I’d not seen them out in the open,
They grew in the alleys and lanes,
A purple flower with a sort of power
In the scent from its pores and veins,
I asked Romana the name of it
But she shuddered and turned away,
‘It’s a type of bloom called Purple Doom,
Or that’s what the gypsies say.’

The scent was sickly and sweet out there
I admit, it went to my head,
Romana came to the caravan
And made crazy love in bed.
The scent was an aphrodisiac
That drove normal men insane,
Our clothes were dropped and we couldn’t stop
Till we cried aloud in pain.

The aftermath was a migraine head
That we both endured that night,
And when we woke, she tried to choke me,
All we could do was fight.
At last, we came back down to earth
And surveyed the shattered room,
Romana said that we could be dead
From the scent of that Purple Doom.

I beat the weeds round the caravan,
I poked and prodded and pried,
Found Purple Doom, there in the gloom
So its scent was sweet inside.
I tore the clump right out by the roots
But I cut my hand, it bled,
I burnt the flower, curtailed its power
But with poison in my head.

I don’t remember the next few days
But I almost passed away,
I seemed to be wandering in the dark
Where the sky was always grey,
A castle rose in a fallow field
And I tried to cross the moat,
I called Romana ‘Lady Gay’
And she said, ‘Just stay afloat!’

But flowers assailed on every side
They were purple, pink and red,
Leaning in with their tendrils, seemed
To sip the blood I bled.
A gypsy shook me awake one day
And I slowly came around,
‘Don’t go bringing your caravan
And camping on gypsy ground!’

He’d gripped Romana by the hair
And tried to drag her away,
But she let loose with a gypsy curse
And he turned and fled that day.
We towed away the caravan,
And avoid all lanes and gloom,
But she retains a potpourri to
Make love with that Purple Doom.

David Lewis Paget