
You couldn’t see past three feet,
Or so she thought, the Telephonist
As she came back in from the street.
There was no point following Jill and Tim
For the mist had swallowed them up,
They’d wandered out for a drink before
To head for the ‘Stirrup Cup’.

So Caryn finally went inside
And stood by the lounge room door,
There was blood, red blood on the candlestick,
There was blood, red blood on the floor,
She opened her mouth and she tried to scream
But couldn’t begin to shout,
She seemed to be locked in a crazy dream
And the folk in the house were out.

There wasn’t a body that she could see
But chills ran over her spine,
She wondered about her sister, Jill,
Then thought, ‘I’m sure she’s fine!’
But Tim, now there was a moody man
And his anger knew no bounds,
She’d hidden from him in her room before
When he’d stomped the house and grounds.

She staggered into the street again
There must be someone to call,
She felt her way through the garden gate
There was blood, red blood on the wall,
And a trail of blood lay under her feet
That led to the ‘Stirrup Cup’,
She felt the gorge rise up in her throat,
She was close to throwing up.

She felt her way through the evening mist
Stuck close to the kerb as well,
There was blood all over the bailiwick
As she called her sister’s cell,
It rang and rang ‘til it rang right out
And Caryn let out a moan,
But then a text on her tiny screen
That said one word, ‘Alone!’

She felt so faint that she stumbled then
Her head was a pounding wreck,
There was blood, red blood in her auburn hair,
There was blood on her cheek and neck,
She seemed to glide to the further wall
And caught herself looking down,
Down to the blood where her body lay
All crumpled, there on the ground.

And Jill and Tim found her lying there
As they walked by a stranded bus,
‘Oh God, it’s Caryn, my sister, Tim,
She must have been following us!’
They called the Police and they got back home
To find the blood on the wall,
There was blood, red blood on the candlestick
And blood all over the hall.

While Caryn drifts in a nightly mist
That you can’t see past three feet,
She used to be a Telephonist
But now she’s lost in the street.
Wherever she turns there’s blood, red blood
But she can’t believe it’s hers,
She seems to be locked in a crazy dream
Of a never ending curse!

David Lewis Paget

She’d gone on her own to the party,
But sadly, for she was alone,
Her partner had left her in limbo,
Had not even said he was going.
A month had gone by, with never a word
And nothing to say why he’d gone,
She looked in the mirror for why she was spurned
But life, as it does, carries on.

Nothing had changed in her that she could see,
She still had her beautiful hair,
Her lips were as full as they ever could be,
Her eyes had that hypnotic stare.
Her figure was slim, and as firm as it was
When her partner decided to leave,
If there was a problem, it had to be him,
Which left her no reason to grieve.

The party she went to was stranger than strange,
With Bogans, Goth make-up and Greens,
She guessed that their ages for most of them ranged
From middle-aged matrons to teens.
A pair of Goth sisters were eyeing her off
And flattering her, to deceive,
‘My, there is a beauty, the best of the lot,
I’d fit her, I think, with a squeeze.’

They twittered and tittered between them, the two,
Whose beauty had long gone to seed,
Whatever they’d had, it was plain that it flew
When excess took over from need.
They fed her with drinks and exotic confects
That she hardly liked to refuse,
Her hold on the present was slight, I reflect,
Her sadness was yesterday’s news.

The ugliest sister, whose name was July,
Rolled in like a mist to her brain,
The cunning of eyes and a whispered surprise
Made her think she was going insane.
She felt herself ebbing, and losing control
As July held her hands in her own,
And then somehow gelling with tissues and cells in
Some fatness that she’d never known.

She watched through a mist as the girl she had been
Laughed loudly, and then turned away,
Embracing the sister, that other unclean,
‘We’ll get you one, some other day!’
Her body felt loose, like an oversize suit
And her lips could but slobber and cry,
‘What have they done to my beautiful youth,’
As she turned to a mirror, to cry.

David Lewis Paget

She lived in a cottage, made with bones
Her garden, ringed by teeth,
All from the shipwrecked sailors floating
In from the hidden reef,
You couldn’t see when the tide was high
But the rocks lay down, and tore,
Down where the tide swept in the keels
That had sailed too close to shore.

The bodies were floating in for days
When the storm would calm, abate,
Bloodied and torn, their sailor ways
Were left to unfeeling fate,
The crows would gather and crowd the beach
As they ripped each corpse to shreds,
Tearing the flesh regardless, whether
The man was alive, or dead.

The beach turned into a boneyard, under
A blue and perfect sky,
With nobody willing to ask it,
The obvious question, ‘Why?’
But she in the boneyard cottage knew
When she harvested the beach,
For every ship, as her cottage grew
Left the bones, so white and bleached.

And there on the hearth of the kitchen lay
A skull that had been her own,
The one true love of her darling years
Who had promised to build their home,
He denied her plea and had gone to sea,
Was caught in a sudden storm,
Came rolling over the reef one day
With blood on his uniform.

And now, whenever a distant sail
Appears from near or far,
She runs on out to the bluff and screams
To God, ‘Wherever you are.’
She summons up from the depths a storm
With wind and a blinding rain,
And giant rollers that head for shore
That carry her lover’s pain.

It’s then that the skull on the hearth lights up,
A glow from its empty eyes,
And then a terrible screaming from
A mouth, that had once been sighs,
She knows he wants her to save the ship
She’s luring onto the rocks,
But whispers a curse at the fatal rip
‘On all dead men, a pox!’

David Lewis Paget

She stood and she watched as the storm came in
With the wreck of the Unicorn,
Its forward cabins under the swell,
Its masts so high and forlorn,
Her sailors dashed on the wicked rocks
To colour the blood-red foam,
‘Oh where, oh where is my sister Kate,’
She cried with a blood-red moan.

I reached on out and I spread the shawl
To cover her auburn hair,
The wind and rain in our faces as
I stood by the wall, with Claire,
The wreck was merely a hundred yards,
Was foundering near the shore,
With not a single man on the spars
Where the sail had billowed before.

We heard the bowsprit grind on the rocks,
The rudder tear from the post,
And Claire gave out the cry of the lost
To call for the customs boat,
The waves came thundering onto the shore
Flung spindrift high in the air,
Its mist obscured what the waves had lured
To drift in a mute despair.

‘How may I save my sister Kate,’ she cried,
But I couldn’t tell,
The Unicorn was coming apart
Was bound on its trip to hell,
And Kate by locking her cabin door
To keep out the surging sea,
Had forged herself a coffin before
The schooner had ceased to be.

We found her there in the flooded room
With the wreck cast up on the shore,
The moment the storm had shed its gloom
And the sun shone bright once more,
With gentle currents making her sway
And seaweed caught in her hair,
She held a locket her sister gave
With the line, ‘Bon voyage, Claire.’

David Lewis Paget

He’d always been a schoolyard bully,
You want to know the truth,
He picked on those too young and silly
To stand up to the youth,
He’d ducked the boys in the village pond
And he hurt the girls as well,
And had a tattoo on his chest,
‘Born for Raising Hell!’

He didn’t learn, he was much too dumb,
He didn’t see the need,
He couldn’t tackle a simple sum
Or spell, or write or read,
But he thought the world had owed him some
So he took it, when he could,
And robbed his innocent victims by
Wearing the coward’s hood.

The police would carry him into court
And the judge would let him go,
‘He’s had a difficult childhood, so
We must be fair, you know!’
And he would laugh when he got outside
And steal the nearest car,
He thought that he was invincible,
Some sort of rising star.

He’d hang with others as dumb as him
Who lived by a borrowed creed,
Adopt a type of a uniform
By growing an ugly beard,
They’d take the gifts of the welfare state
And would swear to tear it down,
‘The time will come that we change the laws
When our army comes to town!’

He tamed a silly, submissive girl
And he beat her black and blue,
Then made her cover from head to foot
So her bruises didn’t show,
He taught her to be subservient
To fulfil his every need,
And quoted God, with an iron rod
‘‘Obey’ shall be your creed!’

He went to fight in a foreign war
And at first they held their ground,
They slaughtered populations to
Strike fear, in every town,
But a barbarous army like their own
Appeared, and refused to yield,
And he was taken a prisoner
Out there, in a foreign field.

He thought he was going to lose his head
As he’d taken heads, before,
But they were a little more barbarous
In the way that they fought the war,
‘We’re sending you back to meet your friends,
But you won’t have time to yell…’
Then strapped him onto a missile,
‘There you go… Go Raising Hell!’

David Lewis Paget

She asked me how she had come to me
On a sunny afternoon,
She couldn’t remember anything,
Her memories had flown.
She looked in awe at the dress she wore
And the sparkles on her shoes,
‘I didn’t have any of these before,
But what have I got to lose?’

I had her in mind for a Faery Queen
Or maybe a party girl,
I hadn’t a plot to fit right then
But thought I’d give her a whirl.
She had such grace and a lovely face
So I thought she’d fit right in,
And later, plenty of colour for
My lepidoptera tin.

She flittered and fluttered about the field
While I got my butterfly net,
She’d probably still be fluttering
If I hadn’t caught her yet.
But that’s how I catch my characters
That I fit in every plot,
I chase them round and I bring them down
Whether they want, or not.

The women are always butterflies,
The men are usually moths,
I struggle to keep the women sweet
But sometimes they are Goths.
As long as they play their part so well
That the reader doesn’t twig,
That all my casts are butterflies,
The small parts and the big.

For villains I use the Death’s Head Moth
For his markings are so grim,
But the innocent girls in chiffon are
The first to let him in,
He’s mean and cunning, and not so sweet
As the ones he seeks to fool,
But I am only the writer, so
Their conflict is my gruel.

I need to go where the sun is bright
And they flutter in the breeze,
To hold my butterfly net upright
And pursue them through the trees.
Then one day soon in the afternoon
I shall write a plot that sings,
And catch me a lepidoptera,
The one with the brightest wings!

David Lewis Paget

The lighthouse at Le Cap de Grace
Was damp and dark at best,
The rain would sweep in from the south,
The wind rage from the west,
But nature’s torments could not match
The storms that formed within,
For deep inside its battered walls
Were palls of mortal sin.

Two lighthouse keepers kept the light,
Both Jon and Jacques De Vaux,
They tended to the light above
While she would wait below,
The dusky, husky buxom witch
With lips of honey dew,
Who loved the lighthouse keepers,
Not just one, but even two.

Below was but a single bed,
She said that they must share,
They watched her eagerly each night
Her tend and brush her hair,
For then she would turn round to them
And indicate her choice,
She’d merely point at one of them,
Not even use her voice.

And then the chosen one would smile
His brother often curse,
For he would share her bed that night
The other fare much worse,
For he would lie inside the store
On coils of hempen rope,
And lie awake and listening,
No sound would give him hope.

But often she would cry aloud
In passion through the night,
While Jon or Jacques would stop his ears
And think, ‘It’s just not right.’
But she ruled this *******
With silken hand and glove,
And they would never question it
While working up above.

She only ever favoured each
For just a single night,
She knew to show a favourite
Would seem to them like spite,
And thus the nightly balance kept
Their tempers both in check,
She fed on their desires, and they
In turn showed her respect.

The winter storms came in to stay,
The waves beat down below,
The wind beat at the lighthouse glass
And one would have to go,
Above to guard that precious light
To keep the ships from harm,
But who would go aloft would cause
The brothers both alarm.

For he who stayed would taste the charms
Of Elspeth for that night,
It might not be his turn, and that
They both thought wasn’t right,
A rising tide of anger fed
By storms and mute dismay,
Turned brother against brother when
One had to go away.

One night the light went out, and Jon
Said, ‘Jacques, go up above,
Your turn it is to light the light
While I stay with our love.’
But Jacques refused his brother’s plea
And said, ‘No, you can go,
You had the bed of love last night,
I’m staying down below.’

The night was dark and moonless and
There wasn’t any light,
While out there in the darkness rode
A freighter in the night,
It drove up on the reef, its bow
Then battered in their door,
And pinned their husky, dusky witch
In blood pools on the floor.

The lighthouse at Le Cap de Grace
Is damp and dark at best,
The rain will sweep in from the south,
The wind rage from the west,
Two lighthouse keepers keep the light
And share the only bed,
The half love that they long for now
Is well and truly dead.

David Lewis Paget

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Lewis Paget

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Lewis Paget

It was just on the stroke of midnight,
I was going to go to bed,
But I had to pass by Charlie’s room
So I hung back there, instead,
I could hear the rattle of drums that came
From under his bedroom door,
And then the sound of a French ‘Huzzah!’
From a Napoleonic war.

I thought, ‘He’s at it again, he’s got
The Frenchies marching east,
He’s going to Borodino, where
He’s got a chance, at least,
He’s leading the French Grand Armée
As Napoleon did before,
But I couldn’t get in to stop him, as
He’d locked his bedroom door.

I shook my head and I went to bed,
There was no point hanging round,
For Charlie, he’d be up all night
‘Til the Armée went to ground,
By dawn he’d have them dragging back
From the Russian ice and snow,
And wouldn’t be fit to go to school
‘Til he’d had a sleep, you know.

He wasn’t a kid like other kids
He wouldn’t play with a phone,
He didn’t get into computer games
But he spent his time alone.
He didn’t make friends so easily
For he never went out to play,
But stuck his head in a history book
And would read and read all day.

They said he must have been gifted in
Some strange, abnormal way,
He used his imagination for
The games he wanted to play,
His mind reached back to another time
Where the personae were dead,
And brought them back for a second chance
On the counterpane of his bed.

I caught a glimpse of the action once
In a crack through his bedroom door,
A galleon moored in a harbour by
An armed Conquistador,
He saw me there and he slammed the door
And he said, ‘Don’t interfere!
I’m trying to raise the English Fleet
And I can’t if you’re standing there!’

His mother took him to town one day
To see a psychologist,
Who said, ‘He lives in a world of his own,
I think he’s really blessed.
We all grow out of our childish ways
And I think he’ll be the same.’
He thought it was all in Charlie’s head
‘Til the day that ‘Little Boy’ came.

He’d read and read of the second war
For a month until that day,
When I heard the aircraft engines I
Just knew, the ‘Enola Gay’,
I beat and beat upon Charlie’s door,
Broke out in a cold, cold sweat,
But the plane took off, and I grabbed the wife
And we’d still be running yet.

We were out in the road when the roof blew off
With a mighty blast and roar,
And the mushroom cloud was curling up
While we lay, flat out on the floor,
Charlie had gone from our lives for good
With his gift, and his bag of tricks,
Hard to believe that he had the power,
For Charlie was only six!

David Lewis Paget

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

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

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

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

David Lewis Paget

He pondered over the note he wrote,
Sat hunched and cold in his chair,
He nodded once as he read it then
And signed the bottom with flair,
The house was not even stirring then
As he rose, looked out at the sea,
It said, ‘By the time you see this, Jen,
I’ll be hanging from some old tree.’

Then he slipped on out to the breaking day
As the dawn was beginning to spread,
He should have been further along than this,
By now, he should have been dead.
He’d heard them stir in the attic room
When he’d come in late from the bay,
His wife and a lifelong friend of his
Who’d thought he was still away.

He’d heard the sound of them making love
As he crept to the attic door,
His face turned white in the passage light
As he sank to the passage floor.
The tears had welled at his eyes at last
As he crept back down the stairs,
He’d lost a friend and his woman, Jen,
And the love that he thought was theirs.

He wandered over the grassland there
To the woods at the edge of the cliff,
But not forgetting to take the coil
Of rope, he held at his hip.
He wondered how many times they’d met
While he was away at sea,
And laughed, the minute his back was turned
To leave him no dignity.

Then pictures rose in his troubled mind
That he shouldn’t have had to think,
He cursed himself, for he must be blind
When his friend had tipped her a wink,
The pain was really too much to bear
For he’d lost not one, but two,
He’d loved them both, she’d broken her oath
And his friend had betrayed him too.

He found a tree, hung over the cliff
That was old and gnarled and bent,
With a sturdy branch that would do the trick,
It was too late to relent.
He flung the rope and he made it fast
Then fashioned the hangman’s knot,
It would swing him out and over the sea
And send him where time forgot.

He tugged on the rope to test the branch
To see if it took his weight,
Dropped the loop down over his head
When a voice cried out, ‘Just wait!’
He turned to see his Jen on the path
That ran alongside the cliff,
‘What are you doing, my love, my love,
Is my love worth less than this?’

She said she’d gone for a walk that night,
Hadn’t been able to sleep,
‘Your friend is up in the attic room
With a woman from Warley Heath.
He only met her a week ago,’
She said, ‘and borrowed the bed.
He said that you wouldn’t mind, but I
Wasn’t impressed,’ she said.

He pulled the rope from over his head
And he hugged his woman tight,
‘I’m such a fool, but I thought that you
And he… It was such a fright!’
The sun beamed down and it seemed to say
That a love so strong was rare,
While a gnarled old tree drooped over the sea
With its rope, still hanging there.

David Lewis Paget

The castle was smaller than I’d thought
In the Scottish countryside,
It sat in a hollow called Claymore Court
Where all the defenders died,
The signs of cannon, pounding the towers
Were there in the crumbled walls,
And shrubs grew out of the rubbled bowers
While trees took root in the halls.

I sensed a touch of hostility
The moment I reached the gate,
For Angus’s friendability
Came on just a little late,
We’d both attended the Priory School
But that had been way back then,
And I, in parting, called him a fool,
He wouldn’t remember when.

But he did us proud with a suckling pig
And a quart of ‘**** o’ the North’,
Marie, who knew him, was ever so big
And sat with me, holding forth.
I had no mind that he felt so strong,
I’d have left the woman at home,
He had this feeling I’d done him wrong
When I coaxed Marie to roam.

And there she sat with a month to go
Way out in front with our bairn,
I didn’t know it would crease him so
But there, you live and you learn.
He coaxed her drink, with a dreadful leer
Pressed on her **** o’ the North,
It wasn’t as if she was drinking beer
Or water, for all that it’s worth.

We went to bed in a tower room
When the moon rose over the glen,
It felt to me like a Highland tomb
As it was to my clan back then,
Marie began to moan in the night
That the bairn was coming forth,
It had a skinful, thanks to Marie
Of that liquor, **** o’ the North.

And Angus heard and he came to gloat
When he heard that she couldn’t hold,
I dropped him there, head first in the moat
To a grave both wet and cold.
Marie and I, we sit in the barn
And the blame swings back and forth,
What price my friend, and a helpless bairn
To a jar of **** o’ the North?

David Lewis Paget

There’s a scurrying sound of something, burrowing,
Down in the depths of the dungeons, hurrying,
Skittering, pittering-pattering, scattering
When there’s a footstep, hear them chattering:
‘Here come the lords, and here comes the vassal,
Tripping their way through Cockroach Castle.’

Here come the ladies, all in their finery
Tripping and sipping the wine from the winery,
Trailing their silks, their satins and bustling,
Up in the ballroom, while the rustling
Army beneath the sounds of their razzle
Is down in the depths of Cockroach Castle.

Spilling their millions up in the glooming
Out from the flagstones, terror is looming,
Up on the awnings, hung from the ceiling
Under the swish of the skirts they’re stealing,
Dropping in hair, and burrowing faster,
Cockroach Castle is set for disaster.

Suddenly all of the room is screaming
Flapping of hands, the roaches are teeming,
Myriad hordes in the Carbonara,
Candles are tipped from the candelabra,
Choking smoke from the candles guttered,
Flames leap up from the ones that stuttered.

Clothing and flags and the awnings razing
Silks and satins flare up, and blazing,
Roaches in eyes and ears, they’re rasping
Clogging their throats, to leave them gasping,
There isn’t a lady or lord, or vassal
To come out alive from Cockroach Castle!

David Lewis Paget

She lived in a strange old gabled house
But she rarely came outside,
I’d glimpse her up on the balcony
But she’d see me, and she’d hide.
She seemed a nervous, tremulous thing
But I thought she looked so sweet,
Her hair in a long blonde ponytail,
And a dimple in either cheek.

She lived alone with her grandmother
Who was old, and sharp of tongue,
A sort of witch with a constant itch
She had scratched since she was young.
She wouldn’t allow young callers, who
Attracted to Abigail,
Would try to court but were overwrought
By her, till their efforts failed.

The two who had breached her sanctuary
Who had forced their way inside,
Had only stayed but a single day
Then emerged, and had later died.
It seemed that a curse lay on that house
There was something in the air,
A sense of sin that had lain within
Caught up in the word, ‘despair’.

The more that I glimpsed of Abigail,
The more that my heart would leap,
I’d stand and stare on the corner there
And I’d sometimes hear her weep.
I’d hear the drone of that dry old crone
As she snapped and snarled at her,
‘A man is a fret that you’ll soon regret,
There’s a thousand more out there.’

I finally braved the woman’s wrath
And beat on their old front door,
I knew she wouldn’t invite me in
But hoped that her mood would thaw.
‘I’m coming to call on Abigail,’
I cried, and I pushed on past,
And racing across the hallway floor
I ran up the stairs, at last.

Abigail stood and smiled at me
With her grandmother aghast,
She took me out to the balcony,
I thought that the dye was cast.
I said that I’d seen her from afar
On the balcony above,
‘I want you to know I’m here to show
That I’ve fallen for you, in love.’

‘And I’ve watched you from above,’ she said,
‘I saw the love in your eyes,
I knew that you would finally come
So it’s not a great surprise.’
At this the crone had mounted the stairs,
I finally saw her smile,
She carried a platter for us to eat,
‘Some sweets, will you stay awhile?’

Abigail tied them up in a cloth
To take when I left that night,
Some cherry whirls, and peppermint twirls
And chunks of Turkish Delight,
She scribbled a note that she placed within
And she’d underlined it twice,
‘Whatever you do, I’m telling you,
Don’t eat the Coconut Ice.’

It seems that the sweets were all home made
In the kitchen under the stair,
‘My grandmother takes great pride in these,
But still, you’d better beware.’
At home I unwrapped them carefully
And I checked the Coconut Ice,
The smell was bitter like almonds so
I took Abigail’s advice.

The chemist confirmed that cyanide
Was part of the recipe,
The police arrested the grandmother
And now Abigail is free.
I wish I could say she stayed with me
But she went with Raymond Bryce,
So there was a lesson learned, you see,
I never touch Coconut Ice.

David Lewis Paget

I’d only woken an hour before
And it seemed to cause a stir,
With people pouring into the room,
Coming from everywhere,
They looked excited, stared at me
And I stared right back, confused,
But nobody said a word to me
And I started feeling used.

‘What the hell…’ I began to say,
But a nurse told me to hush,
Stuck a thermometer into my mouth
Then tried to feed me mush,
She cleared the room and a doctor came
And read my chart with a frown,
‘Welcome back to the world,’ he said,
‘It’s changed, since you were around.’

I couldn’t make head or tail of this,
I didn’t know where I was,
Loaded with tubes, I raised my arms
And flapped like an albatross,
‘Let me get out of here,’ I said,
‘I need to get up and walk!’
‘Your legs won’t carry you anywhere
Just yet, but we have to talk.’

He said I’d been out a long, long time,
It would take more time to adjust,
To start, he asked if I knew my name
So I told him, Benjamin Rust.
And then I remembered the bicycle
That I’d ridden down to the shop,
And the four wheel drive that had sped right by,
Too bad that it didn’t stop!

Then slowly figures came back to me,
A head full of raven hair,
Those pouting lips that had tempted me
And a dimple or two to spare,
She’d arched her brows in a quizzical way
When I’d shown her the double bed,
Then laughed, ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself,
I first need a ring,’ she said.

We’d courted all through the summer months
And made love late in the fall,
I’d said, ‘I don’t want a part of you,
I’d be content with it all!’
We wed in a little country church
Where the rain dripped down from the eaves,
And strolled from the vestry, hand in hand
As a breeze had fluttered the leaves.

My heart had leapt in that sterile room
As I caught the scent of her hair,
I said, ‘Is Jocelyn waiting here?’
The doctor continued to stare.
‘You have to know that your world has changed
And the change may bring you tears,
You haven’t been out for a week or so,
But over a number of years.’

I was feeling the panic rise in me
As those dreaded words sank in,
‘Over a number of years,’ he’d said,
As if I’d committed a sin!
And then, ‘How old do you think you are?’
I replied, ‘I’m twenty-two!’
He shook his head at the foot of the bed,
‘There’s a shock still coming to you.’

He wouldn’t say, and he went away
As I lay there, feeling grim,
So I asked the nurse, ‘How old am I?’
But she said, ‘Just wait for him.’
At three in the afternoon I sensed
A shadow, stood at the door,
And there was a matronly woman there
Who must have been fifty-four.

She said, ‘I can’t believe you’re awake,
We’d long given up on you,
They asked me to come to the hospital,
And I needed to see, it’s true.’
Her hair was grey, but she had a way
That dredged a dream from the past,
She said, ‘Do you know me, Jocelyn?
It’s good to see you at last.’

The horror rose in my throat at that,
My heart hung still in my chest,
‘My God, you look like your mother now…’
‘I knew that you’d be distressed.
I got a divorce when you didn’t wake
After ten long years in this bed,
I feel so sad, but I wed again…’
Her words, like knives in my head.

I’d lain in a coma, thirty years
Why didn’t they let me die?
Jocelyn said she paid for me
In hopes, she didn’t say why.
This world is a terrifying place
When you lose the love of your life,
And wake to the loss of thirty years…
I’ll slit my veins with a knife!

David Lewis Paget

Of all the loves that I’ve loved in life
There was one, crème de la crème,
She turned my head and she caused me strife
But I loved her, way back when,
I met the woman by accident
As the ex-wife of a friend,
We’d see each other and look away
In a game we called ‘Pretend’.

‘Pretend’ she didn’t attract me then,
‘Pretend’ I couldn’t care less,
And she’d ‘Pretend’ that I held no sway
When she’d hide her eagerness.
We’d say, ‘Now, what a coincidence
That you happen to be here!’
But fate provided the incidents
For the best part of a year.

She ditched the guy she was seeing then
And I started calling round,
Just for a morning coffee break
And we’d stare each other down.
There was love and hate in each debate
We’d agree to disagree,
She’d say, ‘I’m glad that I’m not with you,’
And I’d say, ‘That goes for me!’

But then, if ever I missed a day
She’d say, ‘Where did you go?
I had a ride, but I stayed inside
Then in fact, you didn’t show!’
And sometimes, when she was out about
I would knock, and feel aggrieved,
‘Why weren’t you home at ten o’clock?’
I’d say, and she’d look relieved.

We felt a reverse attraction like
The same magnetic pole,
Pushing each other away today
Tomorrow, joined at the soul.
The tension there was electric once
That everything had been said,
And there on a Monday holiday
We tumbled into bed.

Our love was a roller coaster that
Would speed us up to the stars,
Bathed in a perspiration that
Was cold as the planet Mars,
And nothing was ever long enough
It was more like a disease,
For neither of us were strong enough
So we crawled away on our knees.

If love is a desperation to
Cling on to the one you need,
That was the explanation for
The love that we felt was greed.
I thought that I’d found the only one
That this love would never fail,
It was if I had found a holy one
In a search for the Holy Grail.

But nothing will last forever, for
The planets will move along,
Challenging each endeavour, be it
Love, or the right from wrong,
She slowly began to drift away
In search for a sense of self,
Begged for the space to run her race
And left me, high on the shelf.

I spent her absence, caught in a trance
And staring long at the wall,
I knew my soul was lost in advance
When I got the final call,
She fell enceinte with another’s child
Though she wanted to come back home,
But I was too hurt to take her back
So I soldiered on, alone.

Of all the loves that I’ve loved in life
There was one, crème de la crème,
She turned my head and she caused me strife
But I loved her, way back when,
I haven’t seen her for thirty years
But she has a place in my soul,
While I am playing the game ‘Pretend’
And the world is growing old.

David Lewis Paget

There’s an angel down in my garden plot
But she’s overgrown with weeds,
She looms up out of the sassafras
Set back in among the trees.
I don’t know how long she’s stood out there
But her wings are green with moss,
And her tired face is a study in grace,
Reflecting a sense of loss.

‘Your flesh was an alabaster white
But it’s almost faded to grey,
You’re weather-worn, and you look forlorn
As if you’ve been cast away.
The days when you were a centrepiece
Of a garden, laid and fine,
Have now passed on, with the garden gone
But I’ve found you now, you’re mine.’

‘I promise I’ll clear the weeds away,
I’ll scrub the moss from your wings,
I’ll light that tender smile on your face
With the glow a spotlight brings,
I’ll bring you back to the glory you
Reflect from heaven’s spell,
And people will come adoring you
When I put in a wishing well.’

‘A wishing well for your hopes and dreams
And the hopes and dreams of them,
They’ll touch your gown and they’ll toss a coin
When they leave, they’ll wish you well.
I’ll sleep with you looking over me
And dream of the King of Kings,
And see his crown as he’s looking down
We’ll see what the future brings!’

I worked to see my promises kept
‘Til the angel gleamed and shone,
But one day there in the garden wept
For the angel there had gone.
She’d fluttered off from her plinth one night
With her feathered wings reborn,
And through my tears, and despite my fears
I rejoiced at the Crimson Dawn!

David Lewis Paget

I was out when the heavens opened up,
I was only but halfway there,
I hadn’t a coat or umbrella then
On my way to my darling dear,
But she was dry in her great big house
That was built up high on the ridge,
The river rose and it blocked my path
With the Warlock, guarding the bridge.

His hat was wet and his cloak had flared
While his eyes, pinpoints of red,
Stood out from under his hat and stared
As my mind was filled with dread,
I didn’t know if he’d let me pass
I had met his type before,
He was grumble-growl with a werewolf’s howl
And a sharp and mighty claw.

I tried to pass on the narrow bridge
But he growled, ‘Who goes you where?’
I said, ‘I’m going to meet my girl
In the house on the ridge up there.’
‘You shall not pass, you shall not go,
I shall tear you limb from limb,’
His claws he raised in a grisly show
And his jaw was set and grim.

The rain continued its pelting down
And the thunder pealed above,
I felt determined to beat this clown
I was fortified with love.
‘You’ll not be wanting to cross Nyrene
She will drop a spell or two,
That will tear apart your Warlock’s heart
When her spell is done with you.’

The Warlock started to make reply
When the lightning hit the rail,
And lit him up like a paper cup
From his head down to his tail,
The river washed him across the bridge
And into its raging flow,
Whether he drowned or fried that day
Well really, I wouldn’t know.

‘You shouldn’t have used my name in vain,’
Nyrene told me at the door,
‘That lightning flash may have caused you pain,
It was kept in my ‘Un-aimed’ Store.’
I never go up if the rivers rise
When Nyrene’s home on the ridge,
If lightning’s lurking up in the skies
Or a Warlock’s guarding the bridge.

David Lewis Paget

I was doing a crossword puzzle
Yesterday, to pass the time,
The clues were all about animals
Both across, and down the line,
The wife was out in the kitchen
And I’d call the harder clues,
While she’d reply with a patient sigh
As she cooked two different stews.

It wasn’t as easy as I’d thought
Some clues were quite obscure,
Though each would bring up some animal
That we should have known, for sure,
But as I scribbled across the squares
I found some didn’t fit,
I’d call, ‘Lynette, have you worked it yet?’
But she’d never heard of it.

She’d said, ‘Two heads are better than one,’
And I thought she might be right,
The names that came out too long, I thought
Must be an oversight,
But when they clashed with the downward clues
And I crumpled up my hat,
That furry purr by the fireside there
Was just a common Dat.

And things that flew in the night became
Some thing they called a Rel,
They must be horrible creatures, like
Some creature based in Hell,
But as it crossed the Ordothlicon
I knew it must be right,
For on the left was a Rerr that leapt
On a dark and stormy night.

She said that really my spelling might
Be not quite up to scratch,
The ones that I knew as Pidgins flew
The coop in quite a batch,
And honey gathering Lees in trees
Were paired with wild Gorrils,
While Madgers seemed to be burrowing
All though the distant hills.

‘I’ve never heard of these animals,’
I said, in quite a stew,
Lynette called out from the kitchen that
She didn’t know them, too,
I walked around and I locked the doors
And I set each window latch,
In case that some of them wandered in
Like Carroll’s Bandersnatch.

I’m loth to wander the streets at night
If Rogs are on the prowl,
And keep away from the Cagpies nests
And the things that say ‘Miaowl’,
It seems that Berons are on the beach
And Peagulls in the air,
Lynette said better we stay inside
Than to get Peegull in our hair.

David Lewis Paget

The wind was swaying the treetops as
I cut across from the church,
The sun had darkened behind the clouds
When I saw the crow on its perch,
Its feathers fluttered, it looked quite grim
As it sat there, quite on its own,
But watching me with a beady eye
From the top of a blank headstone.

I pulled the collar around my ears
And hunched in my overcoat,
The wind was bringing a bitter chill
To whip at my face and throat,
I staggered over and off the path,
Walked over the headstone plot,
And felt a shiver run down my spine
To wonder what time she’d got.

The crow had uttered a single ‘caw’
From the depths of its blue-black beak,
Then spread its wings like an avatar
And lashed a **** in my cheek,
I stumbled off, I could feel the blood
As it ran, from under my eye,
And hurried home, though I flung a stone
At the crow as it flew on by.

But Rachel stood at the window as
I came in the gate, at last,
She saw the blood, and she put her hand
On up to her mouth, aghast.
I told her it was a minor cut
A thorn on a rose that waved,
She shuddered, flooded her eyes with tears,
Said, ‘Someone walked on my grave!’

‘Someone walked on my grave,’ she said
‘Not even an hour ago…’
My mind went back to the headstone, and
The evil glare of the crow.
‘You’re overwrought, you should sit and rest,
Get warm, for the room is dank,’
But all I could see in my mind just then
Was a headstone that was blank.

I’d taken her from a cruel home
For her parents both were dead,
She’d been brought up by a grandmother
Who was violent, sick she said.
She’d threatened me when we went away
That she’d not be long my bride,
And Rachel never felt safe with me
‘Til her grandmother had died.

I managed to catch the warden when
I saw him, late in the week,
‘Why is that headstone blank?’ I said,
‘Whose is the grave you keep?’
‘There’s no-one buried under that stone,
It was raised for a future soul,
A woman came in the driving rain
And paid for that grave with gold.’

‘But surely you have a name for her
In the graveyard book; you’d know.’
He knitted his brow, and thought aloud:
‘I think that her name was Crow!
She dressed in black, in a mourning gown
With a cloak that looked like wings,
Then vanished, as she had first appeared
When I turned to ask her things.’

I passed the stone on the way back home,
And I stared, my mouth ajar,
For someone had cut a letter there
In the face of the stone, an ‘R’,
I thought of Rachel, hurried on home
But was late, too late I know,
For flying past as I reached the gate
Was the dread form of the crow.

It crashed straight into the window where
My Rachel stood and stared,
Dressed in black, in a mourning gown
It was just as I had feared.
The window smashed as the crow had crashed
With shards of glass all round,
The crow embedded in Rachel’s throat
As she choked her last on the ground.

She lay with both of her arms outstretched
Like a pair of wings in black,
The bird ripped open her jugular,
She wouldn’t be coming back.
I knew she’d hated her grandmother,
She remembered every blow,
But didn’t think she’d be coming back
Though her maiden name was ‘Crow!’

David Lewis Paget

Bring all the kids on home from school
And gather the pets in tight,
Send out and warn the village fool
For it’s Crow Fly-Over Night.
Stable the horse, bring in the geese,
Shut up the chicken run,
We can’t rely on the local police
So load me a scatter gun.

Shut the windows in both the Utes,
Drive the car in the shed,
Lay out my anti-vermin boots
And a helmet to cover my head.
Lock the shutters and pull the blinds,
We don’t want to show a light,
Set the locks on the window-winds
For it’s Crow Fly-Over Night.

Then watch for the man in the hood and cape
As he drifts in, under the Moon,
If I sight him well, then he won’t escape,
Not like in the month of June.
He brings his carrion in to feed
In a flutter of feathered blight,
If he’s not dead yet, then he will be soon
For it’s Crow Fly-Over Night.

And the widow Raines in her mourning dress
Has been seen to stray, she roams,
She scatters seed in the wilderness
But the Crows will pick her bones.
At dusk they come in an evil cloud
But with not a single caw,
Then settle over the land, and loud
Announce the word is ‘war’.

So hide the children beneath their beds
And bar each door in place,
Block up the chimney flu with lead
And call your sister, Grace,
If she doesn’t come before the Crows
She’ll find the door locked tight,
And then she’ll know what the Devil knows,
It’s Crow Fly-Over Night!

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

He lived in the outer darkness where
You never could see him cry,
With only a lighted candle there
Whenever his eyes were dry,
But I knew him for an evil soul
A troll that waited for you,
To cast me off like a heap of dross
Which is what he’d want you to do.

So you only saw a handsome prince
A hero there in the light,
You told me about the good things that
Your friend had done in your sight,
But you couldn’t see the curling horns
That sprouted out of his head,
Nor even the narrow, squinting eyes
Glowing at night, bright red.

Your image of him was of a lord
Born of a line so high,
While I knew him as a Beelzebub
Who flew in the evening sky.
He often fluttered above my yard
Flinging his barbs at me,
They cut and wounded and hit me hard
With never you there to see.

I felt you slipping away from me
When I saw you huddled with him,
Whispering secret messages
In the hall of the local gym,
I knew that I’d have to take him out
Or risk the loss of your love,
So fashioned a wooden arrow for
One night, when he flew above.

I thought that I’d planned it perfectly
The crossbow hidden outside,
He fluttered over the garden wall
Looking for you, my bride,
I shot him straight through the heart with it,
His chest exploded in light,
I saw, on you, when you bent to him
Your curling horns in the night.

David Lewis Paget

She had met this handsome stranger
So she told me, at some dance,
And I knew then she’d be leaving me,
I didn’t stand a chance,
She had not seemed so excited since
I’d given her a ring,
But I saw she wasn’t wearing it,
It didn’t mean a thing!

So I asked her where this dance had been,
She didn’t seem to know,
She’d drifted in there like some dream
Where lovers always go,
I asked her who was there, she said
They’d glided round in grace,
And but for him, her eyes were dim,
She’d not recalled one face.

She hesitating, placed the ring
Back in my open hand,
‘I don’t have any choice,’ she said,
‘I knew you’d understand!’
I didn’t, but I bit my tongue,
No point to cause a scene,
I hoped that she’d get over it,
But something was unclean.

I sat and moped at home awhile,
She’d cut me to the quick,
I’d planned my life around her,
Marriage, children, all of it,
But then I felt resentment rise
And choke me to the core,
I’d need to see him, ****-his-eyes,
See what I’d lost her for.

So I began to roam the streets
And watch her, though unseen,
To hide in handy bushes, just
To find out where she’d been,
Then one dark night she ventured out
And walked, as in a trance,
I followed at a distance as
She went to join the dance.

The gates were flung wide open to
A long, curved gravel drive,
A house with gothic columns, where
The gargoyles looked alive,
I didn’t see another soul
As Anne had ventured in,
But ballroom music filled the air
With subtle hints of sin.

I sidled to the ballroom and
I hid, as best I could,
While phantom figures whirled about,
Transparent through each hood,
The only solid forms I saw
Were first, my trancelike Anne,
And something evil on the floor
That could have been a man.

That could have been a man, I said
Despite his long black cloak,
The horns that grew from out his head
That looked just like a goat,
The tail that flicked behind it with
A barb of polished steel,
It could have been a man, I said,
But no, that sight was real!

Behind Anne was a marble slab
With bloodstains, from before,
A pale and polished altar that
Was raised up from the floor,
He took Anne in his arms, began
To sway and dance her round,
‘You’re dancing with the Devil, Anne,’
I screamed, and held my ground.

He roared, and turned his evil face
To glare where I was stood,
My heart stood still inside me, like
My heart was made of wood,
Then Anne began to shriek, her eyes
Now seeing what I saw,
Pulled back, and disentangled from
Each evil crablike claw.

I don’t know how we got outside,
I only know we fled,
With terror stricken eyes and hearts
We thought that we were dead.
That house went up, a puff of smoke
Amid a demon roar,
Now Anne won’t dance, no handsome stranger
Tempts her anymore!

David Lewis Paget

The end was nigh, he scanned the sky
For portents, dark and deep,
He’d sensed some troubled signs within
While tossing in his sleep.
He told his wife to pack some things,
The least that they would need,
But she said, ‘You must leave alone,
I’m staying here, God speed!’

He found he couldn’t change her mind,
No matter that he tried,
He told her of the darker times
That he had sensed, inside.
But she was quite content, she said,
‘In fact I’m quite serene,
I shall not run before the tide,
It may be but a dream!’

The Castle walls with hallowed halls
Held shadows grim and bleak,
Where muttered shades from former days
Would flit from moat to keep,
From tower, to hall, to bedchamber,
He cast his nervous eyes,
Where even in the flagstoned floors
He thought, ‘There evil lies!’

The evening skies were tinctured with
A weird orange glow,
And then the Moon rose up above,
A baneful, blood-red show,
While winds that howled like none before
Now clattered at the eaves,
And whispered down the chimney’s core,
‘God help the one that leaves!’

He wandered round the halls at night
And shook in some dread fear,
At sounds of chains, and distant pains
Deep in his inner ear.
He stood up at the battlements
And scanned the dark surround,
Where gargoyles leered, to spout their cheer
All on the hallowed ground.

‘But surely you must hear them, Maud,
They’re plain, so plain to me!’
‘I only hear the chirping bird
That flits in yonder tree.
Perhaps your mind has been disturbed,
You need to rest at night,
I’ll lock you in the Castle Keep
Until your dreams take flight.’

That night, asleep, but fitfully
He heard a horse’s hooves,
That clattered in the courtyard, echoed
With its iron shoes.
And then he heard his wife, who whispered
Like some painted *****,
‘He’s almost driven mad, I’ve locked
Him in, and barred the door.’

Then like a charm that runs its course
And sets its victim free,
He knew that she’d been feeding him
With Belladonna tea.
He waited for an hour, and then
Burst hinges on the door,
And sought his wife’s bedchamber
Where her lover felt secure.

‘I told you I’d sensed darker times,
Such darker times, for you!’
He said as he approached the bed
And ran her lover through.
He raised the sword that dripped with blood
Then stood with drooping head,
While she went pale, to no avail,
In moments, she was dead!

David Lewis Paget

I said that we shouldn’t place it there
When first we surveyed the town,
The only place for the dead, I said,
Is six feet underground,
They shouldn’t be way up there on a hill
When it rains, their bones will leach,
And run down into the drinking water
Pumped on up from the beach.

But no, they wouldn’t listen to me,
The Town and the Council ****,
He said, ‘we’ll set it up in the trees
I think that that will work.’
So the town was built on the valley floor
And the dead stuck up on the hill,
I told them what I had said before
When the first became so ill.

The older ones were the first to go
They’d fade away in the gloom,
There wasn't enough flesh on their bones
To warrant a marble tomb.
But then the young had begun to fade
Were beginning to be so ill,
That soon the hearses making their way
Were all lined up on the hill.

The population began to grow
But not down there in the town,
The figures seemed to reflect and show
They were six foot underground,
And then the copse of surrounding trees
Began to glow in the night,
Give off a pale evanescent glow
Some said was blue, others white.

When lightning struck in that grove of trees
It forked and struck on the hill,
And burst some bodies, with their disease
From coffins, wriggling still.
I heard reports of a walking corpse
That tried to kick in a door,
And when they saw who the corpse had been
They found he’d lived there before.

I said that we shouldn’t place it there
When first we surveyed the town,
The only place for the dead, I said,
Is six feet underground.
The town has paid for the Council ****
Who buries them up there still,
On days that the dead come walking down
From the cemetery, up on the hill.

David Lewis Paget

He was hanging in line with the elder trees
From an oak that had broken the line,
That’s why they probably missed him, he
Became as one in design.
He wore a shabby old overcoat
But his hat lay there on the ground,
It wasn’t until a jogger who fell
Looked up, that the man was found.

The firemen cut his body down
While the police stood back a pace,
Then loaded him into an ambulance
With a consequent lack of grace.
His eyes were staring, his jaw was slack
And his arms flopped north and south,
But most of all, and what appalled
Was the purple tongue in his mouth.

Nobody seemed to know who he was
His clothing tags had been cut,
There wasn’t a wallet or envelope
In the pockets of his old coat.
‘He must be someone, but who knows who?
And why was he hanging there?
Could this have been ****** or suicide,
And really, does anyone care?’

He didn’t come up on the Missing List,
Nor his face on a Mug Shot file,
No-one was desperately phoning in,
He must have been gone for a while.
‘There’s a picture there, on his retina,’
The photographer said at last,
‘If we blow it up, it might give us a clue,
What he saw at his final gasp.’

The rope had been knotted behind his neck
So his head had been angled down,
His eyes had bulged as the blood withdrew
And snapped what he saw on the ground.
A woman was stood there, looking up
With an anguished look on her face,
Her hands together, as if in prayer
But holding a can of Mace.

The police supplied an identikit
And published it over the news,
They passed it around the prison guards
And questioned most of the Screws.
But they didn’t mention the woman there
Reflected in each of his eyes,
They kept that piece of forensic back
As their own well kept surprise.

The plain clothes men at the funeral
Were alert, but hid in the trees,
They’d made it known where the man was going
And when, to the cemetery,
So when a woman in black appeared
To watch as the coffin fell,
They swooped, and took her in charge right then
As she cried, ‘I’ve been in Hell!’

She cried all over the interview,
They thought that her heart would break,
‘I messed right up,’ was her one refrain,
‘It was one great big mistake!
We’d been together, over a year
And I loved him, he was nice,
But then he began to dabble in drugs
And he played about with ice.’

‘I begged and begged, but he wouldn’t stop,
And his violent side came out,
He ran amok and he wrecked our home
And he’d start to scream and shout,
I should have gone to the police right then,
Should have had him in rehab,
But I bought the Mace to protect myself,
I know, you must think I’m mad!’

‘Then he’d sober up, see what he’d done
And would be so full of remorse,
I had to forgive him, every time
Just as a matter of course,
Until the day that he knocked me down
And I said, ‘No going back!
I can’t put up with this any more,’
Then he took the rope from the shack.’

‘I followed him into the woods out there
And I tried to talk him down,
But he climbed the oak and he tied the rope
And he told me, with a frown,
‘The devil has got me by the throat
And I died when hitting you,
I’ll never deserve of your love again
What a terrible thing to do!’

‘Then he jumped,’ she said, and burst the dam
For her tears would never stop,
She went back into the woods again
To plant forget-me-nots,
And I heard she’d died of a broken heart
And was buried where he lies,
But still lives on in that photograph
As seen in a dead man’s eyes!

David Lewis Paget

Death called my name, and I replied,
‘I’m not quite ready now.
There must be others, more deserving
Of your time, somehow.
I find I still have much to do
Or leave the world in debt,
For instance, all the many women
I’ve not slept with yet.

‘You’ve followed me for far too long,
I’ve felt you on my tail,
Your hot breath on my neck, though I
Tried not to leave a trail.
My health is not the best, it’s true,
But there are some far worse,
The great decision’s up to you
But you should take them first.’

‘I noticed when you call my name
There’s some disparity,
With other names almost the same
You used a second ’t’,
Go back and check the register
You’ll find some other guy,
Who hides behind my name, he’s game,
But you should ask him ‘why?’’

‘You’ve stalked the world for far too long
In you there’s little grace,
You’ve taken everyone I loved,
You give no breathing space.
Don’t worry, I shall let you know
When I am done with life,
Should you want one to practice on
You might try my ex-wife.’

David Lewis Paget

We knew that the plane was going to crash,
We plunged through the air, on high,
We probably had five minutes to grieve
A minute to say goodbye,
She clung to me from her window seat
And cried, ‘It’s starting to fray.’
And through the port I could see the wing
As it tore, and twisted away.

‘Why did you make me take this flight?’
She cried, as the others screamed,
‘I could have been happily safe at home
If not for your stupid dream.’
She meant the holiday we had planned
Forever, to take in Rome,
The Coliseum, it still would stand
When they ferried our bodies home.

I felt quite peeved, for I didn’t want
To take in those ancient piles,
But she’d insisted that Rome it was,
I wanted the Grecian Isles.
This wasn’t the time for an argument
So I patted her crying cheek,
I needed to hear her ‘I love you’,
But that would have taken a week.

The plane was spinning, with just one wing
Was heading nose down to the ground,
And all the passengers screamed and cursed,
Stood up, were lurching around.
‘Just get me my bag from the overhead,
It holds all our holiday cash,’
It didn’t dawn on her she’d be dead,
To mention it would have been rash.

‘At least we’re together, Cheryl my love,’
I said, in calming her down.
We’d passed right through the cumulus cloud
So close we were to the ground.
The engine was screaming, the one we had
The emergency door flew wide,
And suddenly Cheryl was torn from her seat,
****** out of the aircraft, and died.

I sat in the blast from the open door,
My heart had stopped in my chest,
I cried, ‘My God! Just let it be quick,
My lover has gone to her rest.’
‘What lover’s that?’ said my Cheryl’s voice,
From the foot of our bed, at home.
‘You mean we’re saved, that we have a choice?
There’s no way we’re going to Rome!’

David Lewis Paget

She said she wanted to **** herself
Since her life was empty now,
I couldn’t figure it out myself
And called her a silly cow,
‘Your Barry isn’t the only one,
There’s more fish in the sea,’
But she just said that her love was dead,
‘He’s the only one for me.’

I wanted to tell her nonsense, that
She should take stock of me,
I’d be her friend to the living end,
I’d known, since she was three.
I told her once that I’d marry her
When we were both eight or nine,
But what I’d said must have left her head,
Lost in the mists of time.

It’s hard to be friends and lovers, both,
Though our friendship was sublime,
The love was buried in friendship, was
Invisible, undermined,
She missed the sparkle in both my eyes
Whenever she came my way,
I always wanted to tell her but
I didn’t have words to say.

Then Barry captured her from me when
She just turned seventeen,
He must have had something on me, though
I’d not see what she’d seen.
I should have known there was something on
When she turned from me out there,
And he came wandering in one day
With ribbons for her hair.

And that was the end of hopes and dreams
That I’d held from childhood days,
For Barry was full of exciting schemes,
She was thrilled in many ways,
She’d say, ‘I’ve never known anyone
Who excites me like he can,’
And from then on she was truly gone
And refused to hold my hand.

It only lasted a year or two
Until Barry lost the plot,
He found more interesting girls out there
Who’d got what she hadn’t got.
‘I don’t know what has gone wrong with us,’
She cried, all out of breath,
‘I won’t be sticking around, I know,
This life now seems like death.’

We went out walking along the cliff
She strayed too close to the top,
And said, ‘I think to myself, what if
I should suddenly drop,’
I pulled her down as she stepped too close
And pinned her onto to the ground,
‘What would my life be worth if you
Were suddenly not around?’

She looked at me in amazement as
She suddenly saw me there,
I kissed her once and she kissed me back,
‘I didn’t know that you’d care.’
‘You fool, I’ve loved you forever, but
I didn’t think it would show,’
‘My life is suddenly full,’ she said,
‘But I just needed to know.’

David Lewis Paget

It hovered above on the ceiling,
It only would come at night,
My sister said she’d a feeling
It was dark, and was full of fright,
The light would glimmer and slowly fade
As the Moon came over the hill,
The globe grew dimmer in light and shade
Than a candle that flickered still.

I’d lie and I’d stare at the corner
Where the cloud had begun to swirl,
It had little form and no meaning
When first it began to unfurl,
But then came the claws in the ceiling
The eyes in the cloud glowing red,
And Clara would scream and be reeling
With her hands pulled over her head.

I thought that if I could disperse it,
It would run on back to its well,
And perhaps the Devil could curse it
Or find it a place in hell,
I beat at it with a baseball bat
But it seized the bat with its teeth,
And wrenched it out of my wretched hands
With a strength beyond belief.

It grew a cloak and a pair of horns
And roared with an orange flame,
It burnt a patch on the ceiling then
And I saw it had written its name,
‘Askarametch’ it had written there
The demon that lived in our well,
I said to Clara, ‘it won’t be long
I’ll be sending the demon to hell.’

In daylight hours I filled up the well
With bracken and poisonous weeds,
Then as the sun was beginning to fade
I’d add Belladonna seeds,
A gallon of petrol damped it all down
Till the Moon had begun to rise,
Then what I struck had it all lit up
To match the red demon’s eyes.

We never see clouds on the ceiling now
It doesn’t seem able to come,
The only thing is the sulphur smell,
It’s potent, I give you the drum.
It drifts on in from the well outside
And hangs in the bedroom air,
Clara will spray Devil’s Nightcap for days,
It’s better than demons in there.

David Lewis Paget

He met her under the willow trees
That grew by the valley creek,
He hadn’t been able to visit her
For the best part of a week,
She patted her horse’s neck, and sighed,
And waited for him to say,
The one thing that she feared the most,
That he might be going away.

But in his eyes there was only love
As he reached, and kissed her hand,
‘We mustn’t be seen down here by him,
I need you to understand,
He rides abroad since he found us out,
And says he’s looking for me,
His stablemaster has said, no doubt,
I’ll hang from the nearest tree.’

‘He wouldn’t dare,’ said Jennifer Moss,
‘My father would have him lashed,
He’s always been too quick with his fists
He killed a man in the past.’
‘But never paid the ultimate price,
He thinks he’s above the law,
I’m keeping my flintlock pistol primed,
My powder dry by the door.’

‘He hasn’t said anything yet to me,
So how do you think he knows?’
‘Your stablemaster has seen us kiss
By the barn where the river flows.
Beware, my love, he’s a dangerous man,
Will settle his score with me,
But then, with you, he will seek revenge
Denial may set you free.’

‘You must deny that you care for me,
Deny that our lips have met,
Deny, deny is the only course
That may make the fool forget.’
‘My heart is bursting with love for you,
I couldn’t deny what’s true,’
‘You must, my love, or the scene is set,
I fear what he’ll do to you.’

He rode away to his hilltop farm
And he locked and barred each door,
While she rode off to the Manor House
Where her husband paced the floor.
‘I fear my wife is a Jezebel,
So the stablemaster tells.’
‘I have no interest in men,’ she said,
I’m married to one from Hell!’

He turned on her in a rage at that,
He believed his master spy,
While she continued to hear the words
Of her love, ‘Deny, Deny!’
‘I’ll spare his life if you tell the truth,
If you don’t, the man is dead,’
She weakened then and admitted it,
She once had been in his bed.

He sent his louts to the Hilltop farm
And they dragged him out in dread,
They tied him to the back of his horse
To the Manor House, they led.
The husband leered when he saw him there,
‘Well, your love has you redeemed!
I’ll let you live in your bleak despair…’
His love was hung from a beam!

David Lewis Paget

The cottage in the country
Had become my main retreat,
From the chaos of the city,
From its never ending beat,
From the traffic and the steeples
Of the people and their cares,
I could leave it all behind me
When I went to ground out there.

It was just an hour’s driving
Through some shady country lanes,
Round the far side of a mountain
And by cultivated plains,
Until sheltered in a valley
I could spy our cottage roof,
And my tension would release me
When arriving there, with Ruth.

There was little of the comfort
That we take for granted there,
Just a worn old wooden table
And for each, a shaky chair,
With an ancient cast iron heater
And a kettle on the hob,
We had the whole world beaten,
It was like a gift from God.

At dusk we’d wander hand in hand
Out past the Pepper trees,
When the heat of day was cooling
With a gentle valley breeze,
But lately I had sensed out there
That something must be wrong,
I couldn’t quite get over it,
The feeling was so strong.

I waited ‘til the morning, then
I paced the ground outside,
I hadn’t been mistaken, though
My memory had lied,
I thought there’d been just sixteen paces,
So I told myself,
From cottage to the Pepper tree,
But now, there was but twelve.

I hesitated speaking out,
Then mentioned it to Ruth,
We’ve always been wide open
And there’s nothing like the truth.
She came and paced it out with me,
I think she thought I lied,
Then went back in the cottage and
She sat right down, and cried.

We spent a pensive week out there
And noticed how the floor
Pushed up in different places where
It raised, and jammed the door,
And cracks were re-appearing where
I’d fixed them long ago,
The cottage walls were leaning
And I said, ‘I told you so!’

We paced each day the garden from
The cottage to the trees,
The changes were so slight we prayed
And Ruth would mutter, ‘Please!’
But one day when we paced it from
The Peppers to the den,
‘It’s not twelve paces anymore,’
I said, ‘It’s only ten!’

‘So what’s the explanation, John?’
Ruth said, before we left,
I didn’t have the answers, I
Was feeling so bereft.
‘There’s something scientific
Going on, beyond our ken,
The world has started shrinking,
And it has to do with men,’

‘Perhaps the outward motion of
Our growing Universe,
Has stopped at last, and now the thing
Is moving in reverse!’
I only know our one retreat
Has shrunk to half its size,
The trees are at our old front door,
And distance never lies!

David Lewis Paget

I watched him stalk through the evergreens
In his black top hat and tails,
Just like some figure, lost in dreams
Or a voodoo doll, with wails,
I’d heard that they called him Doctor Bones
And thought that I could see why,
With teeth that gleamed like white tombstones
And a hole for a missing eye.

‘You conjure him up,’ said Marceline,
‘You bring him back from the grave,
His ancestors had laid him down
He was much too bad to save.’
She called Darleen and she told her, ‘go,
Bring a ritual bird to slay,
We have to get rid of Doctor Bones
Or Marc may die today.’

I lay back on the verandah, and
I fell in a tranceful stare,
I looked on out to the evergreens
And knew I could see him there,
He carried a stick and danced about
Then bowed with a sweep of his hat,
‘He’s dancing upon my grave,’ I said,
‘Now what do you think of that?’

Darleen came back with a feathered bird
And she danced and swung it round,
Filling the air with feathers as she
Dashed the bird on the ground,
‘Get back to the grave you came from,’
Marceline screeched out to the wood,
And Doctor Bones responded with moans
Then sank to his knees in mud.

They said that they broke my fever as
The bird had screeched at the last,
They wiped its blood all over my face
Where it seemed to set, like a cast,
I rose up out of my torpor and
Saw Darleen clutching the cat,
While I was stood by the mirror, and
Was wearing his tails and hat!

David Lewis Paget

You caught at my understanding,
You shocked me right to the core,
I’ve not had a harder landing, than:
‘Don’t come here anymore!’
I thought that you must be joking,
But couldn’t detect a smile,
My heart had missed when you said that this
Was coming on for a while.

I shook my head in confusion,
How could I have missed the signs?
You working, close in collusion
With your mentor, Matthew Grimes.
He promised you’d have a starring role
In a film he was going to make,
I said right then to be wary, when
He was probably just a fake.

He’d said he was a Producer,
I treated all that with scorn,
The only score that he’d had before
Was something to do with ****.
You shrugged, and said that you trusted him,
That he was your first big break,
And then, ‘So what,’ for he said you’d got,
Everything that it takes.

‘Everything that it takes,’ he said,
We know what he meant by that,
He wanted you *******, on the screen
With a cane and a tall top hat.
I didn’t think you would go for it
But I see, how wrong could I be?
You’ve let the seed of ambition rule,
Confused it with artistry.

I toss and turn in my fretful sleep
And sweat in my bed at night,
For every dream is of you, it seems
And it puts my sleep to flight.
I can’t tell whether it’s real or dream
When I knock at your old front door,
And you keep repeating the same old theme,
‘Don’t come here anymore!’

David Lewis Paget

I watched her dance with her bright red crop
At a party of Do or Dare,
Strutting her stuff on a table top
I knew I could have her there.
For she mouthed at me, ‘You’re the only one,’
As she stripped right down to the buff,
I mouthed, ‘You’re on,’ but she still danced on
I’d never have seen enough.

While all the others would reach and *****
I stood well back and I stared,
She tipped champagne all over their heads
All over the ones that dared,
She fell down into my open arms
Once she had finished her dance,
While Emma Lou took her place up there,
But I’d found a new romance.

I’d gone to the party for Emma Lou
Who’d wanted to meet me there,
She’d said, ‘I feel like taking a chance,
The party’s a Do or Dare.’
We’d only dated a month or two
But that hadn’t got too far,
We’d gone for drinks at the Seven Links
And necked in the back of the car.

But Carla Deane was a ginger dream
For flames had danced in her hair,
The prettiest body I’d ever seen,
I knew she wanted to share,
For in my arms I could feel her charms
And she raised her lips for a kiss,
Her silken skin promised treats within
And who was I to resist?

She dressed again, it was almost ten
When she took me home to her flat,
And poured a couple of highballs, then
She suddenly said, ‘That’s that!’
It seems her wager with Emma Lou
Said she could steal me away,
If she could, anyone else could too,
She didn’t intend to play.

I felt like the dog with a juicy bone
Stood staring into a stream,
And seeing my own reflection there
I’d dropped the bone for a dream.
For Emma Lou never came to call
The bone I’d managed to drop
For one swept over a waterfall
Who’d danced on a table top.

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

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

She sat at the edge of the second floor,
‘I’m going to jump!’ she cried,
He stood well back from the balcony,
‘You lied,’ she said, ‘you lied!
You swore we’d marry before the Spring
That I’d always be with you…’
‘I didn’t promise you anything,
It’s not what I want to do!’

‘Well, why did you lead me on,’ she said,
‘Did you want to break my heart,
I’ll fling myself from this building if
We’re going to be apart.’
‘I’ve got a lot of living to do
Before I take a wife,
You said that you’d never tie me down,
That you wanted to live your life.’

‘I wanted to live my life with you
Is all that I really meant,
But now you’re twisting my words, you want
To set up an argument.’
He said, ‘You’re getting hysterical,
I think that you ought to jump,’
Took one step back, and lifted his foot,
Then planted it in her ****.

She flew off the top of the doll’s house
And sat squat on the gravel drive,
Just as her mother motored up,
‘I see that you’re still alive!’
His father wandered from out the door
And waved to her mother, Gwen,
‘I thought I could trust you two out here,
I see what you’re doing, Ben!’

‘I think she’s been watching the Soaps again,
She’s always the drama queen,
What have you said to Ben,’ said Gwen,
‘He’s just as bad,’ said Deane.
‘What have you got to say for yourself,
Apologise to Gwen!’
‘She said that she wanted to marry me,
But she knows that I’m only ten!’

David Lewis Paget

She wore a wig to cover the hair
That was windblown, into her eye,
And topped off that with a raffia hat
To disguise a look so sly,
She sat up there on the balcony
Looking down on the street below,
Watching the heads of the perms and dreads
And noting which way they go.

Her boots were scuffed right up to her knees
Her stockings ragged and torn,
Her linen skirt had dragged in the dirt
From the day it first was worn,
The neighbours called her a demon child
For the savage glare in her eye,
They looked away but they scarce could say
If she’d cursed them, passing by.

She said, ‘Watch out for a matt black car
With its windows tinted and grey,
A single headlight, seen from afar
And the chrome all rusted away,
The driver’s window wound halfway down
To the height of the driver’s eyes,
You’ll best not stare at that wicked frown
He will draw you into his lies.’

The clouds then gathered, the storm came in
From the place that it last had went,
Thunder clashing and lightning flashing
The hail and the sleet it sent,
She pulled her hat down over her head
In hopes that her hair would dry,
Then pointed down to a matt black car,
‘The Devil is driving by!’

David Lewis Paget

They’d crashed the party at midnight
Surely, a motley looking crew,
All of them dressed in the weirdest best
That the Monster Shop could do,
There was Beelzebub, and Astaroth
And the pale Witch of the North,
Ahead of the Prince of Darkness in
A goats-head mask, of course.

They didn’t look out of place, for all
The guests were dressed to ****,
One attired as a Fairy Queen
While others were dressed to chill,
Out of the mouth of Frankenstein
The blood poured in a stream,
And though it was only cochineal
It brought the odd party scream.

Most had thought it a great idea
(Except for her folks, who’d cursed),
They’d all dress up in the neighbourhood
For Emily’s twenty-first,
They’d even formed a committee so
They knew what they had to do,
And each would be wearing a different face
So there’d only be one, not two.

They studied the Ars Goetia
And scanned it for demon names,
The butcher had come as Malphas for
He only had brawn, not brains,
The newsagent was Vapula
And his errand boy was Baal,
While the postmaster was Sallos
And he came there, bearing mail.

They all were full of the grapes of wrath
As it chimed the midnight hour,
While Emily surged out like a goth
From the depths of her wardrobe bower,
The house, at 22 Rankine Street
In the ‘burb of Astral Downs,
Was built where an ancient charnel house
Had piled the bodies in mounds.

Her folks had put in a swimming pool
Where there’d been a village well,
Right on top of a demon school
In the seventh circle of hell,
The water began to heave and churn
As Beelzebub drew near,
And it cooked a few of the swimmers there
As their laughter turned to fear.

‘You thought that you could make fun of us,’
Said the Prince of Darkness then,
‘For that, we’re making you one of us,
You won’t bother us again!’
The ‘burb dropped into a bottomless pit
That glowed with the flames of hell,
‘A subterraneaun coal seam fire,’
Said the Fire Chief, Adam Schnell.

Emily’s parents came back home,
Sat in the car, and cried,
‘I told her that Goth stuff wasn’t good!’
‘Too late! Our Emily’s fried!’
They filled it in, there’s a parking lot
Where her parents had sat and cursed,
I’d like to bet, they’ll never forget
Their Emily’s Twenty-First!

David Lewis Paget

There are some who consider suicide,
You can see it in their eyes,
They forget the hurt of their loved ones
When they fail to say goodbyes,
They see no point in the gift of life,
Say it doesn’t work for them,
But we walk on by, and we let them die
By some careless theorem.

I noticed the girl in the local church
She was down upon her knees,
Her shoulders shaking with silent sobs
As she stared at the altarpiece,
Her eyes were glazed as she walked on by
It was then that I knew, for sure,
She’d be walking off to an awful fate
If she walked alone through the door.

I caught her up and I walked with her
And I said, ‘I know what you think,
But this will pass, it’s a half full glass,
What you have to do is drink.’
She turned a tear-stained eye to me
And she said, ‘But what would you know?
Your life is a bed of roses now,
But mine is a horror show!’

I tried to draw her out from herself
And she seemed to want to talk,
We wandered down to the Esplanade
And went for a long, slow walk,
Her parents, they were divorced, she said,
Her father had disappeared,
Her mother was mired in drugs and drink,
It was DNA she feared.

‘I don’t want to end like her,’ she said,
‘I don’t want to go like him,
My older brother just hanged himself,
I don’t want to go like Tim.
There’s pain and heartache each way I turn,
I shouldn’t be here at all,’
I put my arm round her shoulders then,
And leant on the old seawall.

‘The life you have is a gift from God,
You can’t just throw it away,
We all have the choice to soldier on
To a brighter, better day.’
I thought that my words had helped her then
When I left her, shaking her head,
That was at three in the afternoon,
By six o’clock, she was dead!

David Lewis Paget

He knew what he wanted to say to her,
He knew what he wanted to do,
He’d step right up to her open door
And he’d quickly say, ‘We’re through!’
Her eyes would show she was startled then,
He thought that her jaw would drop,
But he would turn, walk swiftly away,
And leave with his head held up.

He’d seen her walking out in the park
And he thought he’d seen them kiss,
While he’d been walking there in the dark
With his Mathematics Miss.
She’d flagged him down, and said that his work
Was poor, that he had to choose,
Whether to chase that silly girl or
Square the hypotenuse.

All that she wanted to talk was sine
And something she said was tan,
She’d filled his head up with algebra
But seemed to depress the man.
She’d put her arm round his shoulders then
And said she would help him through,
‘All that you need is a little work
And you’ll be so pleased when you do!’

While Sally had seen her cousin there
Skipped up to him in the dark,
‘Fancy me seeing you way out here
At night, in the Bowling Park!
I thought you were still in Africa
But happen on you, like this!’
Then threw her arms up around his neck
And gave him a cousinly kiss.

They parted then and she turned away
And she saw a sight in the dark,
It looked like Jim, it was surely him
With a woman, there in the park.
She had her arm round his shoulders, they
Looked cosy, walking away,
She bit her lip and her mind went flip
As her world turned bleak and grey.

She knew what she wanted to say to him,
She knew what she wanted to do,
She’d step right up to his open door
And she’d quickly say, ‘We’re through!’
His eyes would show he was startled then,
She thought that his jaw would drop,
But she would turn, walk swiftly away,
And leave with her head held up.

David Lewis Paget

I sit entranced by the silver screen
To watch and wait for your eyes,
To peer on out, as I sit and dream,
Between the clouds in my skies.
I’ve carried you in my heart so long
Without a kiss from your lips,
But sat and sighed till I almost died
For a touch from your fingertips.

I’ve traced the gentle curve of your cheek,
The noble arch of your brow,
The slow spread of the smile that said:
‘I want to be with you, now.’
I’ve watched the tears that we both have shed
For the years that were lost in time,
When you could well have belonged to me,
Or I could have made you mine.

But time and distance are so unfair,
I see you, bright like a star,
One I could wear in my buttonhole
If only it wasn’t so far.
We both reach out and we touch the screen
I trace my fingers on yours,
One day we’ll see, what will be, will be,
But your camera’s set on pause.

David Lewis Paget

I probably failed to like the man
For he went with my ex-wife,
I hated the way she called him Stan,
As if he was hers for life.
They’d both been playing away from home
For a year, so said his ex,
I only heard from the grapevine bird
In a message of plain text.

‘Your wife’s been seeing my husband for
A year now,’ said the note,
‘If you’d like to know all the details
I can give them, creed and rote.’
I wandered round to the place she said
And she ushered me inside,
She said she wouldn’t have bothered me
But suffered from wounded pride.

It seemed that they had been meeting
Every time I was away,
My job as a travelling salesman
Kept me on the road each day.
I’d be away for a week or more
But I thought that things were fine,
She didn’t say that she’d let him play
With the things I thought were mine.

I couldn’t believe he’d cheat on her,
When I looked at the wife of Stan,
She said that her name was Isabel
As she reached and squeezed my hand,
I thought that her face was beautiful
Though it bore the lines of stress,
She said she wanted revenge on them,
I couldn’t have wanted less.

She said that she knew their routine, they
Would dine at the Globe Hotel,
Then go ahead and they’d book a room
At the neighbouring Motel,
I said I knew what we had to do
And we came up with a plan,
‘I think we’ll go and surprise them,
My wife and your husband Stan.’

We waited until they took their seats
At a table set for two,
Then wandered in and we said:
‘We’ll take this table, next to you.’
I’d never seen such spluttering, and
Each face turned beetroot red,
So then I kissed his wife, and turned
To Jane to say, ‘You’re dead!’

I’d only kissed her for effect
To see what Stan would do,
His face suffused with a jealous rage,
And Jane was jealous too,
It’s since that day we’ve made a match
Both I and Isabel,
Which goes to show that a fair exchange
Can sometimes turn out well.

David Lewis Paget

I never can look when I’m riding past
The ruin of Falconridge,
I turn the head of my horse away
When I cross the Narrows Bridge,
And I concentrate on the countryside,
Try not to think of Clair,
Or the simple stone where she lies alone
Beneath its towers there.

But now and then I will think again
Of her and her sister Ruth,
Of the happy days when we used to play
In the dim days of our youth,
We would picnic out in the meadows
And I would chase them over the bridge,
For a kiss or two, though I came to rue
The House of Falconridge!

For Ruth was the elder of the two
And should have been first in line,
She grew to a haughty damosel
So I wouldn’t make her mine,
But Clair was bubbly, full of fun
And she showed she really cared,
So I knew that she was the only one
From the love that we had shared.

‘You will not marry my sister Clair,
I must be the first one wed,
I’ll not be seen as unwanted, left
To cry alone in my bed.’
So Ruth petitioned her father that
He halt our marriage plans,
But he had shrugged off his daughter,
‘This affair is out of my hands!’

The Banqueting Hall in Falconridge
Was decked with flags and flowers,
While Ruth went muttering her dismay
And hid in one of the towers,
She didn’t come out for the service
Though she did come out for the ball,
But sat and glowered at Clair, as we
Had danced our way round the hall.

Their father brought in the caterers
From the other side of the lake,
And they had wheeled in the greatest prize,
A huge five layered cake,
The tiny figures of bride and groom
Stood proudly on the top,
Then Ruth had suddenly come awake,
Leapt up and shouted, ‘Stop!’

The guests had stared, and a sudden hush
Befell the Banqueting Hall,
As Ruth seized both the bride and the groom
And dashed them against the wall,
She seized the knife from the wedding cake
And screamed in a long, high note:
‘I hate you all at this wedding ball!’
Then stabbed my Clair in the throat.

She ran right out of the Banqueting Hall,
I held poor Clair in my arms,
The blood poured over my wedding suit
As they called the Master-At-Arms,
She locked herself in the Northern Tower
And she lit a fire by the door,
Then ran right up to the topmost room,
Lay wailing, there on the floor.

The fire spread up through the Northern Tower
As Clair expired in my arms,
I couldn’t see through the veil of tears
How the guests had fled in alarm,
‘My love, my love,’ she had sighed at last
‘I forgive my sister Ruth,
We shouldn’t have taken her place away,
We wronged her, that is the truth!’

The fire raged, and burnt to a shell
The whole of Falconridge,
But Ruth they found, blackened and burned
As her flesh peeled off in strips,
She’s locked in one of the tower rooms
Will be locked in there for life,
With her claw-like hands and melted face
But it won’t bring back my wife!

I had a mirror placed by the door
She can see herself through the bars,
She has to suffer as I have done
By looking out on her scars,
And from the ruin of Falconridge
You may hear her cry, somehow,
When the Moon is over the Narrows Bridge:
‘Who will marry me now?’

David Lewis Paget