"christabel" poems
‘Why do you colour your lips so black,
Darken your piercing eyes,
What are you hiding behind your back,
Have you been telling me lies?
Why are you wearing those knee length boots,
Pulling that cloak round, tight,
Where are you going, under the Moon,
Where will you be tonight?
Christabel grimaced but wouldn’t reply,
She turned, with her hand on the door,
Gazing right through me, I’d thought that she knew me
But there was no love like before.
Her brows, they were furrowed, her eyes hard as glass,
Her lips they were pursed in contempt,
I should have left then when she’d put down the pen
But I didn’t know then what it meant.
I knew she was moody, I knew she was dark,
She’d flutter round blind, like a moth,
She always wore black, even out in the park,
They warned me, they said ‘She’s a Goth!’
I’d found her entrancing at first, I admit,
I tried to get into her mind,
But once in those raveling tunnels of darkness
The deepest of thoughts were unkind.
I picked up the note she left ******* on the floor
The moment she left for the night,
‘I have to see Jack,’ she had scribbled, ‘That’s that!’
I must put my nightmares to flight.’
I knew there was darkness and heartache to come,
She’d promised him plenty of strife,
But then I’d jumped in to his bucket of sin
As I thought she was out of his life.
I asked her at first was she over him yet,
And yes, she assured me she was,
But surely his name wouldn’t drive her insane
If it wasn’t a question of loss!
A terrible feeling came over me then,
I needed to know where she went,
So headed on out to where Jack hung about,
I shouldn’t have gone, I repent.
I saw through the window the angel of death
Her cloak streaming out, like a moth,
And he in the corner, not catching his breath
His throat in the grip of a Goth!
I tried to burst in but the door was deadlocked,
I saw the knife raised in her fist,
Then plunge, and a scream like some terrible dream,
For just as he died, she had kissed!
She came out toward me but covered in blood,
On hands, on her lips and her face,
While I backed away, I had nothing to say,
But,‘Heaven above, lend me grace!’
She ran away, stumbling, on through the dark
But she’d not seen her nightmares off,
I found she was hung on a light in the park,
In her mouth was a fluttering moth.
David Lewis Paget
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 12:00 AM UTC
There’s something wrong, for I see it now
Burn brightly in my brain,
A simple spark and a flash of light
That becomes a roaring flame,
It happens just about every night
As I rest my weary head,
And burns my eyes from the insides, when
I’m lying still in bed.
The doctors say it’s a trick of light
At the corner of my eyes,
Perhaps it’s only a lightning flash
That catches, by surprise,
But there’s no light in my darkened room
And the blinds are pulled down tight,
It comes so suddenly, then it goes
Like a spark of some insight.
Could it be something that’s been and gone
Though I’ve blacked the memory out,
Something terrible, that went wrong
And scared me, without doubt?
Could it be something that’s still to come
Said the gypsy in the hall,
While crossing her palm with silver, as
She peered in her crystal ball.
‘It could be a warning from the gods,
It could be a sign of fate,
Some sort of a premonition that
You attended to, too late,
The crystal ball has a fiery glow
In its depths, that I never saw,
And many’s the time I’ve gazed in it
Not seeing such glow before.’
I never would worry Christabel
With my tale of the nightly flame,
I wouldn’t have wanted her to think
There was something wrong with my brain,
So she went and ordered her wedding dress
A vision in silk and lace,
And yards and yards of a satin trail
With net all over her face.
We took our vows in the Baptist church
She’d attended since a child,
Keeping her mother happy, though
In fact, she was meek and mild,
Then later at the reception we
Arrived at the old church hall,
And Christabel was a vision as
She stood by the entrance wall.
There’s no way I could foresee it
Though I later thought that I should,
A guest came in with a cigarette,
I’d have stopped him if I could,
He flicked the **** and a single spark
Flew onto my darling's train,
The silk and satin went up at once
And Christabel was aflame.
The flames went up like a giant torch
And engulfed the yards of net,
There wasn’t time for a single word
If there was, then I forget,
She stood there blackened, her skin peeled off
And she swayed against the wall,
Then slowly toppled to earth before
I reached, to stay her fall.
Now every night there’s a single spark
And a sudden flash of light,
As flames are dancing behind my eyes
In that awful nightmare sight,
The tears that roll down my cheeks are hot
As if roasted in the fire,
They might as well, for I dwell in hell
Since I lost my one desire.
David Lewis Paget
Feb 16, 2017
Feb 16, 2017 at 9:23 AM UTC
I lost my job
you want to come over
yeah I think I do
Haven't seen you in months...
Suddenly I see once again
How deeply you impacted me.
You're like a dock worker
But a girl, a fire fighter to be exact.
We're not that different;
I just conformed to expectations.
We speak like we always spoke.
You ground me
You always ground me.
The whisperers are on a roll
And you listen intently.
The house has a heart
The blue lines on your wall
Look like the arteries
And there's a warm beating heart at the foundation.
There are images projected
In the empty space
In your kitchen
And I'm in deep flow
Whispering past events to you.
There are jokes infused
In serious discussions
And a cause of hilarity
In our intoxicated distraction.
There's a playful fox
On the edge of my lips...
And a seed of trust
Embedded in our souls.
We add dimensions
To our reality.
Open up more.
Close our mouths more.
Like the Yin
We flow slowly but surely,
We dust oursrlves off,
We reach our goals...
But not today.
The beer is cold
And there's a border collie in my lap...
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 5:29 PM UTC