She was always saying she’d **** me,
Was violent in word and in act,
But a heart of gold, so her friends have told,
They say it as if it’s a fact.
But they’d never had to live with her,
And often, I think it’s true,
That you only know what’s in somebody’s soul
Whenever you have, or you do.

They thought her the life of the party,
All giggles and kicking up heels,
When we were alone, she’d curse and she’d moan,
Just ask me, I know how it feels.
She’d slander each friendship behind their back,
While they were left thinking it fine,
I didn’t care much for the friends she’d attack,
But then she’d get stuck into mine.

They’d not see her tempers and tantrums,
Weren’t there with her stamping her feet.
I’d heard it said she was good in bed,
She’d wrap herself up in a sheet.
She gave out that she was broadminded
Would flash both her cleavage and thighs,
But never at home, when we were alone,
She’d do it for all other guys.

I never could do a thing right for her
She held me in bitter contempt,
While I’d try to raise her, to lift and to praise her,
She’d just say that I was unkempt.
I took her one day for a picnic lunch,
We sat at the top of a cliff,
The weather was balmy, I thought it would calm me,
It did, but her manner was stiff.

She soon resurrected an argument
I thought that was over and done,
My mind was quite hazy, but she was stone crazy,
And soon she had started to run.
I stood at the edge of the towering cliff
With her charging at me, and how!
She came in a rush, but she missed in her push
Or I wouldn’t be writing this now.

David Lewis Paget

Standing alone in the bank today
Was an angel in disguise,
I knew by how she had combed her hair
By the sparkle in her eyes,
A dimple nestled in either cheek
And her lips were pink and fine,
They smiled just once when she looked at me
In an echo of God’s design.

We waited to be attended to
But the teller was so slow,
She let us stand in a queue of two
That had nowhere else to go,
My eyes flicked over the angel’s face
As she stood beside me there,
She must have thought I was more than rude
But I couldn’t help but stare.

I don’t go staring at everyone
It isn’t a trait of mine,
To garner up my attention you
Would have to be more than fine,
But here was an angel, true to life
And she’d come to use the bank,
I had no idea who’d sent her there,
I didn’t know who to thank.

I think I must have unsettled her
With my frank and open stare,
She’d shift uneasily on each foot
And pretend I wasn’t there,
I watched as there came a holy glow
Like a rose on either cheek,
And thought that I was unfair to her
It was time for me to speak.

I motioned once as she turned to me
That I had something to say,
She nodded and she acknowledged me
As she waited, looked my way,
‘I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,
But I couldn’t help but stare,’
And then I said, ‘but you’re beautiful,’
And her smile entranced me there.

After the teller had done with us
And we ended in the street,
I thought that the angel went away
Then I heard her pretty feet,
‘Whatever you do, it’s up to you,
You’re the keeper of the spell,
I only ask that the thing to do
Is please, Oh please don’t tell!’

David Lewis Paget

I met him first in a darkened room
Of the Club called Heaven’s Lair,
You wouldn’t look at him twice, in fact
You’d swear that he wasn’t there,
He’d sunk right into a corner lounge
And you’d think it rather odd,
He sat there facing the wall, and stared,
The Man with the Eyes of God.

I’d drank at the bar a dozen times
But I’d never seen him round,
A patron pointed him out to me
His lips not making a sound,
He turned a beer mat over, then
He nudged, and gave me the nod,
Scribbled a note that said, ‘That’s him!
The Man with the Eyes of God.’

I smirked, and carried my drink across
Though the patron said, ‘Beware!’
Approached the back of the lounge to see
When the man just said, ‘Stop there!
Don’t venture into my vision, or
You will see what you should not,
Your blood will curdle within your veins
And your heart will surely stop.’

I stopped, and sat to the rear of him
Behind, and off to his right,
‘They tell me you have a precious gift
To do with the Maker’s sight.’
‘It’s not a gift, it’s a curse,’ he said
‘That I’ve laboured with for years,
For God sent me for your history,
And lent me his eyes and ears.’

‘He wanted to know what you had done
Since he last went past this way,
And scattered the Tower of Babel by
Confusing your tongues that day,
He hadn’t wanted to interfere
For he gave you all free will,
So sent me as his emissary
To report both good and ill.’

‘And what have you told almighty God,
The truth, or a pack of lies?’
‘I haven’t needed to tell, he sees
The truth through both of his eyes,
I feel the sense of his discontent
At you breaking all his laws,
Polluting his beautiful planet
With the scourge of your endless wars.’

‘So what does he plan to do with us,’
I whispered there in the gloom,
‘Does he plan to come and punish us,
Will our God be calling soon?’
‘His spirit has always been right here,
It’s embedded in the earth,
In every tree and the mighty sea
In rain, and the gift of birth.’

‘You’ll feel the wrath of his discontent
In a thousand days of drought,
In ice that clings to your window-sills
In floods that you can’t keep out,’
He turned his head and he looked at me
And I cringed at his vacant nod,
For blood lay thick on each cheek, where he
Had put out the Eyes of God!

David Lewis Paget

He’d stared at the silver screen so long
He thought he was going blind,
For a fortnight after his wife had gone
He thought he would lose his mind.
She’d snatched her purse from the window ledge
And said that she’d not be late,
‘I’ll just call in to the grocery store,
Then call on my sister, Kate!’

An hour went by and he scratched his head
While watching the cricket score,
Then two, and three put the sun to bed,
He went and stood by the door,
The Moon rose up at eleven or so,
It shone on an empty street,
And Kate replied to his mobile call,
‘I’ve not seen Jane for a week!’

There wasn’t a lot he could say to that
For Kate would have played it straight,
She wouldn’t lie for her sister Jane,
She had enough on her plate.
A drunken husband, threatening her
Each time that he laid one on,
And Kate had whispered to Jane, ‘I wish,
He’d pack up his things, be gone!’

Sam went to report to the police next day,
One lost, or wandered or strayed,
(The cop had smirked to his mate out back,
‘Perhaps she went to get laid?’)
‘It’s not like her, she’s a homely type,
But something has gone amiss,
She left three bags at the grocery store
And she’s not done that, ‘til this.’

Once back at home on the Internet
He checked on her Facebook page,
Her smiling face looked back at him yet,
Making him more dismayed,
A man had posted a Timeline rant,
Had posted the previous day:
‘I love you Jane, and I’m deep in pain,
I’m coming to take you away.’

The face of the man was indistinct
Was hidden in deepest gloom,
He must have taken the photograph
At night, in a dim-lit room,
The name that he used was ‘Love-Will-Out’
But surely that couldn’t be,
For Jane, he thought, was a simple soul,
‘She wouldn’t be false to me!’

He caught a glimpse of her now and then
As he wandered, page to page,
She’d left a trail as she trawled back when
And he felt a gathering rage.
A ‘like’ on a friend she used to have,
A comment that made no sense,
‘I need a map’ was the one remark
That had kept him in suspense.

‘I don’t know where,’ she’d written up there,
Elsewhere, ‘or where I am.’
‘Somebody’s following close behind
But I keep looking for Sam.’
Snatches of words that made no sense
He would see as they flashed on by,
And through the runnels of Facebook tunnels
He’d see that same grim guy.

So still he stares at the silver screen
Though he thinks he’s going mad,
She seems to be there on the Facebook scene,
(In a way, that makes him glad).
But he’ll never rest ‘til she comes back home
To end that feeling of pain,
Whenever I ask if he’s coming out,
He says, ‘I’m following Jane!’

David Lewis Paget

There’s a new thing up on the Internet
And it’s how some people ‘Ghost’,
They date and chat, but it’s after that
That they disappear the most.
You think you’re starting a new romance
And that they are full of you,
But they never say that they’re gone today,
That they won’t be back, it’s true!

They once would call, and they’d ring the bell
And stand on the hallway mat,
Then face to face with a lack of grace
They would say ‘That’s the end of that!’
But that caused tears and was much too hard
For the one who’d want to leave,
When the jilted one said that’s not much fun,
And cry on the leaver’s sleeve.

Then the mobile phone came to everyone
And they all began to text,
It wasn’t long before right or wrong
They would use that method next,
They’d text, ‘Too bad, but I’ve changed my mind,
I can’t take you to the ball,’
Then days would pass and you soon would find
Your romance had hit the wall.

But then at least you could text your Jack
And call him a piece of ****,
‘ You had to do it behind my back,
With a text, you cut and run.
You’ve not the guts of a greasy toad
For you couldn’t face to face,
You didn’t tell me in bed last night,
You’re an absolute disgrace!’

So texting slowly went out of vogue
It was hard to change your Sim,
Every time that they’d text you back
So they’d think, ‘He’s never in.’
It’s far more easy to slip away
Get lost in a cyber mist,
Block your love on your Facebook page
It’s as if you don’t exist.

You slip away like a silver wraith
With the substance of a fog,
Nevermore to be seen by them,
Of course, you’re a ***** dog!
But that’s the way of the Internet
If you come across a ghost,
Avoid the dating sites online
Or your love life will be toast.

David Lewis Paget

One minute she’s standing before me,
Is stridently screaming her claims,
And then in a moment of horror,
I watch as she bursts into flames.
There isn’t a fire around her,
Not even a spark to begin,
But then she erupts in a moment,
The fire bursts out from within.

I’ve heard that it’s happened to others
They burn with a spiritual flame,
Some essence of horror within them
Devouring their body the same,
But nothing will char things around them
It only destroys skin and bone,
Their chairs and their rooms are protected,
It doesn’t set fire to their home.

I try to remember what caused it,
What happened to scramble her brain,
What started the turmoil and forced it,
To burst out and drive her insane,
The flames started under her eyelids
Then roared in a burst from her throat
It seemed to be something that I did,
It may have been something I wrote.

I don’t dare to start a new friendship,
With women I knew from before,
There’s always some thing that might end it
With her flaming out on the floor.      
She always said I was controlling,
Was cold and was hard, and I am,
But maybe that’s why; she’s a woman,
And I, thank my stars, am a man.

David Lewis Paget

‘I like to wander along the beach,
Meander close to the sea,
To hear the whispering eddies speak,
Refreshing each memory.
When she danced forever along the sand
And she twirled her skirt out wide,
Those were the days that were dear to me
Before the passion died.’

‘For way, way back when our world was young
In the distant days of youth,
We’d laugh and play in the surf by day
And at night, we’d search for the truth.
We’d search for the truth beneath the stars
As we lay on our backs to cry,
Her tears had mingled with mine, as soon
As the Moon rose up in the sky.’

‘‘Why couldn’t it always be like this,’ she said
And I thought it might,
‘The world is turning too soon for us,
And soon may put out the light.’
So we clung together against a world
That would try to tear us apart,
Not knowing time was the enemy
That would age, and harden the heart.’

‘Then days would follow each day before,
And weeks would pass like the rain,
That fell unwanted in every life
Since the days of the brother, Cain,
And slowly love would unravel, we
Were telling each other lies,
We tried to avert the other’s hurt
But the truth lay deep in our eyes.’

He turned to wander along the beach
Alone, with a grim intent,
His youth was scattering like the leaves
Of the storm-tossed trees that bent,
But dancing on and behind him was
The wraith of the girl that lied,
Shedding tears for the long lost years
As she twirled her skirt out wide.

David Lewis Paget

There was someone I detested at
The edges of my dream,
He was sneaky, underhanded and
I thought him quite unclean,
For he knew my life with Candace
Had then almost run its course,
He was waiting in the wings; I said,
‘Don’t take my wife by force.’

And he smiled, but somewhat grimly
In the way he had back then,
As if he would do whatever
To ensnare my wife again,
But I said, ‘Don’t even think it,
Though you had your chance before,
If you even make a move on her
It’s like declaring war.’

He could tell then that I meant it
Just by looking in my eyes,
They were red, and so distended
That he backed off, he was wise,
But it didn’t help my marriage
For her love had run its course,
And she told me in our carriage that
She wanted a divorce.

I had tried my best to please her
But my efforts went unsung,
I’d played hard to get, to tease her
Years before, when we were young,
And I’d won her then, from Anson
Who’d refused to go away,
And had hung around forever
Right up to the present day.

I had said it was unhealthy to have
Ex’s hanging round,
But Candace said, ‘He’s just a friend,
Don’t make him feel put down.’
She didn’t think how I would feel
To always have him there,
At times when we should be alone,
He’d sit awhile, and stare.

So she left me on a Monday and
She barely said goodbye,
I wandered round the empty house
But found I couldn’t cry,
For anger welled up in me when
I saw them walking past,
Arm in arm and laughing and
Together now, at last.

Emotions so intense rise up
To twist a jilted brain,
I swear I wasn’t in control,
I must have been insane,
I traced them to his caravan
And waited till she left,
Then went to get some petrol
I was feeling so bereft.

I waited til the early hours
When he would be alone,
Then poured it underneath the door
Of this, his mobile home,
I thought, ‘I’ll fix his little scheme,’
And stood, and watched it pour,
Then lit it with a single spark,
It went up with a roar.

I had to stand and watch it then
The fruits of my despair,
I heard a scream, as in a dream
The door flung open there,
And Candace stood, encased in flame,
She shrivelled as she stood,
All black and burned, revenge had turned
Destroyed my neighborhood.

They didn’t find too much of him
And she died on the grass,
They found me weeping in the gloom
When once the fire had passed,
And so I stare out blindly now
Through bars of hardened steel,
They wouldn’t need to lock me in,
I’ve ceased to see or feel.

David Lewis Paget

They said that he’d come from the cemetery
And I thought he maybe could,
In his coat with tails, covered in snails
And a cape without a hood,
He looked like a typical gravedigger
There was soil on both his hands,
And on top of that, an old top hat
Held on with rubber bands.

His skin a peculiar shade of grey
Like an old and weathered wood,
His eyes set back, under his hat
Each shot with a ring of blood.
His cheeks were sunken under his eyes
His lips in a rictus grin,
Exposed his teeth in a grin beneath
With some of them fallen in.

His trousers had a military stripe
Were in holes about his knees,
Where he had knelt, with an old grey belt
That suffered from some disease.
His boots had once been a shiny black
But were covered in clumps of mud,
As he stomped in like a burst of sin
From a grave he’d recently dug.

His voice had a curious rasping sound
When he opened his mouth to speak,
With a sort of croak, back in his throat
Or a rusty hinge’s creak.
‘I’ve come to escort the Lady Anne
On her journey, over the Styx,
That river of hate, at Hades gate,
Where she keeps her box of tricks.’

‘I think there’s been a mistake,’ I said,
‘For the Lady Anne is well,
She’s sat in a chair, just over there,
And dreams of heaven, not hell.’
‘Then little you know of the lady’s heart,
Or the object of her dreams,
Her cheating heart would tear you apart,
She’s never been what she seems.’

I went inside to the Lady Anne
And I tried to rouse her there,
But she was pale, and the air was stale
Where she lay dead in her chair.
I turned again to the gravedigger
Who was standing near me still,
‘I’ll take her corpse to the woodland copse
Where her coffin lies over the hill.’

I often visit the grave he dug
Which is edged around with bricks,
And sit beside the babbling stream
That they call the River Styx.
Then I call in vain to the Lady Anne
To reveal what she had done,
And sit and cry as I feel denied
By the love I thought I’d won.

David Lewis Paget

I asked the woman where she came from,
She didn’t utter a word,
But stood outside on the landing where
She wouldn’t be seen, or heard.
She glided into the bedroom then
And dropped her gown on the floor,
Then climbed up onto the four poster
A thing I couldn’t ignore.

The name embroidered upon the gown
Was one, a Lucie La Corte,
It lay there crumpled upon the ground,
A thing of beauty, I thought,
But far more beautiful, there she lay
Within the reach of my hand,
With silken skin that had reeked of sin
Inviting love on demand.

I caught the scent of wisteria
The fragrance rose from her breast,
I felt close to hysteria,
Like I was put to the test,
I lay and stared at her shapely form
And thought, how could I resist,
But then I noticed the branding mark
An ugly Fleur de lis.

It sat high on her shoulder there
To tell what she had done,
Some grim crime from another time
And an execution…
I heard her sigh as she raised one thigh
Then I saw her eyes had teared,
Her teardrops fell, and she broke the spell
For then she had disappeared.

If ever you’re visiting Paris
And those evil streets, and mean,
Beware, the hotel you stay is not
Called ‘Madame La Guillotine’,
Or you may lie in a poster bed
As I did, god help the thought,
And watch as the visitor sidles in
The one, a Lucie La Corte.

David Lewis Paget

‘It won’t be much of a Christmas,’
I said to his woman, Kate,
As she met me in the garden,
And opened the garden gate,
I asked how well he was faring
And she answered, ‘Not too well,’
Her eyes were blackened for lack of sleep
She looked like she’d been through hell.

While George lay out on a camper
Trying to get some air,
His lungs were riddled with cancer,
He said that he didn’t care.
‘I’ve had enough of this rotten life
It threw me a sucker punch,
I’ll just be glad when it’s over, mate,
Just think of me out to lunch.’

I couldn’t say he’d get over it,
He’d catch me out in a lie,
The one thing both of us knew right then
Was George was about to die,
They’d given him just a week or so
Till his organs began to fail,
He might just make it to Christmas, but
That was the end of the tale.

But Kate was doing just what she could
To comfort his final days,
She’d come across to his neighbourhood,
When Kate decides, she stays,
They hadn’t ever been love’s young dream
Had parted the year before,
For George was always intolerable
Living with him was war.

And I would try to avert my eyes,
Whenever Kate was around,
I didn’t want her to see me blush
So kept my eyes to the ground,
If only I had got to her first
I’d say to my mirror glass,
But far too late, she was with my mate,
He was way beneath her class.

And even though they had parted,
I couldn’t begin to tell,
My feelings, how they were started
By being within her spell,
For she’d always been his woman,
Been his lover and his mate,
And even now they were parted,
I thought it a little late.

But he called me into the garden
To sit by his camper bed,
And said that he begged my pardon,
He knew he would soon be dead.
‘But I have a gift to give you,
It might be a little late,
But at Christmas time I wish you
Would take care of my darling Kate.’

‘I know that you care about her,
For I’ve seen you blushing and stare,
It’s a year I’ve been without her,
Due to my lack of care,
But I think she’ll come to love you,
You can ask yourself instead,’
For Kate was there in the garden,
And stood there, nodding her head.

David Lewis Paget

The world looks grim when your eyes are dim
And they’re swollen red with tears,
When all that you’ve won has come undone
And all you have left are fears,
So Jonathon Ley had felt that day
When he looked for his missing girl,
But she was several streets away
In bed with a man called Earl!

His world had come to a shuddering end,
His hopes had burst at the seams,
He knew that his heart would never mend
And all he had left were dreams.
The clouds of grief that came like a thief
Had stolen his girl, Elaine,
And she, the source of his one belief
Was promising only pain.

He hadn’t had any back-up plans
When planning his life ahead,
With Lainey gone he was on his own
Just him, and his empty head,
He thought that he’d put an end to it
The pain and suffering; How?
He spent some days considering ways
Under his furrowed brow.

He climbed to the top of the Town Hall clock
And found himself looking down,
All that he had to do was drop
Right next to the Lost & Found,
He’d looked on up from the street below
Took a final look at a star,
But didn’t know when he had to go
That the street would be down so far.

There’s always time for a change of plan
He thought, as he climbed back down,
Hiding his face from everyone
In case they thought him a clown.
He took a blade from the kitchen drawer
And thought he’d go to the park,
Then slit his throat in his overcoat,
By God, but that blade was sharp!

He wandered moping along the street
To think just what could be done,
He wanted to do it, quick and neat
But he hadn’t bought him a gun,
Then Lainey came, she had changed her mind
For Earl was a dog, and things,
‘You got the jist of the story wrong,
He asked me to test his springs!’

So Jonathon’s world came back in view
The clouds were cleared from his sky,
With everything now about her new
He never asked Lainey why.
They wed in June, in the afternoon
And the baby came in a whirl,
But he wouldn’t presume to question why
The baby looked like Earl!

David Lewis Paget

It’s four o’clock, and I’m wide awake
Too early for pre-dawn light,
Thinking about the night before
And the reason we had that fight.
You never listen to what I say,
And it makes me feel so mad,
Whenever you get that cauldron out,
Your recipes smell so bad.

I’d told you there was a comet due
And I even wore my hat,
Trying to mask that smell of stew
When you crucified the bat,
You kept on adding ingredients
When I told you, ‘that will do.’
I used the peg when the dead dog’s leg
Went flying into the stew.

I knew when you wore your pointy hat
And your cape with the flowing hood,
Whatever you cooked up there last night
Was something you never should.
You always try to get back at me
When I talk about the stars,
And say, ‘So what,’ that the art you’ve got
You picked up yourself, on Mars.

I knew the spell that you wove last night
Was something that wasn’t good,
You even opened our one skylight
To draw in the neighbourhood.
Not everyone wants a witches curse
To dangle from every tree,
But you don’t care, do it for a dare,
But mainly to get at me.

I saw the trail in the midnight sky
And tried to put out the fire,
But you were fey, and pushed me away,
Then tossed on a bicycle tyre.
I ran out into the garden then,
Into the dark of night,
And watched as the tiny comet came
To crash through our own skylight.

There’s nothing that you can blame me for
It’s not as if you forgot,
It flew on in to your spell of sin
And dropped in your cooking ***,
It flashed and blazed and sizzled in there
And now, you are looking weird,
You wore your recipe in your hair,
And where did you get that beard?

David Lewis Paget

The rain swiftly flowed down the gutters,
The thunder roared out overhead,
The wind whistled in through the falling leaves
Of the trees that were thought to be dead,
And Annie stared out of the window
Was trapped at the height of the storm,
She should have been down at the hospital,
Her baby was soon to be born.

But she saw that the driveway was empty,
For Tom had gone out with the car,
She hoped and she prayed that he’d reappear
For surely he hadn’t gone far.
Contractions were now just a minute apart
That she timed on the clock on the wall,
And let out a moan when the clock chimed a tone
She knew she was weak, and might fall.

She’d not really wanted this baby,
Had argued with Tom when he came,
The shadow that climbed through her window that night
Had brought her perpetual shame,
It wasn’t as if she had known him,
He came under cover of night,
Then planted within her his darkness,
She felt there was something not right.

And now there was no-one to help her,
No nurse or midwife at her bed,
The doctor expected a troubled birth
To go by the things that he said,
And now the involuntary pushing
That ****** her down onto the floor,
Three fingers dilated, the birth that she hated
Would leave her both chastened and sore.

The child started coming despite her,
She screamed as the head became free,
Then felt as if claws and the ripping of jaws
Were tearing her clear to the knee,
But then it lay out on the carpet,
Its little dark face creased with joy,
And Tom, looking down, had said with a frown,
‘It has horns, but at least, it’s boy!’

David Lewis Paget

So many years have passed us by,
So many great events,
Sometimes I smile, or sit and cry
At some of the incidents.
Those were the days when we were young
And love an affair of the heart,
But love came and went, remained unsung
By tearing us all apart.

All we have left are photographs
And many are stained by tears,
Where did they go, those joyous laughs
Echoing through the years?
The love that was made has disappeared
Swallowed by Father Time,
And even the children that we reared
Have left for another clime.

Where are the friends that brought us joy,
Where is the merriment,
Where are the girls who acted coy
We thought they were heaven sent.
Scattered to where the four winds blow
And lost to each chilling breeze,
A fading memory, fluttering by
Like the scatter of Autumn leaves.

And those we lost loom large in the dark
When we lie on the verge of sleep,
They flit on by like the vital spark
They lost, when the mere was deep,
For those that died will never return,
They left on the final bus,
That grim old hearse, pulled by a horse
That now is waiting for us.

David Lewis Paget

I said that we shouldn’t place it there
When first we surveyed the town,
The only place for the dead, I said,
Is six feet underground,
They shouldn’t be way up there on a hill
When it rains, their bones will leach,
And run down into the drinking water
Pumped on up from the beach.

But no, they wouldn’t listen to me,
The Town and the Council ****,
He said, ‘we’ll set it up in the trees
I think that that will work.’
So the town was built on the valley floor
And the dead stuck up on the hill,
I told them what I had said before
When the first became so ill.

The older ones were the first to go
They’d fade away in the gloom,
There wasn't enough flesh on their bones
To warrant a marble tomb.
But then the young had begun to fade
Were beginning to be so ill,
That soon the hearses making their way
Were all lined up on the hill.

The population began to grow
But not down there in the town,
The figures seemed to reflect and show
They were six foot underground,
And then the copse of surrounding trees
Began to glow in the night,
Give off a pale evanescent glow
Some said was blue, others white.

When lightning struck in that grove of trees
It forked and struck on the hill,
And burst some bodies, with their disease
From coffins, wriggling still.
I heard reports of a walking corpse
That tried to kick in a door,
And when they saw who the corpse had been
They found he’d lived there before.

I said that we shouldn’t place it there
When first we surveyed the town,
The only place for the dead, I said,
Is six feet underground.
The town has paid for the Council ****
Who buries them up there still,
On days that the dead come walking down
From the cemetery, up on the hill.

David Lewis Paget

Long after a heated argument
With his wife in the afternoon,
Roger James had taken his angst
To nurse in the small, spare room.
She said he’d always lived in the past
But little he knew of today,
And what he knew had no further use
For the past had drifted away.

He said that the base of knowledge was
The things they learned from the past,
That all they knew in the modern day
Was built from the past, at last.
‘There’s not a single decision we make
That hasn’t been made before,
And a study of consequence, you’ll find
May stop us from going to war.’

‘You crazy man,’ was his wife’s response,
‘Your life is a pitiful lie,
What do you know of the price of milk
Or the cost of a shirt, tie-dye?
Does it matter that stamps were tuppence once
Or that petrol was three and six,
And what can enhance our lives today
From the knowledge you have of the Blitz?’

‘You trivialise the argument,
Your feet are stuck to the floor,
You’re lost to the thrill that knowledge brings,
You’ll never be able to soar!’
So he took his gloom to the attic room
And he lay on an old camp bed,
His mind was filled with a sense of doom
As images raced through his head.

He knew he’d never been practical,
He kept everything inside,
She’d thought he was a wonderful catch
When first he’d made her his bride.
But the gloss had gone as the world went on
He was gradually left behind,
Sat in a nook with a cosy book
While she burnt the chicken, and cried.

He lay and sent up a silent plea
To the stars and the universe,
‘If this is life in the present day,
Could the future be much worse?’
A crack appeared in the further wall
And a bell had tolled outside,
And when he walked back down to the hall
There was no sign of his bride.

Her things still lay where they’d lain before
But of her, there wasn’t a trace,
The house was still, in the world outside
No sign of the human race.
He walked awhile on the empty streets
Where the cars were parked, and still,
But nothing moved, not even a dog
As he walked up, over the hill.

The buildings seemed to be all intact
With a single change, he swore,
The date had changed on the city bank,
One after the day before,
Just a single day in the future, he
Was leading the human race,
They hadn’t arrived where he was at,
It was merely one day of grace.

He spends his time in the library
And walking the empty streets,
He knows they’ll never catch up with him
‘Til his wandering day’s complete.
But now he misses his wife and kin
And everything of that ilk,
So spends an hour of his future day
On the prices of gas and milk!

David Lewis Paget

To what degree does love survive
No matter what it cost,
Can man escape lost love alive
Once it is truly lost?
When let into a tender heart
Love pierces man’s defence,
And leaves the heart with battle scars
Without much recompense.

The early Spring of love will bring
A new and urgent beat,
As love will raise his footsteps up
A foot above the street.
And nature seems to smile on him
From blue, unclouded skies,
The Summer of his love will beam
From her adoring eyes.

But Autumn brings the falling leaves
All dry and burned up, sere,
Once she begins to turn her back
At this time of the year.
Then love will show its darker side
Will threaten to depart,
As he despairs at her grim cares
That tear and shred his heart.

Foul winter is the final stage
When he awakes one day,
To echoes of her footsteps as
He finds she's gone away.
Then life will stretch before him like
A grim, unending storm,
As love will turn its back on him,
He’ll wish he’d not been born.

David Lewis Paget

I’d seen the widow walk back and forth
The length of the village street,
Her veil so black and her dress so long
You’d see neither face nor feet,
She never would speak to anyone
But would simply seem to glide
Within the folds of that mourning dress
Like a slowly ebbing tide.

At first she’d walk at the early dawn
But then she’d be gone by noon,
The light of day would spirit away
Her wandering sense of gloom,
She’d not be seen till the sun went down
When you’d hear the swish of lace,
Catching along the sea wall stone
And whipping around her face.

She never would miss the evening tide
That would bring the fleet back in,
Check every boat that was still afloat
If its catch was full, or thin,
Her only love had gone out one day
With his sails set high to roam,
His boat had floated out in the bay
But he had not come home.

It took a week for the widows weeds
To start to march on the shore,
And no-one dared to look in her face
So deep was the grief she wore,
‘I never knew pain like this exists,’
She’d cry, when she was alone,
But over the next few painful weeks
She knew that he’d not be home.

Then she slowly tore off the widow’s veil,
She gave up the mourning dress,
I watched her enter the world again
Just as beautiful, no less.
It took me months but I won her round,
I’d kept my scheme afloat,
By hiding away the tools I’d used
To sink her husband’s boat.

David Lewis Paget

I need a woman to ride with me,
To prove that she loves me too,
A woman to sit astride of me,
When one together makes two,
It’s ever been the way of the world
To come together as one,
For one together may not forever
Be taken apart, undone.

Whenever I find myself alone
And missing her vital spark,
I look for somebody, complementary
All alone in the dark.
For she may be there looking for me
As I am looking for her,
We’ll always know by the eyes that glow
If love is the only spur.

I’ll know by the velvet touch of her hand
The rosy blush on her cheek,
I’ll know when we come across each other
Far more than once in a week,
For fate has the strangest tricks to play
It leads us all on a dance,
By throwing the me and you together
It’s never coincidence.

So woman, come from the shadows now
To meet, wherever you are,
A pad of feet on a lonely street
Or locked in a passing car.
We need each other to be together
If only to say we live,
Come be a part of this lonely heart,
I only have love to give.

David Lewis Paget

‘Where are you going, Sally Ann
Now the nights have become so dark,
Why do you get so restless, say
You want to walk in the park?’
I thought to sit by the fireside
Each time that she ventured out,
It’s cold and damp by the streetlight lamp,
So what was it all about?

‘I need to go where the wind will blow,
Feel the damp caressing my cheek,
The bracing air is a tonic there,
While you sit, and you never speak.
It gets so terribly warm in here,
I feel I can barely breathe,
You sit and enjoy your fireside chair
But me, I just have to leave.’

So I’d go and stare out the window
Just as she left, my Sally Ann,
The thought was crossing my mind just then
Was she meeting some other man?
The question sat on my lips at times
But I thought I’d better not say,
If once I questioned my Sally Ann
It might just drive her away.

I’d watch her stand at the kerbside edge
And ponder which way to go,
She’d walk by the village of Kirby Ledge
Or left, round the bungalow,
It happened often she’d cross the road
And wander off to the mill,
I knew she’d get to the park that way
The other side of the hill.

One night, the rain it came pelting down
I knew she’d be good and wet,
I went to the old umbrella stand
And thought I could catch her yet,
The wind was gusting, the rain blew in,
In flurries under my hood,
I barely could see the way she’d been,
In passing by Farley Wood.

I saw the light of a dim-lit torch
Flashing under the trees,
And wandered over to take a look
Though feeling weak in the knees,
A woman lay on a groundsheet there
Though he had covered her face,
I still could see that her limbs were bare
And thrashing all over the place.

‘Oh Sally Ann,’ I had sobbed, and ran,
While making my way back home,
I cursed the folly of coming out,
It was better I hadn’t known.
Then Sally Ann had opened the door
Said ‘Come in out of the rain.
I went to walk but I cut it short.’
I flew to her arms again.

David Lewis Paget

I’m sitting here in the morning glow
Of the early winter sun,
Staring at the picture of you
And wondering what I’ve done,
You left to go on a shopping trip
In the middle of the week,
You said that you’d be an hour away
Was the last I heard you speak.

I’m used to you never turning up
So I knew I’d have to wait,
I’ve often taken a chair out there
To sit by the garden gate,
The sun went down and the Moon came up
There was still no sign of you,
And when I crawled upstairs I saw
That the bed was empty too.

I wondered what you were shopping for
As it’s true, you never tell,
You might be looking for pitchforks from
The seventh circle of hell,
You come back home with the strangest things
Like a bag of knitted straw,
And once with a dozen rubber rings
What did you want them for?

A day went by and I rang around,
Caught up with your friend Denise,
Checked with the local hospital,
With the Firemen and the Police,
But nobody knew just where you were
Or at least, they wouldn’t say,
Constable Gurk suppressed a smirk
Said you might have run away.

Somebody said that you’d passed them by
In a number fourteen bus,
Another one said, they don’t know why,
You were seen with Uncle Gus.
I knew all along that must be wrong
Though I don’t know why they lied,
They must have been seeing things, it’s been
A year since my Uncle died.

So now I’m left with a mystery
It’s already been a week,
I’ve been so alone, all on my own
I’m forgetting how to speak.
I’d never have thought you’d want to leave
I thought that our love was true,
I’ve just had a call, you’d not believe,
They found you, locked in the Zoo.

David Lewis Paget

The earth had not been breathing
For an hour when I woke,
So the thought that I’d be leaving
Any time, became a joke,
There was not that faintest rustle
That we think to call a breeze,
When the leaves all rub together with
The swaying of the trees,
And the water lay in stagnant pools
Across the dying ground,
Where there once had flowed a river but
Its stream could not be found.

There was silence where there once had been
The babble of a creek,
If the earth turned on its axis now
That day took half a week,
And where the tide had used to turn,
Advance upon the land,
Its waves had ceased to function
All it left was drying sand,
If that was not enough, its dearth
Reflected in the sky,
In clouds dark brown like bracken
That would crackle up on high.

These clouds of louring thunder merely
Muttered in their pain,
And sent the flash of lightning down
But dry, and without rain,
And nothing that was living stirred
Within my line of view,
Not even what I should have heard
And so, I turned to you.
For there across the counterpane
Your lustrous hair was spread,
And all my world became insane
To know that you were dead.

David Lewis Paget

His parents had both been gone so long
He’d forgotten how they looked,
So gathered up all the photographs
And pasted them in a book,
Then hid the book until once a year
He would bring it out in the light,
And ruffle through all of its pages in
A memorial delight.

His wife said, ‘Why do you bother, Ken,
It will never bring them back,
It’s surely enough to remember when
You left, on a different track.’
Her own had consciously turned away
When she went and married Ken,
Had spurned her later advances and
She hadn’t seen them again.

‘I gave my family up for you,
But what did you do for me?
You tied me down with your family plan,
Locked me in your family tree!’
‘Was that so bad?’ And he looked quite sad
She revealed what he’d always known,
That she’d always hated his parents and
Would rather they’d lived alone.

‘What did they ever do to you,’ he said
‘To warrant your gall?’
‘They took away from my time with you,
With them, they wanted it all.’
‘They simply wanted the best for us
So they helped us out where they could.’
‘They kept on coming around,’ she said,
‘A great deal more than they should!’

One year, on opening up his book
There was more than a missing page,
With some of the photo’s gone for good
He was flung in a sullen rage.
‘What have you done with the photographs
Of the folks, there, back on the farm?’
‘You must have mislaid the things yourself…’
And he looked at her in alarm.

‘Have you gone really quite mad,’ he said,
‘Have you gone really insane?
Why would you take my memories
And cause me so much pain?’
‘They’re gone, they’re dead,’ she had screamed at him,
‘Yet you never let them be,
As long as you still remember them,
Then I will never be free!’

‘I thought that I’d seen the last of them
When I put your mother away,
And then, with only your father left
I made sure he choked that day!
I needed to get a new life for me
I need to be more than a wife…’
She hurriedly poured his soup for him
As he slowly picked up the knife.

David Lewis Paget

The day had been rather stormy when
I walked in the garden gate,
With lighting flashing around me,
It was dark, and getting late.
I tried the key in the old front door
But found that it didn’t fit,
And had to pound on the knocker so
That Kate would answer it.

It took a minute or so before
I heard her steps on the floor,
She probably wondered who it was
Before she opened the door,
She stared at me with the strangest look
On her face that I’d ever seen,
But stood there blocking the door, I said,
‘Aren’t you going to let me in?’

She stood aside in a moment then
And I walked in through the door,
She said, ‘And what’s the occasion then?
You’ve not called here before.’
I thought she must have been joking then
And gave her a sickly smile,
She said, ‘you’d better believe it, you
Have not been here for a while.’

I tried to give her a kiss, but she
Pulled back, and turned away,
‘The time for that was an age ago,
That was another day.’
I asked her what she had meant, for she
Had been my wife for years,
‘Not since you married my sister, and
You turned my world to tears.’

I said that I didn’t follow her,
And must have looked confused,
She said that I’d turned my back on her
And left her feeling used,
‘You broke off from our engagement, when
The date had just been set,
And went and married my sister then,
You’re married to Jeanette.’

I thought I was going crazy, though
Perhaps, I thought, it’s Kate,
Having a mid-life crisis, but she
Looked at me with hate.
She said to go to her sister’s place
Just further down the street,
So thinking that I would humour her
I went, through hail and sleet.

I tried my key in Jeanette’s front door
And that gave me a shock,
The key had fitted it perfectly
As then the door unlocked,
I wandered into the kitchen where
Jeanette was making tea
For a man at the kitchen table,
But I swear the man was me!

David Lewis Paget

They took her up to the mountain top
With the altar set in place,
I screamed and shouted for them to stop,
But they laughed, spat in my face.
They threatened me as they laid her down
On that cold grey marble slab,
Then stripped the clothes from her shivering form
As I told them they were mad.

She lay exposed for the world to see
As they formed a line around,
So grim they looked in their livery
In their hoods, and long black gowns,
I wasn’t part of their magic cell
And they said I’d have to leave,
Before enacting their secret spell
That would leave me then to grieve.

‘You’re just a pack of barbarians,’
I shrieked, but the mood was tense,
‘Go play with your Rastafarians,’
They laughed, but it made no sense,
Why would they ****** an innocent girl
In the third phase of the moon,
Just to appease some devilish god
On the first Sunday in June.

Two hulking brutes took a-hold of me
And they dragged me down the hill,
I said, ‘you’re all going to pay for this,
You’re denying my free will.’
They left me there and they climbed back up
But they’d said, ‘You’d best beware,
You might be a second sacrifice
Should you try to come back there.’

I heard their horrible mumble as
The group began to chant,
It came in waves from the hilltop graves
Like some evil covenant,
But then the scream of a four wheel drive
Came roaring up the hill,
Filled with the men in uniform
I can see the vision still.

Three shots rang out, there was quite a rout
As the hoods had turned to flee,
Stumbling down the mountainside
And a few had passed by me,
I wondered then who had brought them there
To defeat this evil scheme,
It’s beyond belief, but I felt relief
When the girl began to scream.

A year has flown, but I’m not alone
Since they saved that sacrifice,
She’s home and free, and she married me,
And I must admit, it’s nice.
I’ve often said, ‘What was in your head,
When you turned to me,’ and stuff,
‘I thought I might as well marry you
Since you saw me in the buff.’

David Lewis Paget

‘There’s something amiss with you today,
There’s something that isn’t right,
I heard you weep in your fitful sleep
As you tossed and turned all night,
We’ve been together for forty years
You’ve never been so distressed,
You’ve raised my fears with your silent tears
Why are you sad, my Blessed?’

‘A vision came to me overnight,
An angel with sparkling wings,
His face was glad, though he made me sad,
He said, ‘It’s the end of things!
The end of your careworn duties here,
The end of your struggle and strife,
The end of a long and loyal love
As a true and supportive wife.’’

‘Just what did he mean by that,’ I said,
As I felt my face turn white,
I grasped her hand like a drowning man
And I held her close, and tight.
‘Perhaps it was just a silly dream
Like the one that you had before,
The one about Michael, tapping, tapping
Tapping at our front door.’

‘Maybe it was,’ my wife had sighed
As she languished there in my arms,
‘But maybe again, he’d not have died
If I’d listened to his alarms.
He’d said that he hated swimming then,
And later I felt a fool,
The man at the door was tapping, tapping
To say he’d drowned in the pool.’

I felt the quiver of sadness then
That rattled through to the bone,
Our son was lost, and we paid the cost
In our small, but loving home.
She hadn’t wanted to look at me
For a year, or maybe two,
His picture flat on the mantelpiece
When she said, ‘He looked like you!’

I couldn’t deal with her sadness, for
My grief was hard to atone,
We walked like ghosts through an empty house
We both felt we were alone.
The years went by and our love revived
In a way that showed we cared,
The grief that came like a nightly thief
Was held, ****** down, and shared.

‘Perhaps it’s best that we let it go,
I feel so tired and wan,
I can’t remember the love we shared
Before our boy was gone.’
‘Your love was all that I wanted, Jen,’
My tears began to flow,
‘The angel’s name, it was Michael,
You’ll just have to let me go!’

David Lewis Paget

Their shadows should have stepped side by side
As once they had done before,
But nobody noticed that one had gone
From the boardwalk trace on the floor,
They still paraded, down by the beach
At the height of the afternoon,
And friends would swear he was still in reach
Though she wore an air of gloom.

Nobody actually spoke to them
So it must have been hard to tell,
Which of the couple was really there
And which fallen under a spell,
The law of shadows is crystal clear
If you’re there, a shadow is cast,
The sun shines through if it isn’t you
For that’s its primary task.

It happens I knew the guy quite well
And he had shadow to spare,
While she was much more ephemeral,
Was somebody not quite there.
I wondered what had attracted him
For she gave out a spray of gloom,
There wasn’t that gay affinity
That could gladly light up a room.

I watched as his life force faded away,
His shadow to disappear,
I told him he needed to leave that day
Or the end of his world was near.
But she reached out, and shooed me away,
Seized hold of his wavering hand,
Her eyes burned bright with an evil light,
While his were blank and bland.

I know that we never conversed again
I’d see him afar by day,
She clung on tight to his fading light
As she marched him around the bay,
He hadn’t a shadow left to throw
When at last he died on the beach,
Condemned by her to a living hell
As his life slipped out of reach.

He was laid to rest at St. Mary’s Cross
While I waited for her to pass,
To see if the shadow she stole from him
Would still cleave to her, at last.
But sunbeams shone through her mourning veil
There was only mine could save,
While I made sure as I stepped one back
That she’d die by my brother’s grave.

David Lewis Paget

She said she wanted to **** herself
Since her life was empty now,
I couldn’t figure it out myself
And called her a silly cow,
‘Your Barry isn’t the only one,
There’s more fish in the sea,’
But she just said that her love was dead,
‘He’s the only one for me.’

I wanted to tell her nonsense, that
She should take stock of me,
I’d be her friend to the living end,
I’d known, since she was three.
I told her once that I’d marry her
When we were both eight or nine,
But what I’d said must have left her head,
Lost in the mists of time.

It’s hard to be friends and lovers, both,
Though our friendship was sublime,
The love was buried in friendship, was
Invisible, undermined,
She missed the sparkle in both my eyes
Whenever she came my way,
I always wanted to tell her but
I didn’t have words to say.

Then Barry captured her from me when
She just turned seventeen,
He must have had something on me, though
I’d not see what she’d seen.
I should have known there was something on
When she turned from me out there,
And he came wandering in one day
With ribbons for her hair.

And that was the end of hopes and dreams
That I’d held from childhood days,
For Barry was full of exciting schemes,
She was thrilled in many ways,
She’d say, ‘I’ve never known anyone
Who excites me like he can,’
And from then on she was truly gone
And refused to hold my hand.

It only lasted a year or two
Until Barry lost the plot,
He found more interesting girls out there
Who’d got what she hadn’t got.
‘I don’t know what has gone wrong with us,’
She cried, all out of breath,
‘I won’t be sticking around, I know,
This life now seems like death.’

We went out walking along the cliff
She strayed too close to the top,
And said, ‘I think to myself, what if
I should suddenly drop,’
I pulled her down as she stepped too close
And pinned her onto to the ground,
‘What would my life be worth if you
Were suddenly not around?’

She looked at me in amazement as
She suddenly saw me there,
I kissed her once and she kissed me back,
‘I didn’t know that you’d care.’
‘You fool, I’ve loved you forever, but
I didn’t think it would show,’
‘My life is suddenly full,’ she said,
‘But I just needed to know.’

David Lewis Paget

He caught my eye as he stared to sea,
I noticed his shoulders heave,
And tears were flowing so fast and free
More than you would believe,
He wasn’t young, but was not too old
To be caught in the pangs of love,
I thought I’d see what his fortune told
So I called to him from above.

I leant right over the balcony
Looked down at the old sea wall,
And called out ‘Friend, would your heartache mend,
Is there much I can do at all?’
He turned and twisted his face to me
And I saw the pain in his eyes,
And round his mouth was the misery
He’d caught from all of her lies.

‘I wish I’d never believed her spin,
She swore that she loved me true,
She opened her heart and she asked me in,
What was a man to do?
She taught me things that I didn’t know
She let me into her world,
A world of stockings and petticoats
And the sweet perfume of a girl.’

I thought that I was a lucky man
To have a wife such as mine,
Who’d wait at home and would hold my hand
And smile with a look divine.
We’d sworn our vows in the little church
That sat way back on the hill,
‘Do you take Annie-gelina now?’
She said that she would take Will.

‘So what is it turned your world about,’
I asked the man down below,
I thought to get all the story straight
As he was turning to go.
‘She said she was married, I’d have to go
Though she’d never said it before,
I couldn’t believe that my Annie-gelina
Was simply a painted *****.’

David Lewis Paget

The rain came down in a torrent, while
The rest of the world had slept,
The mud it churned was abhorrent,
It was as if the planet wept.
They said we’d come to the final times
That the earth could take no more,
For people raged like a virus
Rotting the planet down to the core.

They said it’s time that we left the place
That we found a pristine home,
It’s sitting, somewhere out there in space
If we had the ship to roam.
But we’re tied forever to walk the earth
And to share in its demise,
Or stop polluting, and ****, and looting
The place we live our lives.

For God is not going to save us now
Since he gave us all free will,
He won’t be along to pick it up
The ******* that we spill,
His temper’s seen in the thunderheads
And the lightning in a storm,
The earthquake under our feet of clay
So we’ll wish we’d not been born.

The final times have been coming since
The ancient days of Tyre,
And we, like them will be running from
Destruction, and from fire,
It’s much too late to pontificate
On the things that should be done,
Before the planet’s a wasted mass
On its journey around the sun.

David Lewis Paget

The mornings were cold and dreary when
We used to meet at the Kirk,
And you would be sad and teary on
The blustery days to work,
I’d ask you why you were sad and drawn
But you usually pulled a face,
And knowing you, it was him again,
Your husband, what a disgrace!

I never could understand how you
Had chosen him over me,
He wouldn’t work in an iron lung
But had a ‘need to be free.’
I knew he wouldn’t look after you
But you were blind as a bat,
You didn’t even react when you
Had caught him, kicking your cat.

I knew that he had a violent side,
You said that it wasn’t true,
‘He’s always so warm and loving.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ’till he turns on you.’
But nevertheless you married him
And it’s been now almost a year,
Whenever we make our way to work
You’re never without a tear.

I cornered him in a midnight bar
He was more than a little drunk,
I said that he’d better treat you fair
And called him a low-life skunk,
He took a swing and I laid him out
Now you’re never to talk to me,
I see you now and you look away
So our friendship’s not to be.

On Monday, you had a broken cheek
And wore make-up on that eye,
I took you down to the hospital
And I watched you sit and cry,
I swore by God I would get revenge
While he drank at the local bar,
I took some snips and a couple of nips
As I doctored up his car.

Now God in heaven forgive me
Though I did what I had to do,
I need you so to believe me for
I’d not meant to injure you,
You met him there at the bar that night
As my heart was in my mouth,
And climbed aboard, and you hit the road
On the highway, headed south.

I followed some way behind you, and
I really had the shakes,
The oncoming lights would blind you
Then I saw him hit the brakes,
He ran off the road and hit the tree
And you both went through the screen,
I’ve never seen so much blood before
And I knew I’d lost my dream.

I’m standing beside your coffin in
That tiny little Kirk,
The one where we met on Sundays, and
Before we went to work,
No matter how violent he had been
I’d played too fast and loose,
And though he was dead, I knew in my head,
Our sins had come home to roost.

David Lewis Paget

‘If only we could go back,’ he said,
‘To dot all the ‘i’s and ‘j’s,
I’d certainly have a Captain Cook
Again, at my wayward ways.
You must admit that it started well,
There was lots of love to begin.’
She said her piece through a crack in the door,
‘There was, but you can’t come in!’

‘But surely there’s time to talk it out,
We’ve been together so long?’
‘You said you’d talk, but you’d only shout,
The things that you did were wrong!’
He slumped against the post of the door
And thought of the things he’d said,
‘If only you’d let me in once more,
Without your love, I’m dead!’

‘There hasn’t been love for many a year,
That flew when you made your choice,
You said, “I’ll be working late, my dear,”
When really, you went with Joyce.
You treated me like a perfect fool
When you came in late in the gloom,
And crawled in bed with your back to me,
I could smell her sweet perfume.’

‘She never meant anything then to me,
She doesn’t mean anything now!’
‘That may be true, but I’m telling you
That marked the end of my vow.
I should have cut you adrift before
But I had nowhere to go,
So now, you’d better go find your *****
Or sleep outside in the snow.’

‘How could you be so cold and hard
With all that long in the past?’
‘I’ve taken a look at that self-same book
And found me some love at last!’
She stepped aside from the open door
And he thought she’d given in,
But a man stood solid, blocking his way
And he said, ‘You can’t come in!’

David Lewis Paget

What shall I do with you, Mary Anne,
You went outside in the storming,
The lightning flashed and it struck you dumb,
You couldn’t get up this morning.
I tried to give you a sweet caress
But you discharged on my finger,
I fear your voltage grows more, not less,
There’s no good reason to linger.

I wrapped a cable around your toe
Ran it to earth in the garden,
Your toe as well as the cable glowed,
I’m sorry, I beg your pardon.
There’s lightning flashes behind your eyes,
Your tongue is all of a sizzle,
The storm has gone but the rain keeps on
Although it’s only a drizzle.

I took you out to our ******* bin
The neighbours thought I was fooling,
And sat you down on the surface tin,
I thought that it would be cooling.
But soon the bin was a glowing red
I hauled you off from the garbage,
As flames and smoke took the garden shed
And put an end to our garage.

I thought that I’d better hose you down
When water hit, it was frightening,
The bolt ran over the garden hedge
And burnt it down with its lightning.
What shall I do with you, Mary Anne,
You know that I love you dearly,
But I’ll never sleep in our bed again,
Till you are discharged, and feely.

David Lewis Paget

He was sat in a quaint old country pub
And huddled over the fire,
The logs were blazing, spreading their heat
But the look on his face was dire.
There was only us on that winter’s night
The regulars stayed away,
So I sat beside him to share the heat
And hear what he had to say.

The rain outside, pit-pattering down
Had flooded under the porch,
It was so pitch black in the night outside
That to leave, I’d need a torch.
So I settled in for a lengthy stay,
He said that his name was Jim,
The air of gloom in that empty room
Seemed to be coming from him.

I said, ‘What’s up?’ and he looked at me
As if he was going to cry,
I said, ‘It can’t be as bad as that,’
But he let out an awful sigh.
‘It’s worse, far worse than you’d ever think,’
There followed a drawn-out pause,
But then he thought to confide in me,
‘I’m going to get a divorce.’

‘I see,’ I said, and I let him talk,
He needed to get it out,
A man in pain, while the driving rain
Outside, meant he had to shout.
‘I loved Elaine, and I never strayed,
Not once did I look aside,
For years Elaine was my universe
But now, it’s a question of pride.’

‘She told me she had a sister, who
Had needed a place to stay,
A Rosalyn, and she moved right in,
I thought she would go away.
But no, she stayed, and the sisters played
And I worked while they went to shop,
She came in between the two of us,
So I said that it had to stop.’

‘I didn’t think she would take her part
But she did, and pushed me away,
And that was the first of the arguments
We’d had, since our wedding day.
She’d throw a fit and would put me down,
It was messing with my head,
And then she would turn and leave the room,
And sleep in her sister’s bed.’

‘For months, I tried to ignore it, but
It gradually got me down,
She said I wasn’t much fun these days,
That all that I did was frown,
So just last night in a fit of spite
I thought that I’d take a stand…
I burst on in through their bedroom door,
Her Rosalyn was a man!’

David Lewis Paget

‘Why do you stay by the window, Jill,
Why do you stand and stare?
There’s nothing to see but the sentinels,
The names of the dead out there.
There’s more to life than the cemetery
That ranges over the hill,
I’ll close the shutters and pull the blinds
If the sight disturbs you, Jill!’

She sighed and turned then, back to the room
But she wouldn’t meet my eye,
She’d been morose since the last full Moon
But wouldn’t be telling me why,
I thought it might be our child that bloomed
And blossomed under her gown,
But every time that I questioned her
She’d put me off with a frown.

She’d been along to the doctor’s, and
Since then, she hadn’t smiled,
I asked her, ‘What has he told you, then,
Is something wrong with the child?’
She shook her head and she told me, ‘No!’
But she wouldn’t meet my gaze,
She was always a terrible liar,
Women lie in a number of ways.

I caught her scribbling out her Will
On a parchment page, or two,
I said, ‘Why now?’ And she looked at me,
‘I needed something to do!
I thought it time that we wrote them out,
It wouldn’t hurt you as well,
We have to think of the baby now
As my belly begins to swell.’

I sat beside her and wrote it out
If only to calm her down,
She seemed so close to the edge of tears
That I wrote of the love we’d found,
And all I had would belong to her
Who’d saved me from the abyss,
She’d turned this drunken head around
And given a life of bliss.

She squeezed my hand as I signed my name
And the tears rolled down her cheeks,
Her hormones must have been pulling her down,
She’d be like this for weeks,
‘You’ll feel all right when the baby’s born,
We’ll sit in the sun, outside,
And get some colour into your cheeks,’
But Jill broke down, and cried.

A week went by, I was far from well
So she made me stay in bed,
‘I’m going down with a flu of sorts,
I feel so thick in the head.’
She brought me soup and she tended me
Like a mother hen with a chick,
She cried a lot and she lied a lot
While I lay there, feeling sick.

I staggered out of my bed one day
And stood, looked over the hill,
The snow had feathered the headstones white
I shivered there in the chill,
She came, was standing beside me, then
Reached down, and felt for my hand,
‘You know I’ll love you forever, Ben,
There won’t be another man.’

I looked at her in alarm, I thought
She might be going away,
‘What did the doctor diagnose
On that distant day, in May?’
‘I knew it would have to come to this,
He gave me results, it’s true,
Though not of the tests he did on me,
But the ones that he did on you!’

I write this on the side of the bed
For I find it hard to stand,
My heart is feeble, my body weak
With its cargo of contraband,
But still Jill stands by the window there
And she weeps, and bows her head,
I say, ‘Why stare at the sentinels,
Engraved with the names of the dead?’

David Lewis Paget

The woman to grace my garden would
Have generous hips and thighs,
Long curling hair and a playful stare
A come hither look in her eyes,
A dimple set in a smiling cheek
And lips that would sometimes pout,
She’d move with grace at a steady pace
And her love would knock me out.

We’d meet at noon by the garden seat
In the shade of an apple tree,
With a plate of scones, and jam and cream
That her hands laid out for me,
We’d read a book in that shady nook
As we ate, drank lemonade,
I’d hold her hand in that magic land
And smile, at the game we played.

Then when the day had begun to cool
I’d wrap her up in a shawl,
Our summer days would begin to fade,
We’d still be there in the Fall,
Our talk would cover a thousand things
But we’d marvel most at life,
That fate had brought us together, she’d
Be proud to be called my wife.

My thoughts still stand in that happy land
As I sit alone in this,
And wonder where she may be out there
For a life, so full of bliss,
I sit and wait by the garden gate
For her form to pass on by,
Our eyes may meet in this dismal street
Until then, I’ll sit and sigh.

David Lewis Paget

The night was a night of thunder,
Of flashes of lightning too,
Her eyes had stared out in wonder
At what it was going to do.
She stood by the attic window
To stare outside in a trance,
While out in the breeze, the wind in the trees
Would flutter, and leap, and dance.

The bolts had zig-zagged like dragons
That fought in the eastern sky,
They carried their battle wagons
Of fireworks, sparked on high.
But now and then with a force like zen
They’d crash to earth on the ground,
And blight the night with a fierce light
And a most tumultuous sound.

It rattled the attic windows,
The shutters blew out like a sail,
The rain pit-pattered each window pane
And suddenly turned to hail.
The wind was humming and crooning
As it flitted up in the eaves,
The parting clouds let the moon in,
Tracing a path through the trees.

And she remembered the tales she’d heard
Of the thunder god named Thor,
Who beat with his mighty hammer
Downstairs on the outside door.
The wind was warbling, ‘Let me in,’
In a tone that meant to entice,
But Barbara shivered alone in her skin,
She wouldn’t be caught out twice.

For once she’d opened the outside door
In a storm when she was young,
And stood on the outside paving stones
When the lightning danced on her tongue.
And dragons crackled across her brain
While lightning flashed from her eyes,
‘Just come outside, there will be no pain,’
The wind was telling her lies.

She stood so close to the window pane
She wasn’t prepared for the flash,
A blinding light almost took her sight,
Her image was burnt on the glass.
And now if you stand in the garden there
Look up to the attic room,
And Barbara still stares down at you
Though she’s been long in her tomb.

She’d turned away from the window pane
And staggered down by the stair,
She was almost blind but she had to find
Just who was calling her there.
The outside door swung open and wide
She stepped on the paving stones,
And Thor delivered a hammer blow
That shattered Barbara’s bones.

David Lewis Paget

He drove on up to the Nursing Home
For the first time in a year,
He needed to get some papers signed
So he sought his mother there,
The matron pointed him to her room
With a wave of a careless hand,
But sitting next to his mother’s bed
Was the figure of a man.

‘So what the hell is he doing here?’
Said the son, in a burst of rage,
‘He has no right to be visiting,
To be here, at any stage,
They’ve been divorced for eleven years
And I thought he’d gone for good,
He’ll just reduce my mother to tears,
You should ban him, yes, you should.’

The matron halted outside the door
And she went to hold him back,
She said, ‘Oh yes, I know you now,
You’re the son they all call Jack.
She probably doesn’t remember you,
But you see, he comes each noon,
He sits and chats, and he holds her hand
And he feeds her with a spoon.’

‘Her mind has wandered away, you see,’
Said the matron, with a smile,
‘She’s somewhere back where she used to be,
But you, it has been a while.
There’s not the staff to attend to her,
If I institute your ban,
You’ll come each day, and you’ll fend for her?’
He said, ‘I don’t think I can.’

He watched them both from outside the door
And he saw his mother smile,
The man he’d known as a stepfather
Was as gentle as a child,
He stood outside and he caught her eye
But she gave no sign she knew,
He bowed his head and the matron said,
‘I would call that love, would you?’

He put the papers away, he knew
That she wasn’t fit to sign,
Then turned to go as he said, ‘You know,
I’ll come at a better time.’
The matron ushered him to the door
And she said, ‘We’ll see you, Jack,’
But deep inside was a truth that cried
He’d never be coming back.

David Lewis Paget

The little Toy Shop in the High Street,
With its pebble glass windows and doors,
Was a magical place, with its curtains of lace
And delight on its shelves and its floors.
It had always enticed and enthralled me,
With its skaters that whirled on a rink,
With tops that would hum, and soldiers with drum,
And dolls with bright eyes that would blink.

It had stood near the kerb in the High Street
In a small seaside village in Wales,
And we would go there for a part of the year
Near the Inn that was selling Welsh ales.
And I would stare in through the window
Though the glass would distort what I’d see,
When the women would pass, all the chattering class
I would think they were talking to me.

It would sound like they sang to each other,
Not a word in my English was said,
And their voices would meld with that Toy Shop,
Till I thought, ‘What goes on in their head?’
But I left that Welsh village behind me
As I grew, with much laughter and tears,
It was later, a trip would remind me,
What I’d left in the past, all those years.

Then I found myself standing outside it,
That little Toy Shop from the past,
Where nothing had changed, just the stock rearranged
When I stared through that window at last.
I opened the door with the pebble glass
And I made my way slowly within,
And there stood a girl in a bonnet and blouse
And a pinny tucked all the way in.

Her hair was the colour of seaside sand
And her eyes were the blue of the sea,
I noticed that there was no ring on her hand
And that she stared intently at me.
I think we both knew in an instant then
That within a short year we’d be wed,
But though she still sings in her Welsh with a friend
I don’t know what goes on in her head.

David Lewis Paget