She likes fashion and interviews. I like getting lost.
Sometimes she grabs my bulge,
as she drinks from an aluminum flask.
She told me to rhyme something with 'flask'.
I said, "Fine. In your life, you've been wearing a mask.
But I can see. And you can see. They can't see.
That you are a detached, blond doll
and your back is against the wall,
as I kiss your neck until you're dead."
She said to rhyme something with 'dead'.
I said, "Fine. You ******* in my head.
And it's quarrelsome
that they don't see that you're numb.
I'd pull on your lip, with my teeth.
Dig my hand between your legs.
Just to make you feel. Just to make you feel.
And I study your hairbrush
to see that there are too much
strands of memories from melodies
that lay dormant in ballrooms
and scented kisses
that drip of the misses
in your life and mine."
She said **** me with your words.
I refused because I'd rather watch her bloom
in my dreams than the seams of
a fiber noose that rings loose
the bell in your neck
that sounds until birds fly
and we die-
You look at me,
"Home."

The shadows of the ships
Rock on the crest
In the low blue lustre
Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide.

A long brown bar at the dip of the sky
Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt.

The lucid and endless wrinkles
Draw in, lapse and withdraw.
Wavelets crumble and white spent bubbles
Wash on the floor of the beach.

          Rocking on the crest
          In the low blue lustre
          Are the shadows of the ships.

He’d been away with the army then
For almost twenty years,
And walking back to his village he
Had expected smiles and tears,
He thought his wife would be waiting there
Though his son, he knew, was grown,
He’d been away and protecting them
Though the soldier, now, was home.

He saw the village had barely changed
Though the people stood and stared,
He thought that they were in awe of him
Could it be the village cared?
They took in his battered breastplate and
The dents that marked his greaves,
The helmet that had been battered and
The blood on his chain-mail sleeves.

He’d walked for several miles since when
His horse had collapsed and died,
It weathered many a battle but
Fell foul of the countryside,
But soon he’d take off his armour when
He would meet again his bride,
And she would make him a pottage, and
Rejoice that he hadn’t died.

He’d tramped in the lands of Burgundy
He’d fought in the land of Gaul,
He’d taken the Cross to Saladin
And wept at the Wailing Wall.
His face bore scars from the sword and lance
And a mace had raked his back,
From a knight behind who had been struck blind
In a frontal, forced attack.

He’d waded deep in a sea of blood,
He’d trampled a field of bones,
And helped to bury his comrades there
Marking the place with stones,
But now his body was tired and worn
It was leave the field, or die,
His horse had brought him wandering home
To the village of Burton Rye.

His wife came out from the cottage door
And she blanched, and shook in fear,
‘I don’t know where you are coming from
But you don’t belong in here!’
He glanced at the short and thickened form
That he didn’t recognise,
‘Are you the wife I’ve been fighting for,
If so, my memory lies!’

‘You went away in another life
Leaving none to warm my bed,
I took a shine to the blacksmith here,
Fell in love with him, instead.
It’s twenty years since you went away
Did you think you could return?
You’ve lived the life of a soldier, all
You do, is pillage and burn.’

‘I had to go to protect you here,
Out there, it’s a world at war,
I’ve fought the enemy everywhere
To keep the pain from your door.
I loved you when you were slim and young
And your eyes were bright with cheer,’
His shoulders slumped and he turned away,
‘I see I’m not wanted here!’

David Lewis Paget

A-Artifacts of long ago they're ever searching out
R-Relics in the Earth's soil layers interred deep
C-Curios from cultures past they're excavating out
H-History is alive in the things buried so deep
A-Abroad and at home their trowels seeking out
E-Enlightening the world with fragments of the deep
O-Open our eyes to the objects they shovel out
L-Lasting stories of past societies entombed down deep
O-Ongoing discoveries made with what they dig out
G-Great civilizations lie in quietness beneath the deep
I-Interesting journals and facts these specialists put out
S-Saving the ken of ancestries which are lodged deep
T-Times way back in eons past to-day bought out
S-Surfacing from the ground out of a sleep most deep