There were twenty women and fourteen men
From the wreck on that tiny spit,
Lost in that mighty ocean, just a
Mile was the most of it,
There were pigs galore from a previous crew
Who’d been wrecked some years before,
And plenty of veg, they fished from a ledge
Jutting out, and over the shore.

So in time the fourteen had paired them off
And it left, forlorn, the six,
There wasn’t a single partner left
For the girls to scratch their itch,
So they huddled up and began to plot
How to thin out the ranks of those
Who took up the men that were meant for them,
They started by shedding their clothes.

There were naked ******* that they thought would test
The men in the rival camp,
Would lure them off in the undergrowth
To lie where the earth was damp,
And it worked for some, though the men returned
To the partners they chose before,
‘The only way that they’re going to stay,’
Said the six, ‘is to go to war.’

Charmaine was found in a grove of trees
With her face, all covered in blood,
And Derek didn’t seem too displeased
He latched onto Maxine Flood,
But the thirteen said, her blood was red,
And they looked askance at the five,
‘We need to arm, and raise the alarm
If we’re going to stay alive.’

But a dozen died in the camp that night,
The soup had given them cramps,
Eleven woman had taken flight
And the one old man, called Gramps,
That left a surplus of thirteen men
And the women numbered seven,
‘There’s not enough to go round,’ they said,
But the women were in heaven.

The six bereft of the men were left
To mumble and scheme and plot,
‘We need to **** at least six of them,
Whether we want, or not!’
So late at night in the pale moonlight
There were shadows abroad in the trees,
And before the dawn, the six had gone,
Beaten down to their knees.

There were six and six, you would think it fixed,
In a year they’d be in hell,
For two of the girls lay down, were nixed
Gave birth, in a winter spell,
The men denied said they had their pride
And attacked their mates of yore.
But somehow managed to **** all three,
So now there were three and four.

‘We’ll keep the fourth in reserve,’ they said,
‘In case of a sudden death,’
But Maxine Flood was in no such mood
Though she sat, and she held her breath,
They made her fish and they made her cook
While she worked upon her wish,
And when just one of the men was gone
She fed them puffer fish.

‘Now there’s only you, and there’s only me,’
She called, when he wandered back,
Staggering into the camp, he said,
‘I’ve been in a shark attack!’
His arm was missing, he bled right out,
And died in front of her eyes,
While Maxine Flood had rolled in his blood
And cried to the empty skies.

David Lewis Paget

Longing through lonesome days,
supplicating the sun to set.
I anxiously await your arrival,
should consciousness concede to what I covet.

Only in fanciful fantasies,
in the delight of darkness,
and in our notoriously nocturnal nature,
have I ever happened upon happiness.

Give me the gift of your grace,
the spell of your sweet surrender,
and the temporarity of tonight
will flourish into forever.

In the day I may wistfully wander
halfheartedly and uncommitted,
but in dreams I know not the words
lonely or unrequited.

The bus rolled up, and parked on the green
It was painted black outside,
With just one sign, up over the door,
‘Come in for a hell of a ride.’
So the neighbours gathered around the bus
And the wife went up to the door,
She said, ‘Come on, stop making a fuss,
What are you waiting for?’

My Dawn has always been quick to jump
She’ll do most things for a fling,
She gets herself in trouble enough
By trying most everything,
She once got stuck on the Ferris Wheel
When she got right up to the top,
Then the lights went out, and they all went home
And the seat began to rock.

You’d think that that would have cured her when
She spent the night in the air,
Freezing her **** in the darkness and
Tied to a swinging chair,
When the wind blew up and the rain came down
And the lights in the fair went out,
She swears that she almost lost her voice
For the times that she tried to shout.

Now here she was at the door of a bus
That was black, and dim inside,
You couldn’t see through the tinted glass
I know, for we all had tried,
The neighbours stood there, egging her on
Though they stood well back in fear,
While Dawn rapped ******* the bus’s door,
Nobody else went near.

The door slid back with an evil swish
And revealed a dim red glow,
She said ‘Come on,’ and I said ‘You wish,’
She called me a so-and-so,
But climbed the step and the door slid shut
Locking us all outside,
The diesel roared as it started up,
Drove into the countryside.

That said it might have been Martians or
Some pinhead freaks from the Moon,
We didn’t know what they came here for
But we all would find out soon,
I hate to think what they did to her
In the glow of that evil bus,
Or if there was only the driver, but
He sure wasn’t one of us!

They found her out in a country lane
Or at least, what there was left,
I went quite crazy with grief, for I
Had never felt so bereft,
They’d taken her heart, and her kidneys, lungs
And even the ***** of her eyes,
So now we knew what that sign had meant,
‘Come in for a hell of a ride.’

If ever you see a ******* bus
Roll up and park on the green,
Stay well away from the door, or pay
The price that my Dawn has seen,
It’s there to collect the organs from
Unwary ones, and it steals
Whatever it can from mortal man,
It’s really a hell on wheels!

David Lewis Paget

I've discovered Hell, and the truth is,
It isn't a place you go, it's a sickness.
It resides within your bones
And its scaffolding is made from trauma.
The only fire you'll find is from the white-hot flashbacks
That leave you drenched in sweat that smells like smoke.
No-one lives there except you and your enemies,
And your enemies are fragments of history, unable to be killed.
Your mind is the devil that subjects you to punishment
That you can't help but be convinced that you deserve,
And escape is a notion kept only for tears;
Everything else remains trapped.
Hell is being held within the cage of your own body
And killing yourself trying to break free.

I broke up with God
at our favorite eatery
in our favorite booth.

We settled into familiar creases
and asked for the usual.

My eyes lazily staring at fingers
stirring the straw around the ice cubes,
God cautiously spoke up:

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing.” (Thinking about the dormant phone
concealing behind the lock screen
the open Facebook tab
lingering over the relationship status section.)

They silently mused over the laconic reply,
til the waitress showed up with the food.

“Thank you!” God blurted with agonizing alacrity.

I received the sustenance lifelessly
and aimlessly poked at the burgers and fries.

The waitress eyed me with vague inquisition,
popping a bubble in the gum between
big teeth, refilled my water
and pirouetted hastily.

We ate in ostensible harmony,
the silence gripping like a chokehold,
the visible anxiety and subdued resolve
settling like a stifling blanket
over the child waking
from a nightmare—

Til we couldn’t breathe,
and I ripped back the covers
and looked into the eyes
of my tormentor.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

God, taken aback by the curt statement,
dropped their burger with shaking hands,
silently begging with wetting eyes
a greater explanation.

So I elaborated:

“It’s not you, it’s me.

For your immaculate conception
was created by human hands,

your adages rendered obsolete
by human words,

your purpose and plan for us
distorted by human nature—

I cannot hate myself any longer.

I cannot pretend to know you at all.

Who my mother and father say you are
is not who my friends think you are,
nor my teachers, my pastor,
the president, Stephen Hawking,
Muhammed, the KKK, Buddha,
the Westboro Baptist Church,
Walt Whitman, Derek Zanetti,
******,
and Billy Graham.

I am told you care who I bring into bed (and when),
and what movies I watch,
and what music I listen to—

I have not heard what you say about
child soldiers, the use of mosquitos,
or the increased destruction of the earth
which you proudly proclaimed your creation,
or the poverty and disease and famine
which has ridden so many of your children—”

God interjected,
“But you’re chosen!”

I snorted,

“You say I’m chosen
to spend eternity with you—
why me?

Why’d you pick me among
thousands, millions, billions?

I’ve been told I’m ‘chosen’
since birth
by others like me—

those with fair complexion,
blue eyes,
blonde hair,
a firm overt ****** attraction towards women,
and a great big house
with immaculate white fences
delineating their Jericho.

I’ve already fabricated eternity
here among the other ‘chosen’
and there is a world of suffering
right outside the fence
and I see them
through the window of my bedroom
every day.

Am I chosen,
if I don’t vote Republican

Am I chosen
if I am Pro-Choice

Am I chosen
if I cohabitate with my girlfriend

Am I chosen
if I never have kids

Am I chosen
if I say ‘Happy Holidays’

Am I chosen
if I don’t want public prayer in schools

Am I chosen
if I don’t want a Christian nation

Am I chosen
if I don’t repost you on my wall
or retweet your adages?

I’m tired
being the ubermensch,
for it has not brought me
happiness
and I blame you.

I will not ignore
the cries of the suffering
believing it is I
who is destined to live
in bliss.

I will not buy
Joel Osteen’s autobiography(ies).

I will not tithe
you my money
for a megachurch
when another homeless shelter
closes down.

I will not tell a woman
what to do with her body,
or a man
that he is a man
if they say they are not.

I am neither Jew nor Gentile,
and I will stand with
my brothers and sisters
of Faith and Faithlessness,

Gay and Straight,
Black and White,

and apart from these extremes
free from absolutes
the ambiguous, amorphous
nature of Humankind
which I praise.

There is much pain and suffering
in this world,
potentially preventable,
but hardly can I believe
it’s part of your plan
to save
me.

I will not be saved
if we are not
all saved—

not one will burn
for my divinity.

The gates will be open to all—
and perhaps you believe that too,
but I’ve gotten you all wrong
and that cannot change,
as long as there is
mortality, and
corruption, and
power, and
lust, and
greed.”

God whined, growing bellicose,

“It is through me that you will find eternity,
I am the one true god!
I am the God of your fallen ancestors,
it is because you have fallen short
that you need me!”

I replied, growing in confidence,

“We have all fallen short,
yes,
but we are also magnificent.

We have evolved,
we have created,
we have adapted,
we have survived.

We have built empires,
and we have destroyed them.

We have cured diseases,
and we have created them.

We have done much in your name.
We’ve done good,
and we’ve done evil—

And unfortunately it’s all about
who you ask.

Your name is a burden on the oppressed
and a weapon of the oppressor.

You are abusive, God.

You tell me you are jealous.

You tell me apart from you I will suffer for an eternity.

I’m scared to die, yet want to die,
because of you.

You have made life a waiting room
that is now my purgatory. It is

Hell On Earth.

So you see,
it’s not you,
it’s me—
a mere mortal
who has tried to put a face
to eternity
and it has left me
empty.

And also,
it’s me,
for I have learned to love me,
as I have expelled your self-loathing imbibition,
and the deleterious zeal
I have proclaimed
through ceaseless
trepidation
and self-flagellation—

I have learned to love me
by realizing I am not inherently evil,
that my body is not evil,
that my mind is not evil,
and, ultimately, that
there is no good
and there is no evil.

My body is beautiful,
my mind is beautiful,
this world is beautiful,
and we are destroying it
waiting for you to claim
us.

I leave you
in hopes to see you
again one day,

and perhaps you will look
different than I have
perceived or imagined,

and in fact
I certainly hope so.”

Just then the waitress strolled back up
with a servile smile:
“Dessert?”

“No, thank you,”
I smiled politely.

And with that,
I paid the check,
and took a to-go box—

walked out into the evening rain
to my car,
put on a secular song
that meant something real to me
and drove off
into the night—

feeling for the first time
free
and alive.