The world looks grim when your eyes are dim
And they’re swollen red with tears,
When all that you’ve won has come undone
And all you have left are fears,
So Jonathon Ley had felt that day
When he looked for his missing girl,
But she was several streets away
In bed with a man called Earl!

His world had come to a shuddering end,
His hopes had burst at the seams,
He knew that his heart would never mend
And all he had left were dreams.
The clouds of grief that came like a thief
Had stolen his girl, Elaine,
And she, the source of his one belief
Was promising only pain.

He hadn’t had any back-up plans
When planning his life ahead,
With Lainey gone he was on his own
Just him, and his empty head,
He thought that he’d put an end to it
The pain and suffering; How?
He spent some days considering ways
Under his furrowed brow.

He climbed to the top of the Town Hall clock
And found himself looking down,
All that he had to do was drop
Right next to the Lost & Found,
He’d looked on up from the street below
Took a final look at a star,
But didn’t know when he had to go
That the street would be down so far.

There’s always time for a change of plan
He thought, as he climbed back down,
Hiding his face from everyone
In case they thought him a clown.
He took a blade from the kitchen drawer
And thought he’d go to the park,
Then slit his throat in his overcoat,
By God, but that blade was sharp!

He wandered moping along the street
To think just what could be done,
He wanted to do it, quick and neat
But he hadn’t bought him a gun,
Then Lainey came, she had changed her mind
For Earl was a dog, and things,
‘You got the jist of the story wrong,
He asked me to test his springs!’

So Jonathon’s world came back in view
The clouds were cleared from his sky,
With everything now about her new
He never asked Lainey why.
They wed in June, in the afternoon
And the baby came in a whirl,
But he wouldn’t presume to question why
The baby looked like Earl!

David Lewis Paget