I’d brought my woman to live with me
In a cottage by Elmsley Wood,
We lived on pure and simple fare
For my wages weren’t that good,
I bagged a hare and a stoat or two
With my ancient .22,
She skinned and cooked, and cleaned and looked
For something better to do.

‘I’m used to the shops and supermart,
The bars, fast cars and fun,
I didn’t know we’d be isolated,
Let’s go back there, ***!’
I hadn’t a job for two full years
And she knew that to be true,
‘I only remember the city tears
When I couldn’t look after you!’

We’d always been such a loving pair
When we lived outside the yoke,
With plenty of time for making love
In a ratty flat, and broke.
But once I became a gamekeeper
I had a feeling of pride,
‘A man has need of his self-respect,’
I said, so Kathy sighed.

I’d do my rounds at the dawning while
The sun was lying low,
While she would sleep every morning
Spring or Summer, heat or snow.
Then I’d go out in the evenings when
The Moon was riding high,
Hoping to catch the poachers on
My patch, and being sly.

So Kathy began to go for walks
Each sunny afternoon,
She wouldn’t stick round for lunch, or talks
And the cottage was filled with gloom.
I’d take my break in the afternoon
Either read, or take a nap,
And hear the crackle of twigs and leaves
As she came walking back.

I warned her not to go walking through
The depths of Elmsley Wood,
‘There’s a couple of shady characters
In there, up to no good.’
She said she’d taken it all on board
Just walked the nearer trees,
Listening to the songs of birds
And the hum of busy bees.

One afternoon she had gone, and I
Was not too tired that day,
So wandered deep in the wood where I
Might meet the rogue, John Gray.
I saw him out in a clearing, and
He had her in his clutch,
I thought that I must be dreaming for
She wasn’t wearing much.

I turned, and hurried back home without
Them knowing I was there,
I had my heart in my throat, but was
Determined not to care.
The rage was building within me
For the woman who was mine,
I thought, ‘How could she deceive me?’
But that evening was sublime.

She said that the larder was empty
Could I go and bag a hare,
I said, ‘Just give me an hour or so,
I’ll bag some thing out there.’
I came in late, and upon the plate
I tossed her John Gray’s head,
‘I couldn’t find you a hare, I swear,
Just pickle that instead!’

David Lewis Paget

This is the key to it.
This is the key to everything.
Preciously.

I am worse than the gamekeeper's children
picking for dust and bread.
Here I am drumming up perfume.

Let me go down on your carpet,
your straw mattress -- whatever's at hand
because the child in me is dying, dying.

It is not that I am cattle to be eaten.
It is not that I am some sort of street.
But your hands found me like an architect.

Jugful of milk! It was yours years ago
when I lived in the valley of my bones,
bones dumb in the swamp. Little playthings.

A xylophone maybe with skin
stretched over it awkwardly.
Only later did it become something real.

Later I measured my size against movie stars.
I didn't measure up. Something between
my shoulders was there. But never enough.

Sure, there was a meadow,
but no young men singing the truth.
Nothing to tell truth by.

Ignorant of men I lay next to my sisters
and rising out of the ashes I cried
my *** will be transfixed!

Now I am your mother, your daughter, your brand new thing -- a snail, a nest.
I am alive when your fingers are.

I wear silk -- the cover to uncover --
because silk is what I want you to think of.
But I dislike the cloth. It is too stern.

So tell me anything but track me like a climber
for here is the eye, here is the jewel,
here is the excitement the ****** learns.

I am unbalanced -- but I am not mad with snow.
I am mad the way young girls are mad,
with an offering, an offering...

I burn the way money burns.

Ana speaks to the ones who listen
a fallacy of fictional happiness
a gamekeeper of your life
she secretly kills you
keeping you alive with the hopes that one day you might get want you've always wanted
to be thin
you die
Ana lives
tormenting always
Ana never dies

With thoughts of old childhood birthday blossoms,
and crisp, clear fragrant summer mornings never to be forgotten
the gift of peace to a commitment untold
and the life and heart of the country unfold

from the birth of fawn to the parting of old bones
the lush of leaf or the solemn of stone
with the gush of stream and the call of bird
this country could entice the soul of any to turn

the sodden wet grass from a night of refresh
with the elegant  bluebells littered like trade stands across Marrakech
the love and flesh of a greater power once said
and the flavour and colour to be feasted once again

by the old man gamekeeper the luckiest man I've met

We are quarry.
Looked after by the sickest gamekeeper.