He lived in a tiny attic, set
Way up on the second floor,
I’d never have known he lived there, but
He left his shoes by the door,
A note tucked into the left shoe said
‘They’re yours if I don’t return!’
The right said, ‘Put on a dead man’s shoes,
And know that you’re going to burn!’

The boarding house was for down-and-outs
So you know where my life was at,
The final link in an endless chain
Since they threw me out of my flat,
I had no job, I had no friends
My family moved away,
They hadn’t left an address for me
So here’s where I had to stay.

I heard him shuffling past my door
With a walk like bone on bone,
His eyes were dim and his face was grim
And his skin as grey as stone,
I chanced to be in the hallway once
But he just stared straight ahead,
I said ‘Hello,’ but he rattled back,
‘I’ve just returned from the dead!’

He’d sit awhile on the balcony,
In the fading rays of the sun,
Trying to tan the greyness out
But the pallor was not undone,
I grabbed a chair and I sat by him
And he finally looked my way,
His eye delved into my very soul,
‘What did you want to say?’

‘You look like a man of secrets,’
Were the first words that I thought,
‘Maybe you have an insight into
Things that I might be taught?’
‘There’s nothing here in your life, it’s clear,
That would help,’ he gave a sigh,
‘I only know of the deathly fear
That is yours, when once you die.’

‘Nobody knows what happens then,’
I said, ‘for it’s understood,
Once you have left this mortal coil
You’re dead, and you’re dead for good!’
The old man shivered and shook his head
‘I’m the only one who knows,
For I die nightly in my bed
And return when the first **** crows!’

I didn’t believe him way back then,
I hardly believe him now,
But I crept into his midnight room
And I put my hand on his brow.
His flesh was icy cold to the touch,
He had no pulse or breath,
His eyes were pointed up in his head
And I knew he was caught in death.

But still he came on shuffling out
In the first grey light of dawn,
After the **** had crowed, he said,
When his body began to warm,
I asked him what he had seen out there
While caught in the clasp of death,
And he spoke of the chambers of despair
When he finally caught his breath.

‘The chambers are lit with a flickering light
From a million candle’s glow,
A million tubs of candlewax
That light up the rooms below,
And set in deep in the candlewax
Is the shape of a human form,
The head protruding just like a wick
Who wish they’d never been born.’

‘The flames are burning the tortured flesh
The heads are trying to scream,
I pass along them on right and left
As if it’s a nightmare dream,
But this is the fate of terrorists
And suicide bombers there,
Their one reward for the cause they fought
An eternity of despair.’

I turned away and I felt quite sick
At the things death held in store,
And all the other horrors he’d seen
When he’d nightly passed death’s door.
‘How long must you go on suffering this,’
I said, as I turned my head,
But the old man sat in his rocking chair
Quite still, and finally dead!

David Lewis Paget

the reflection of street in window
and the smell of red
meat, remind me: not
everything is idyllic

red velvet seats
itch my skin
while they pass
murmuring

voices harass my ears

to what do I owe
the pleasure of your company?
the empty vase—
        this cup
               full of coffee

the room smelled so
suddenly of my grandmother
cigarettes doused in perfume
--cover the smoke

my jaw is shaped like hers:
a protuberance of chin on a face
{the bump of a curly bracket}

in her split level cottage,
a home away from home,
I made

little tea set memories
positioned in pastel houses
“I’m a lady,” I told her,
only dolls for witnesses.

smell the similarities of our faces.
hints of cigarette perfume
emanating from the pores
in my plastic doll skin

I don't care
anymore--
nothing
is interesting.
it is all
one shade of midnight
blue
it is all
one shade of
*******
(as if I even had the energy to
feel such anger)

these words come from
oops, I am spiraling again
oops, I already spiraled
I hit bottom
and I think I will stay here for awhile

feel free to come join me if
you think you can

She doesn't know you but she could tell you your favorite song because she says it reminds her of the backs of your hands, younger than how they would seem and are much wiser than her. You've never spoke but your voice is her favorite song. Continuously playing in the back of her mind like a broken record you don’t want to turn off. She too is a broken record of your name, yet she cannot remember what it is. Like its resting on the tip of her lips, I imagine her, resting on the edge of yours. She tries to write poems, about how you make her feel weak at the knees. Frustrated, she tells me that she can’t write your perfection. It is endless and effortless and compares to nothing, after this she often contradicts herself by comparing you to the brightest stars and the vastness of space. He is all of me, she says. She knows you better in her dreams than she knows her own mother who doesn't know of the love she has given. She knows you’ll love her because she’s the sort of person who steps on every crack and reads obscure books with strange names. You’ll love her because she’s pretty and ambitious and astute and charming. She is endless and effortless and compares to nothing, you will often contradict this by comparing her to the brightest stars and the vastness of space. She will be all of you. She will rest on the edge of your lips and you will love her as she does you. As I love her.

i know a boy
who sits behind me
always tapping his pen
tapping
and tapping
fingertips spelling

i am anxious

i know a boy
who walks me to class
looks at me before I leave
his foot keeps
tapping
and tapping
and I keep waiting

for him to tell me goodbye
so I can go to class

i know a boy
who cannot stop

like a car alarm on
christmas morning

like police sirens
underwater

a boy
afraid of the pause
the rest, the wait, the halt
the slow motion of eyes meeting,
elbows accidentally touching
words becoming deep breaths,
hesitating instead

I know a boy
who is still a child

and over and over,
i loved him "still"

Down at the end of Charters Street
In a dim-lit part of town,
There stands the old Alhambra and
They’re going to pull it down.
We warned them up at the council, but
They said it’s a waste of space,
There’s not been a film for twenty years
Since the Carol Ransome case.

Carol was found in a pool of blood
By the curtains, up on the stage,
Somebody took a knife to her
In a crazed, death-dealing rage,
They never discovered just who it was
But the cinema closed right down,
Nobody wanted to go again
In this hick, one hotel town.

That was the end of our childhood fun
Our own theatre of dreams,
No more Saturday Matinées
Or milk shakes or ice creams,
Nothing to do in this one horse town
But to chase the girls in the park,
And get some serious kissing done
When the day was getting dark.

So Al and Joe and Mary Ann
And me, I must admit,
Broke on into the cinema
And found ourselves in the pit,
Right in front of the dusty stage
Where the curtains hung in shreds,
Barely hiding the giant screen
That was covered in old cobwebs.

We’d played in there for an hour or so
Running between the rows,
Making the Hammond ***** screech
Like a fat man touching his toes,
When suddenly there was a swishing sound
And the curtains began to part,
And something flickered up on the screen
As if it was going to start.

We stood stock still and we held our breath
When the speakers grumbled and groaned,
‘It looks like we’ve got an audience!’
A voice on the speakers moaned.
Then faces peered from the ancient screen
From the days of black and white,
But there wasn’t a single projection beam
From the room where it used to light.

A shimmering glow from the screen fell on
The first few rows of seats,
And one dimensional girls appeared
With ice creams and with treats,
The figures spilled from the silver screen
And onto the wooden stage,
Dracula, framed in black and white
And Frankenstein in a rage.

We were all of us petrified by blood
And Al was thinking to run,
But ‘Don’t you move!’ said an ugly hood
On the screen, and pointing a gun.
They made us sit in the second row
And paraded their long-gone fame,
Bela Lugosi’s fangs and cloak
And the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Then as they faded a woman walked
From the wings, and out on the stage,
And a man that we knew as Grocer George
Flew suddenly into a rage.
He knifed the woman a dozen times
And he beat her down to the floor,
And over the screams of Mary Ann
We made a break for the door.

The screen went dark and the stage was bare
And the curtains hung like shrouds,
We said that we’d never go back in there
As we lay, looked up at the clouds,
But we each went in to the grocery store
And we whispered, ‘Carol’s back!’
‘We know what you did,’ said Mary Ann
And George’s eyes went black.

He chased us out of his grocery
And he closed the store for good,
Then policeman Andy found him hanging
Down in the Maple wood.
They’d better not take the Alhambra down
Or the ghosts of the silver screen,
Will all get out, and they’ll roam about
Without a theatre of dreams!

David Lewis Paget