I didn’t have much to put down… He said,
‘You wouldn’t get much with that.’
I’d wanted to buy a cottage while
The housing market was flat.
With prices as low as they’d ever been
I thought I’d be in with a chance,
‘Unless you go to that rustic show
The village of Experance.’

‘The place has been empty for thirty years
With cottages up for a song,
There is no power, no place for a shower,’
But I thought I couldn’t go wrong.
He drove me out to the village green,
Each garden was choked with weeds,
I’d buy most anything, sight unseen,''
As long as it suited my needs.

I picked one out with the roof intact
And the walls preserved with lime,
Some of the window panes were cracked,
I could fix them anytime.
The rooms were small, but overall
It would suit me down to a ’T’,
I didn’t have anyone in my life
I was single, young and free.

I brought what furniture I had left
And settled it down inside,
Then spent a week with a cleaning brush
It was just a question of pride.
I finally had my home sweet home
But lit with a paraffin lamp,
The water I drew from a well out back,
The walls were a trifle damp.

There wasn’t another soul to be seen
They’d all moved away, or died,
I felt a little bit lonely there
But I walked the countryside.
I checked each cottage, the ancient hall
And the church, way down in the dell,
Someone had painted a cross on the door
And underlined it with ‘Hell’.

One night I listened and heard a step
Out there on the path outside,
Got up and walked to the window, and
Out there was a beautiful bride.
She stood uncertain, unveiled her face
Her make-up was streaked with tears,
But when I opened the cottage door
The woman had disappeared.

I saw the groom on the following day
He stood by the next cottage down,
I waved, and thought he would look my way
But all that he did was frown.
He turned and entered the cottage door
But it didn’t creak, or slam,
And when I looked, the weeds on the floor
Said empty, no sign of the man.

One night, I heard a sound in the hall
Like music and shuffling feet,
So wandered down, and stood by the wall
While lights shone out in the street,
But when I entered, the place was grim
And shrouded in silence and gloom,
I stood there shivering, on my own,
It felt like the depths of a tomb.

At night, I finally started to dream
And I saw the bride in her lace,
She came and tapped on my window pane
With tears streaming down her face,
‘You have to come, a man with a gun,
Has shattered my wedding dream,’
I tossed and turned, until I awoke
Then pondered on what I’d seen.

One Sunday late, and fully awake
I wandered down to the church,
And by the time that I stood outside
I could hear the wedding march.
I pushed the door and it swung out wide
As I entered there in the gloom,
Then heard the sound of a pistol shot
That echoed across that room.

And just for a moment, they were there,
The spectres of what had been,
The wedding party standing in shock
As I looked at that terrible scene.
A shape ran past me, out at the door
As the bride let out a cry,
And there the groom, lay dead on the floor
With blood running out of his eye.

It faded then, and I was alone
In this dreadful church in the dell,
Where someone had painted a bright red cross
And underlined it with ‘Hell’.
A curse must have come on the village that night
When the villagers all had cried,
For all that was left were the ghosts of death
From the night that the bridegroom died.

David Lewis Paget

The cottage stood at the outer edge
Of the village of Helsomewhere,
It held a slate on the garden gate
That scribbled a ‘Don’t Go There!’
It housed a cat and a resident bat
And something that moved within,
A thing unseen that was quite unclean
With various types of sin.

The folk that entered the garden gate
Had never gone back there twice,
When asked, they shuddered enough to state
‘It’s something that isn’t nice!’
The weeds were thick in the garden, and
Had grown right over the path,
And filled with sand by an old wash-stand
The remains of an iron bath.

Nobody walked the bullock track
That led by the old front door,
To go to town, they’d hurry around
A path that was there before,
The cottage stood like an ancient crone
That blighted the village scene,
A pointing finger, pared to the bone
Reminding them what had been.

At night the Moon rose over the ridge
And it cast an evil glow,
Down through the leaves of the eucalypts
To the cottage, far below,
The windows looked like a pair of eyes
As they stared out through the gloom,
While something was rushing around inside
Like a demon in a tomb.

‘Perhaps we ought to have burnt it,’
Said the senior councilman,
‘It stands alone as our conscience,’ said
The crusty old farmer, Stan,
‘We have to bleed for our own misdeeds,
Including a lack of care,
Each scream was seen as a nightmare dream
When Lloyd was living there.’

When Lloyd was hosting his dinners for
The girls from a nearby town,
Nobody seemed to question them
For Lloyd was always a clown,
But screams would happen at midnight
And would often be heard at dawn,
When Lloyd was digging his garden patch
By the light of the early morn.

And Lloyd would wave to his neighbours as
They hurried along his way,
Give them a cheery greeting, crack a joke
And say ‘Gidday!’
They didn’t suspect that evil lay
Inside in that old tin bath,
The one that is filled with sand, and now
Sits there, outside by the path.

One night the villagers crept on out,
And they took it each by turn,
To set a brand to the cottage, then
Stand back to watch it burn,
But something was rushing about inside
In a black and evil cloak,
While screams had seemed to come in a tide
With the dark and acrid smoke.

The embers were floating far and wide
In the haze of a Harvest Moon,
They set up fires in the eucalypts
That rained in the village gloom,
And every cottage went up in smoke
For the villagers’ part, they share
In the deaths of thirteen innocent girls
In the Hell of Helsomewhere!

David Lewis Paget

There’s a village on top of a mountain
That’s always surrounded by mist,
They have a miraculous fountain
Allowing the folk to exist,
And no-one remembers the world below
They think that they float in the void,
Their library holds a single book
Called something, ‘According to Freud’.

They choose a new partner every night
In a version of musical chairs,
Nobody knows who belongs to who
And nobody really cares,
The women weave and the men deceive
In the way that it’s been for years,
And then at night, they put out the light
And lie back, counting the stars.

They’re trying to bottle the moonbeams,
To capture the secret of light,
And catch the sparkling frost that melts
Up on the mountain’s height,
The day that a mountaineer appeared
Climbing up out of the mist,
They thought the devil had somehow reared
Out of his precipice.

The villagers gradually dwindled,
They died or they jumped right off,
He spoke to them in a different tongue
And they said that they’d had enough.
He tried in vain to explain again
That his name was Karsikov,
But the village slowly emptied out,
They thought that he’d said, ‘*******!’

David Lewis Paget

I went to stay with an old schoolmate
In the village of Rushing Brooke,
I thought there wouldn’t be much to do
So I took a favourite book,
He said he’d only been there a while
For the cottage rent was cheap,
He’d needed to get away, he said,
But never could get to sleep.

His face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot
His hands would tremble and shake,
He said it was close to a fortnight since
He’d started to lie awake,
‘I get to the point I’m drifting off
When I hear that terrible knell,
A long slow tolling invades my sleep
From the church that has no bell.’

We sat up talking ‘til one o’clock
Then I made my way to bed,
But nothing invaded my sleep that night,
‘It won’t at first,’ he said.
‘There’s something wanders the street outside
In the hours before the dawn,
Clad in a cowl, or a hooded cloak
But it’s gone before the morn.’

From all that I saw of Rushing Brooke
The cottages were quaint,
They certainly had a timeless look,
Could do with a coat of paint.
The roads were rough with a pebbled look
But I saw no folk about,
I passed the Smithy and Fodder store
But the Blacksmith, he was out.

We walked on over to see the church
That was grim, and overgrown,
There’d not been a single service there
Since the Roundheads stormed the town,
But weeds grew up in the vestry, there
Were signs of an ancient fire,
And looking up we could see a space
Right under the old church spire.

‘That was the space they hung the bell
But the bell has long been gone,
The Roundheads carried it off, they say,
So it couldn’t toll for Rome.
The bell had tolled for the death of Charles
As his head fell under the axe,
The soldiers came for revenge in force
In one of their brute attacks.’

I kept him company every night
But I had to get some sleep,
For days I’d wake and I’d find him still
Awake in a crumpled heap.
I woke one time and I saw him stare
Through the window, into the night,
For there was a ghostly cloak and cowl,
It gave me a sudden fright.

And that’s when I heard the tolling bell
For the first time, that he’d said,
The bell from the church, that wasn’t there
Was tolling in my head,
I lay awake ‘til the sun came up,
Went out to greet the day,
But there the village had tumbled down,
Had long since gone away.

Only the marks of ancient roads,
Foundations that had stood,
There wasn’t a cottage left out there
Just an encroaching wood,
The church was standing among the trees
And our cottage, cracked and scarred,
Half of the roof was missing, and
The chimney lay in the yard.

We hurried away to the nearest town
And found an old-style Inn,
My friend had fallen asleep within
A moment of checking in,
He slept and he slept for two whole days
While I asked about the town,
‘What of the village of Rushing Brooke?’
But all that they did was frown.

The wife of the keeper of the Inn
Was tidying my room,
I asked her the same old question as
She worked there in the gloom,
‘I wouldn’t go near to Rushing Brooke
Not now, for a thousand pound,
That’s where the soldiers stole the bell
And mowed the villagers down.’

‘They say as the place is haunted by
The figure of a monk,
They burnt him alive inside the church
As he tolled the bell by the font.
He lived in a little cottage there,
The only one that stands,
I’ve heard some tell that they’ve heard the bell
And seen him, walk in the grounds.’

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

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 house that I rented was falling down,
I picked up the place for a song,
There weren’t many rooms that were liveable,
The plumbing and wiring were wrong,
I lit up a paraffin lantern there
To lighten the dark and the gloom,
But while still exploring, I thought I heard
A voice in the upstairs room.

I hadn’t been up in the loft ‘til then,
I’d not even mounted the stairs,
The rooms were a midden of broken toys
Of lopsided tables and chairs,
I carted the worst of them out the back,
The fire that I set lit the gloom,
Again from a window above me there
Was the voice in the upstairs room.

I couldn’t make out a word that it said
It grumbled and mumbled and moaned,
I stood and I listened and scratched my head
And to tell you the truth, I groaned.
I didn’t know what lay above me there
A squatter, a thief or a ghost,
A thief didn’t matter, a squatter I’d scatter
What worried me most was a ghost.

I went and I stood by the bottom stair
Looked up, with a feeling of doom,
The voice was whispering somewhere there,
‘You’d better be leaving here soon!’
‘The only one leaving this place is you,
Whatever, whoever you are!’
‘The only way you will be rid of me
Is by putting the lid on the jar.’

I plucked up the courage and took the stairs,
Was running, but two at a time,
The dust was heavy and thick up there,
Whipped up as I started to climb,
A haze was suffused in the room at the back
Where the window was beaming in light,
And there at a ghostly harpsichord
Was sitting a woman in white.

I stood stock still as she started to play
Bach’s Little Prelude in C,
The notes hung quivering, shivering in
The haze of the air by me,
I saw right through the woman, the dress
And the harpsichord to the wall,
There was no substance that I could see,
No substance to them at all.

The music stopped, she was looking at me
And she let out a long, loud sigh,
‘I’ve only played for two hundred years
To some visitors, passing by.
It’s never the same as it was at court
With the crinolines, bustles and lace,
And most have fled when the music played,
Without ever seeing my face.’

I looked at the jar on the mantelpiece,
A Funeral Urn with its store,
And ash was spilling, leaving a trace
With the lid that lay on the floor,
I bent to touch it and pick it up
But the woman had let out a cry,
‘I pray sir, never replace the lid,
For then I would surely die.’

I placed the lid on the Funeral Urn,
Turned back to look at her face,
The room was empty, the harpsichord
Had gone, not leaving a trace.
There was no sign of the woman in white
And the haze had faded away,
I turned and slowly descended the stairs
With a feeling of vague dismay.

For weeks I scrubbed and I tended that house,
Installed all my goods and wares,
But often found I was listening for
The sound of that voice upstairs.
So I crept in there on a winter’s eve
And I slipped the lid off the jar,
Went silently down the stairs again
Still listening, from afar.

The harpsichord struck a strident note
And it woke me up in my chair,
Then suddenly she began to sing
In a voice that was sweet and fair.
I only cover the Funeral Urn
If the vicar is passing by,
But sometimes sit at the head of the stairs
Just to hear the woman sigh.

David Lewis Paget

The Lady Mary had locked the door
And called the scullery maid,
The Boots was called and the Footman,
So they thought they were being paid,
She lined them up with the Butler,
The Housemaid, skivvy and Cook,
‘You’re not to go wandering out the door,
Not even to take a look!’

She knew her word, though the very law,
Was never to go down well,
For Alice was sweet on a lawyer’s clerk,
A lockdown seemed like hell.
The Footman needed his racing mates
To place a bet on the book,
So the Lady Mary had made it plain,
‘Not even a peep or a look!’

The grumbling went with the Cook downstairs
As they stood, and waited for tea,
‘It’s all very well for the likes of her,
There’s places I have to be!’
‘Enough of this nonsense,’ the Butler said,
‘We’re lucky to grace her floor,
If you want to leave in a fit of peeve
You’ll never get back in the door.’

They huddled down for a week or more
It was better than paying rent,
But a silence settled on every floor
For nobody came, or went,
The pantry shelves were emptying out
But the tradesmen never came,
‘We’re going to starve,’ was the one lament
When they ate the last of the game.

The Footman called the Scullery Maid
And they huddled up on a pew,
‘If you sneak out for an hour tonight,
Then I will cover for you,
And you can visit your lawyer’s clerk
Then place a bet on the book,
I’ll let you in when it’s nice and dark…’
‘I will, by hook or by crook!’

She slipped on out by the kitchen door
And he turned the key in the lock,
Watched the Butler heading for bed
And sat by the kitchen clock.
At ten o’clock, with a tiny tap
She had made her prescence felt,
And tumbled in as he opened the door,
Went straight to the hearth, and knelt.

He locked the door, then he heard her sob
And saw that her head was bent,
She stared so long and hard at the floor
That he thought his bet was spent.
‘What ails you Alice, now what went wrong,
Don’t give me none of your lies!’
She looked up into his face just then
And he saw blood stream from her eyes!’

‘They’re dead, all dead,’ were the words she said
As her tears had mixed with the blood,
Your racing pals and my lawyers clerk,
And the horses, down at the stud.
The Lady Mary, she should have said…’
But he cut her off right there,
Leapt up, unlocking the kitchen door
He dragged her out by her hair.

He locked the door and he scrubbed his hands
But he’d locked the beast within,
As blood then streamed from his Footman’s eyes
And he earned the wages of sin.
The Lady Mary came down the stair
To find him, dead on the floor,
And said to the Cook, with blood red eyes,
‘You’d best fling open the door!’

David Lewis Paget

She was walking the damp and cobbled streets
Like one with nowhere to go,
I saw her quivering, cold and shivering
Deep in a fall of snow,
I rarely talk to a stranger, but
She looked me straight in the eye,
And said, ‘Dear sir, could you help a girl,
I noticed you passing by.’

She took me out of my comfort zone,
She quite appealed to the eye,
I mumbled in an embarrassed tone,
I have been known to be shy.
‘I’ve not been warm for a week,’ she said,
‘And haven’t slept, and I’m tired,
I wonder if you could take me home
And let me sit by your fire?’

I didn’t want to be compromised,
I had a girl of my own,
But barely thinking, I said all right
And so she followed me home.
I built the fire with a log or two
Then she sat down by the grate,
And held her hands to the warming flames,
But the hour was getting late.

I wondered where she would sleep that night
With nowhere to go, she said,
Then like a fool, broke the golden rule
Said she could sleep in my bed.
‘I’ll stay out here on the couch, so you
Can catch right up on your sleep,’
If only I’d had a crystal ball
The future would make me weep.

She said that her name was Elspeth Jane,
Had run away from her home,
So stayed wherever there was no pain
From brutes, just bad to the bone.
She said she could tell a gentleman
And smiled, when looking at me,
I felt quite flattered, I must confess,
Not knowing what was to be.

I had a girl, and her name was Kate,
She’d be around in the morning,
I thought that the waif would be gone by then
But Kate showed as it was dawning.
‘Who is the girl, there in your bed?’
As Elspeth lay a-bed, stretching,
‘I thought I could trust you, now you’re dead,’
Then Elspeth said I was letching.

‘He picked me up for a bit of fun,
He didn’t mention a girlfriend,
He’s quite a lover, son of a gun,
You should hang on to your boyfriend.’
‘Why would you lie, you slept alone,’
I looked in horror at Elspeth,
The door then slammed, and Kate had flown,
While Elspeth asked about breakfast.

I should have kicked her out in the street,
I should have barred her forever,
But first I offered her toast to eat,
Then thought it was now or never.
She walked back in through the bedroom door
Her gown slipped down off her shoulder,
I knew that a starving man must eat,
And now, I’m wiser and bolder.

David Lewis Paget

We’d been at sea on a cruise ship,
Some days to Paradise,
An island in the pacific
Of beaches, trees and spice,
But storms, they were foregathering
Not just for the ship at sea,
For frost with us was travelling
Inside Caitlin and me.

With eyes averted we rarely spoke
There were demons in my head,
For she would flutter about at night
Not join me in our bed.
The ship ploughed on through a restless sea,
While the clouds outside were grey,
And I began to regret that we
Had chosen this holiday.

I woke each morning before the dawn
And not a word was said,
For Caitlin lay, facing away
On the far side of our bed.
I’d roam around in the early hours
The silent, deserted ship,
But a life aboard alone, it sours
By the fifth day of a trip.

The clouds grew dark, enveloped the ship
And mist lay deep on the decks,
While down beneath the fathomless sea
Lay a thousand sunken wrecks.
A thousand wrecks of hopes and dreams
That started away like this,
Lost forever beneath the sea
At the lack of a touch, or kiss.

We sailed, we sailed, by God we sailed
With our heartsick contraband,
For days we sailed as the storm winds railed
But we caught no sight of land,
We caught no sight of the what-we-were
Before, when our world was new,
For love was blind in the mist and wind
That sailed with the cruise ship too.

Surely there was a meeting point
Between the land and the sea,
But the ship sailed on with our tempers gone,
We sailed in misery,
A day beyond our arrival point
The Captain came to say,
‘The land has gone, there’s something wrong
We were due there yesterday.’

Wherever we looked about to see
The sea was all we saw,
I’d turn and spin, keep my hopes within,
All hope had flown before.
We cruise around in an endless sea
With never a sight of land,
And nothing is left of what was ‘we’
It’s buried in sea and sand.

Buried alive in the sea and sand
With a frost that shatters the eye,
Gone with the hope of sighting land
Between the sea and the sky.
We’re drifting now, for we’re out of fuel
In a world of liquid pride,
With she content at the prow of the ship
And I with the wake that died.

David Lewis Paget

‘I’m tired, so tired,’ said Jonathon Black,
‘I can hardly stay awake,’
His wife just stared at the back of his head,
Went back to her currant cake.
She’d heard it all a million times
Was bored with the things he’d say,
She wished he’d pack up his things, sometimes
And quietly go away.

But Jonathon sat in his bamboo chair
And stared at the world outside,
He used to be full of energy,
But something inside him died,
He lived in the shadows of tides and scenes
That were conjured behind his eyes,
The throwaway remnants of others dreams
He’d capture in tears and sighs.

He spent the afternoon nodding off
Then woke with a startled cry,
‘You wouldn’t believe what I saw just now,
Right out of a clear blue sky.
A shadow crept from the bushes there
And it killed young Andrew Deems,’
Giselle had tutted and shook her head,
‘Just one of your stupid dreams!’

The woods, a favourite lovers spot
Stretched out from their own back door,
Giselle would go with a basket there
Looking for mushroom spore.
‘I saw you out in the woods today
But nothing is what it seems,’
She turned and snapped at her husband’s back,
‘Just keep me out of your dreams!’

‘It isn’t a question of that,’ he said,
‘I can’t control what I see,
Wherever a person’s thoughts are at
They keep on coming to me.
Even the strangers that walk on past
Have secrets they send in beams,
You’d think that they would be safe from me
But I’m the waker of dreams.

Giselle had wandered off to the woods
With her basket held on high,
While Jonathon found and loaded his gun,
Went after her with a sigh,
He found her there in a shady nook
In a huddle with Andrew Deems,
‘I thought I’d warned you, often enough,
You didn’t believe, it seems!’

He shot the lad as he tried to run
Then dropped the gun to his side,
‘All I could see in his dreams was you,
But now, that dream has died.’
‘And what will you do with me,’ said she
And bit her lip ‘til it bled,
‘I’m tired, so tired,’ said Jonathon Black
Then put the gun to his head.

David Lewis Paget

She used to walk in the woods at night,
She said she needed the air,
But didn’t want me to go with her,
She said that it’s cold out there.
‘Well, cold for me would be cold for you,’
I said, but she didn’t mind,
‘I need to go on my own,’ she said,
Made out she was being kind.

Though what it was I would find, who knew?
It raised suspicions in me,
For what do you meet in a darkened wood
But only the occasional tree?
Perhaps she wasn’t the only one
Who wandered into the sward,
Maybe another lonely one,
But no, she gave me her word.

Not that her word was worth too much
As I’d caught her out before,
Meeting a man delinquently,
But never again, she swore.
I had no reason to doubt her then
She said she would play it square,
‘It’s only an empty wood,’ she said,
‘There’s nothing but trees out there.’

I followed her into the woods one night,
Kept quietly out of sight,
And watched as she entered a clearing,
Deep in the dead of night.
She walked straight up to an old ash tree
And knelt before it, and prayed,
While fronds from the tree encircled her,
Like some strange masquerade.

And then as I watched, a shape appeared
Embedded within the tree,
The form of a man, the god named Pan
As clear as it could be.
Patricia advanced, embraced him now
And the form sprang into life,
Doing the things you wouldn’t do
Except with a much loved wife.

He looked like a goat that stood *****,
His horns swept back from his head,
Balancing on his cloven hoofs
While I hid myself in dread.
He raised a set of pipes to his lips
And played an enchanting tune,
That swept the glade as Patricia played
And cavorted in the gloom.

Then suddenly I was back at home,
Woke up in my easy chair,
I rubbed my eyes to the sound of sighs
And Patricia was standing there.
‘I just had the strangest dream,’ I said,
‘Of you in a woodland glade.’
And she just smiled for a little while
As I sat in my chair, dismayed.

‘I think I know why you wander now,
Though you never will with me,
There’s something about a clearing there
And a most remarkable tree.’
She turned, and pierced me with a look
That said that she didn’t care,
‘It’s true, I have a favourite nook
Where I go… I saw you there!’

David Lewis Paget

The change in his habits was hard to define,
He thought, getting older, had shortened his time,
Less time to waste sleeping, for rest or respite,
From eight hours to six hours, to four hours at night.

He’d sit up late working, and not watch the clock
At midnight he’d vaguely hear something tick-tock,
But still would sit up with his eyes full of rue
And not get to bed until one, maybe two.

Awake before dawn he would feel some relief,
That death had not squandered his life in his sleep,
And though he was tiring, he wouldn’t give in,
Began to see sleeping as some kind of sin.

Then down to an hour, and then to a half
He ended up napping short time by the hearth,
Five minutes would pass, he’d be fully awake
When under his chair he would feel the earth quake.

And when his eyes opened and looked to the skies
He’d see giant gimbals above the sunrise,
That held the earth spinning in place like a top
A gyroscope, seeming it never would stop.

Then in the dark hours when all were asleep,
He’d see all the monsters come out for a peep,
Come out from their hidings in forest and glen
Whenever they hadn’t to fear meeting men.

They’d play in the shallows, they’d play in the streams,
They’d dash in and out of the sleeping mens dreams,
They’d laugh and they’d frolic up high in the trees,
And wave in the branches with every slight breeze.

And sometimes they’d argue, and sometimes they’d fight,
Hip-hopping from one to the other all night,
They’d not see the watcher, awake in his den
For monsters see horrors in all kinds of men.

The world would return to the way it had been
Before men came begging, and made it unclean,
With meadows and grotto’s and magical spells,
And hedgerows and sedge rows and woods of bluebells.

He sat there in wonder, and watched the full flight
Of worlds unimagined that came out each night,
And suddenly death was the least he would fear
If death would come dreaming and carry him here.

The watcher relaxed and he fell sound asleep
He slept for eight hours with never a peep,
And when he awoke with the rise of the sun,
He wept in his sorrow, what sleep had undone.

David Lewis Paget

My father called it the Watching Tree
For it turned, and swivelled to see,
He’d planted its seed in the winter weather
On top of the grave of Annabelle Feather
Who killed their mother for why, whatever,
Then hung from a hawthorn tree.

The hangman never would cut her free
While she spun and spiralled around,
Her eyes a-bulge on the village gallows
In front of the church they call All Hallows,
While urchins jeered to toast marshmallows
As Annabelle stared at the ground.

My aunts in pinafores hung on her feet
To stretch her neck with the rope,
Her tongue stuck out at least six inches
A rigid perch for the garden finches
Who pop the eyes of the one they lynches,
Once they’ve given up hope.

They laid her down in an open grave
The rope wound tight at her throat,
Planted the seeds of the tree above her
Just to remind of the murdered mother
So people be kinder to one another,
Or that’s what my father wrote.

The roots of the tree bored into the skull
Of Annabelle, in through her eyes,
Tendrils of thoughts were left forever
Deep in the well of Annabelle Feather
And sent from her eyes to the tree, whatever,
A poisoner never dies.

So still I call it the Watching Tree
For it waits till I’m not around,
Dropping its poisonous leaves whenever
It’s cold and bleak in the winter weather,
As black as the heart of Annabelle Feather
Stone cold, and dead in the ground.

David Lewis Paget

We’ve navigated the old canals
Since the roads were blocked with cars,
And we were stuck when the highway truck
Rolled over the top of ours,
They poured a layer of bitumen
Across the roofs of them all,
Then crushed them under a steam roller
Until they were flat, and small.

They didn’t bother to pull them out
The ones who were trapped inside,
Just wrote them off the accounting books
And made a note that they’d died,
They needed to halve the ones who lived
Or the earth would sputter in space,
Spinning across that great divide
With the death of the human race.

But we got out, and we made a break
For the fields and the old canals,
And found a deserted barge afloat
Thanks to the help of pals,
We got some paint and we cleaned it up,
Made it all right to roam,
Then once inside it was quite a ride
And started to feel like home.

Most of the waterways were clear
With some of them overgrown,
I’d send Gwen Darling back to the rear
To steer while the weeds were mown,
I’d scythe them out of the way ahead
And steer the barge through the gap,
Then rest at night by a harvest moon
With Darling Gwen on my lap.

I’d bag a hare on a winter’s night
And steal the milk from a cow,
The earth was dying, but we survived
And Gwen kept asking me how?
‘We’re going back to the way it was
Before computers and such,
Before the Banks had us by the throat
When love was lived by a touch.’

So still we wander across the land
As they did in the days of old,
Those ancient barges, covered in dust
But laden, carrying coal,
There’s a merry fire on a metal hearth
And an oven, full of a goose,
And a woman’s wiles, to gladden my heart
As her stays are coming loose.

David Lewis Paget

‘What are we going to do with you?’
My parents would say to me,
‘We want you to work in a banking house,
But you write poetry.
You may look back on a wasted life
If that was all you did,
You need to steady, and take a wife
So you’ll need to make a quid.’

While I, in all of my innocence
Would look at them, askance,
‘If life were just about money, then
I think I’d rather dance.
I don’t believe that it’s all about
The grind, amassing wealth,
I cast my fate to the winds, let that
Take care of it, itself.’

I needed to be creative so
I scribbled, more and more,
Composing the perfect poems that
Did not exist before,
They didn’t earn me a single quid
But that was not the plan,
A part of me will be left behind
Once I am done with man.

And so I tell the Millennials
Don’t waste your time with sweat,
But add something to your culture that
Has not been written yet,
Whether your art is writing, music,
Painting, poetry,
The question, ‘What will you do with you?’
In time, will set you free.

David Lewis Paget

He sat at the railway station in
The hopes of a passing train,
There hadn’t been one for hours, while he
Was sheltering from the rain,
While over the opposite platform, sat
And sprawled on a wooden bench,
A sight to gladden a jaundiced eye,
A typical old-time *****.

For wenches were few and far between
In that post-industrial time,
As everyone wore both slacks and jeans,
And nothing to tease the mind,
But not this ***** on the wooden bench
For she wore a floral dress,
A petticoat that was made of rope
That rose to her knees, no less.

And could those have been real stockings like
They’d been when he was a lad,
With straightened seams to the land of dreams
From calf to the thigh, well clad,
It put him in mind of the garter belts
That she’d have to wear, no doubt,
He’d seen in his teenage magazines
When he was a gadabout.

She rose and walked up the platform and
She gave her brolly a whirl,
And then he noticed her bodice with
Its buttons, mother of pearl,
Her hair was combed in a bouffant, piled
Up high in an auburn wave,
And dangling from her delicate ears
Were miniature rings of jade.

Two trains pulled into the station,
One each side and they climbed aboard,
Their windows were facing each other,
He faced back, while she faced forward,
Then just for a moment he smiled at her
And she smiled back from her bench,
As he muttered to her six silent words:
‘By God! You’re a beautiful *****!’

David Lewis Paget

The day was grey when it came my way
With a clatter of wheels and hooves,
Echoing off the cobblestones
And under the red tile roofs,
The rain was glistening in the road
And I was confused at first,
For what I’d thought was a coach and four
Went by as a horse drawn hearse.

The horse went stepping by, high and proud
With a coat like shining mail,
And ostrich plumes adorned its harness
Right down to its plaited tail.
Then in the hearse, a polished coffin
With silver plate inscribed,
The name of him, who encased within
Had clutched at his heart, and died.

I watched the hearse as it rolled away
And thought that it could be me,
When one day off in a future time
I departed my history,
The wheels had creaked like a ticking clock
Or a dripping tap, each turn,
Rolling along to the day we stopped,
Went home in a funeral urn.

The months slipped by with barely a sigh
Till I saw that hearse again,
It passed my way when the day was grey
And the clouds had threatened rain.
I read the name on the silver plate
As the hearse had passed on by,
And held my breath in the face of death
For I certainly knew that guy.

We’d been together at school back when
Though he was younger than me,
He’d been successful in all he’d done
And married Penelope.
The only woman I’d ever loved
But he’d snatched her heart away,
And now she plodded behind the hearse
Looking faded, old and grey.

Her eyes met mine and a bitter smile
Had flickered around her eyes,
I hadn’t seen her for years, and yet
Her look had the look of surprise.
I never saw her again until
She passed me by in the hearse,
Her name engraved on the silver plate,
I thought I was being cursed.

So now I wait by the garden gate
For the clatter of wheels and hooves,
Whenever the day is clouded and grey
And the sound echoes off the roofs.
All I can hear are the wheels of time
That pass like a ticking clock,
And wait for the hearse to halt outside,
Whether I know it, or not.

David Lewis Paget

I knew that I shouldn’t be driving,
I’d had one more for the road,
So Jean and me were half cut, you see,
Were carrying quite a load.
We’d tried the Tequila slammers,
I’d even swallowed the worm,
I wish to hell I had lost the key
Then we’d both be home, and warm.

The road was most uninviting,
Was glistening in the dark,
We climbed on into the Beamer,
And headed out of the park.
The rain was a constant drizzle
As the Moon peeked over the trees,
I know that I should have listened
When Jean would entreat me, ‘Please!’

She always said that I drove too fast
And she was probably right,
I slammed my foot down flat to the boards
And sped away through the night.
The headlights cut a swathe through the trees
And lit the road in an arc,
I thought that we were invincible,
Speeding home in the dark.

It must have been a tyre that blew,
The Beamer suddenly veered,
The car careened off the road, it seemed,
No matter how I had steered.
It seemed to leap at a grove of trees
And hit the oak at a lean,
I was safe with my seatbelt on,
But Jean had flown through the screen.

She’d been sat quietly, holding my hand,
Her warmth was all that I felt,
She’d whispered softly her words of love,
Forgotten to put on her belt.
Now she lay spread on the bonnet there
Her head crushed into the tree,
I hoped and prayed, but I didn’t dare
Step out of the wreck, to see.

And then I heard her whispering words
Float back through the shattered screen,
‘If only you had listened to me…’
I said, ‘I know what you mean.’
‘You know our love was a special love,’
She seemed to whisper afar,
‘Just know my love will always be there,
I’ll beam it down from a star.’

My life is cold, and empty as well,
Since ever my love was lost,
I carry around my private hell
In a heart that is tempest tossed.
For now I know that I have no choice
When it all comes back to me,
If ever I need to hear her voice
I go to the whispering tree.

David Lewis Paget

The Whispering Wall of Shah La Mere
Had drawn him over the hills,
They said that it only whispered truth
That the listening ear distils,
His lover stood at the further side
And whispered into the wall:
‘I’d like to give you it all,’ she said,
He heard, ‘I wish you were Paul.’

They’d fashioned the Dam at Shah La Mere
Where the valley narrowed down,
To catch the tumbling waters there
When the winter floods came round,
The wall of the Dam was curved across
From the cliff on the western side,
And fixed to stone in the eastern zone
On the hill called ‘Devil’s Pride.’

A walkway followed the curve across
That was barely three feet wide,
A thousand feet from the valley floor
You could walk it, if you tried,
There wasn’t a safety rail out there
For the faint of heart, or weak,
But those who needed to hear the truth
Would brave it, just to speak.

The whispers gathered and echoed there
At the centre of the curve,
And kept on muttering as you passed,
Trapped in the wall’s reverb,
The Whisperers, long gone, were caught
In their whispers of lies and truth,
‘I will be honest and true,’ became,
‘I’m still messed up with Ruth.’

Corinne stayed safe on the eastern side
While he walked out to the west,
They’d vowed their love to each other, then
Had thought to put it to test.
He passed the muttering echoes where
So many others had been,
The truth was turning to lies out there
With some of it quite obscene.

He stopped and turned on the other side
‘Can you hear me now, Corinne?’
And she had nodded as she had heard
‘Do you fear me, now and then?’
‘I’ve only wanted to be with you,’
Was the whisper she returned,
‘I’m only waiting for someone new,’
He heard, and his ears burned.

‘They say it only whispers the truth,’
He muttered, his eyes cast down,
‘I may be soon returning to Ruth,’
Was the whisper that came round.
He dropped her off at her mother’s place
From their trip to the Whispering Wall,
Then drove at speed to spend time with Ruth
While she caught up with Paul.

David Lewis Paget

She cooked the final meals at the gaol,
Collected the hangman’s clothes,
For he inherited everything
Of the hanged man, heaven knows.
She gave the widows the twist of rope
That he’d used to hang their men,
It all came down to the widow Crope
And whether she liked you, then.

She’d interview the widow-to-be
With a questionnairre or two,
About her man, was he handy, and
What did he like to  do?
Then later, in the condemned man’s cell
She’d say that she’d cut him free,
‘You’ll never see your woman again,
So all you have left is me.’

Her husband had died on the gallows, so
She’d known of that final *****,
A widow Kerr had done it for her
Before she was widow Crope.
Then down beneath that terrible drop
She would wait for him to appear,
Hang on his feet, as well as not
While he kicked at the air in fear.

Then once that the corpse was pale and still
She’d take it down to the morgue,
Lay it out on a slab, and then
She’d borrow the gaoler’s sword.
And while they were pouring the candlewax
For a later hanging in chain,
She’d slice a couple of fingers off
For the rings that were hers to claim.

But then she might, in an act of spite
Cut off a dead man’s hand,
Dip it well in the candlewax
And walk it late through the land.
She’d light the end of the fingertips
And carry it like a torch,
Making her way where the widow lay
And spike it, out on her porch.

And wives would say as their husbands lay,
‘Don’t mess with the widow Crope,
If ever the hangman comes, that day
She may be your final hope.’
And those awaiting a capital case
Would sit with their husbands there,
And tell them that it would be okay
In that final act of despair.

She’d never worn anything else but black,
She called them her widows weeds,
But never, she said, felt safe from attack
For her husband’s evil deeds,
She finally married the hangman, Jed,
And handed the job to her,
An hour since she’d hung on his legs
And made her the widow Claire.

David Lewis Paget

I thought that I was the only one
Who had never found a mate,
I’d been so busy with other things
That I’d left it up to fate,
Then I was suddenly fortyish
When I started looking round,
But other people had caught the fish
That were swimming in our town.

The single ones were too young for me,
Their glances all were cold,
Whenever I’d proposition one
They’d say, ‘You’re much too old.’
And fate had seemingly passed me by
For my early diffidence,
It said, ‘you couldn’t be bothered,
Now there is no recompense.’

Though most unkind I became resigned
To my lonely single state,
I thought that whether I lived forever
I’d never get a date,
I’d wander aimlessly round the square
Of my village, Gretchley Green,
And sit alone on the benches there
To watch the passing scene.

I thought I knew every woman there
As they passed, or pushed a pram,
And some went by with their only guy
Or would not know who I am.
But then one day just a yard away
Passed a woman dressed in black,
Her face was covered in net, but then
She turned, was heading back.

She came and sat on the bench by me
And said that her feet were sore,
She’d had to walk from the town hall clock
On some yet unmentioned chore.
I said I’d carry her bag for her
And would see her safely home,
But then I spied her sparkling eyes
As the net on her face was blown.

She didn’t look very miserable
For a widow, dressed in black,
But said she’d had a terrible loss,
He’d died of a heart attack.
Though we’d just met, she removed the net
And I saw her dimpled cheeks,
Her hair in clips and her full, red lips
That would haunt my mind for weeks.

She started passing me every day
As I lazed in the village square,
And often sat on the bench with me,
‘I thought that I saw you there.’
We’d talk of the trivialities
That you find in village life,
I said that it must be strange for her
As a widow, and not a wife.

I think I must have embarrassed her
So I let the subject drop,
She said she had a confession, but
I told her then to stop.
I wouldn’t pry in her private life
Or her deep felt hurt or grief,
She must have loved her departed one,
So I felt like a furtive thief.

She ceased to cover her hair or face
But she still remained in black,
Though wearing more of a jump suit now
Designed for field or track.
It showed her marvellous figure off
And my heart stuck in my throat,
I said if only I’d met her first,
And she said, ‘you surely joke.’

It took me weeks to confess my love
When she turned to me, and kissed,
She said, ‘I prayed to the lord above,
Now I’m really feeling blessed.
It’s hard for me to approach a man
So I had to work a ruse,
I hope that you will forgive my plan…’
But she left me all confused.

‘I’d watched from off in the distance
And I really fancied you,
I couldn’t come, for it isn’t done,
I didn’t know what to do.
I’m not a widow at all, you know,
I’ll have to make it plain,
The one I lost to a heart attack
Was just my pet Great Dane.’

David Lewis Paget

Always a bit of a mystery,
She lived in a seaside shack,
Would go to town when the sun was down
The widow of Martin Black.
She always went in her mourning dress
And a veil that covered her face,
‘Do you think she’d date,’ I had asked a mate,
‘You wouldn’t be in the race!’

‘There’s a list of suitors, long as your arm
Just waiting to take her out,
They knew her back on her Daddy’s farm
When Martin wasn’t about,
But he ******* them all with his shiny Porsche
With his black cravat and coat,
And in the bay not a mile away
With his V6 Jet-ski boat.’

‘You tell me she was a good time girl
In love with material things?’
‘She certainly liked the odd gemstone
And her hands were covered with rings.
But that was him, with his taste for gold
That he liked to shower on her,
And parade her down in the glitz of town
In bling, and covered in fur.’

‘And yet, I’ve not seen a single chain
Or a necklace, brooch or ring,
She’s so austere when I’ve noticed her
I’ve not seen anything,
She wears a drape of the blackest crepe
And a veil that hides her eyes,
But pauses there when I stop and stare
As if caught in some surprise.’

‘That isn’t much of a mystery
If you knew the couple, Jack,
You might as well be a twin of him
The fabled Martin Black.
She’d think that his ghost had risen up
If she saw you in the street,
You might just give her a heart attack
If your dress is not discreet.’

I went back home to the mirror, donned
A coat and a black cravat,
And topped it off with a load of bling
And an old black stove-pipe hat,
The type they said that he used to wear
When they roamed abroad at night,
Taking in all the music halls
To dance till the early light.

She saw me there in the street, and screamed
Then rushed at me and attacked,
And cried, ‘you’re not going to spoil my dreams,
You’ll not be coming back!’
Her fists had pounded my solid form
Til she stopped, collapsed and cried,
And babbled out a confession that
For long, she’d kept inside.

The last I heard she was with the police
Who had questioned her all night,
Extracted all of the details of some
Long and drawn out fight,
They took her down to the waterfront
Where the Jet-ski boat was kept,
And then began to rip up the floor
As the widow wailed and wept.

And he was there with a livid scar
Where she’d slashed him in the throat,
Stuffed him under the planks and boards
By his pride and joy, the boat,
I didn’t know he had disappeared
When I’d thought to bring him back,
But all I’d caused was a host of tears
For the Widow of Martin Black.

David Lewis Paget

‘To whomever it may concern,’ he wrote,
Hunched over an evening star,
‘This, my last will and testament
For you, whoever you are,
I leave your planet, the universe
To face an unthinking fate,
I tried to guide, but your priests all lied
And repentance came too late.’

‘I was the Lord of Creation, set
Each atom of you in place,
Designed and sculptured your godlike form
Placed heaven in every face,
I gave you animals, birds and bees
And fish in the waters deep,
Flowers and colours and stately trees
And that blessèd rest, called sleep.’

‘I took the rib of an Adam, as
He slept in my garden home,
And made for him a companion, that
He’d never have need to roam,
But now you treat as a chattel, she
Who loves, do you think it odd?
That man is born of a woman, while
A woman was born of God!’

‘I hoped and wished you would be content
With the home that I made for you,
I charged you just a peppercorn rent
That you would acknowledge my due,
But you turned from me and created gods
Of mammon, and things unclean,
You fought each other and played the odds
For you said I was unseen.’

‘I couldn’t reveal myself to you
While giving you all free will,
I hoped you’d do what you had to do,
Driven by good, not ill,
But how many false religions now
Have taken my name in vain,
Have turned me into an evil god
As my tears fall down, like rain.’

‘You’ve stolen my nuclear secrets, though
You wouldn’t know where they’re from,
And rather than make some godly thing,
You’ve manufactured a bomb.
So I leave you now to your schemes and fate
For you failed to reck my rod.’
Now heaven is closed, the sign on the gate…
‘Farewell, Best wishes, God!’

David Lewis Paget

I met myself on a winding path
With the beach ten yards away,
Walking slowly towards me then
By the pounding breakers spray,
The path was narrow, I stepped aside
As I felt a twinge of fear,
We both were startled, I heard us say,
‘What are you doing here?’

I looked at me as I must have been
At the age of thirty-one,
And I was visibly shaken, seeing
Just how the years had gone,
‘I’m not quite how I envisaged me,
Were the years ahead so hard?’
I felt a chill and replied to me,
‘I was hoist on my own petard.’

‘What has become of our hopes and dreams,
The ones that we must have shared?’
‘I let them slip through my fingers, once
I noticed that no-one cared.’
‘I always said that I’d have to fight
For the things that I held dear,’
‘But the years have changed, and rearranged
For none of those things are here.’

With one last look at each other, we
Then parted and turned away,
I to a desperate future,
And me to my dying day,
The I then turned that was thirty-one
‘Can you tell what happened to She?’
I couldn’t remember the one I meant,
‘She’s certainly not with me!’

David Lewis Paget

I took a room on the second floor
Of a building lost in time,
Nobody knew just when it was built
By way of its weird design.
It once had stood on an acreage
Of woods, and lakes and sky,
But now it stood in a fifth rate slum
And the world had passed it by.

Its red-brick frontage streaked with soot,
Its columns black with grime,
The marble floor with ancient foot
Was scored, and past its prime,
But any roof was a comfort then
For my life had lost its way,
And I couldn’t face the future then,
Nor yet, the light of day.

The janitor was an ugly man
And he had but one good eye,
He’d only let to the down-and-outs
And tramps that were passing by,
He made the rules for the ancient place
And he said, ‘Just you beware,
Don’t ever go to the back of the house
Or use the winding stair.’

He knew I’d agree to anything
For I had nowhere to go,
Since ever my wife had turned me out
For a butcher, name of Joe.
The years we’d spent were meaningless
Once she’d set her sights on him,
So I left without a word or a prayer
But kept my feelings in.

Up above was another floor
That was empty all the time,
The janitor said, ‘it’s not in use,
It’s just too hard to climb.’
And above that floor was another room
With the windows painted black,
And accessed by the winding stair
I’d been warned about, out back.

It was lonely there on the second floor
It was quiet as the tomb,
I got to wondering what was there
Upstairs in the topmost room,
There were noises, scuffles and fumblings,
At times in the early hours,
But when I asked the janitor why,
All that I got were glowers.

‘This house has plenty of secrets but
It keeps them to itself,
As you’d be better to keep to yours,
Rather than dig and delve,
I trust that you’ll never get the urge
To leave the second floor,
If ever I catch you out, my friend
I’ll see you out the door.’

His threats were making me curious
So I listened, quite intent,
At two or three in the morning when
Some noise was evident,
I climbed one night to the floor above
And I saw the winding stair,
And what was coming and going sent
A shock through my greying hair.

There were figures in shiny silver suits
Came in and out from the street,
Carrying cats and rats and dogs
Like specimens, all asleep,
And a terrible growl from the topmost room
Rang out when they opened the door,
And sent a shiver like ice along
My spine, from the upper floor.

And down the stairway creatures came
That I’d only seen in books,
Handed to strangers down below
With a nod, or merely a look,
They’d been extinct for a million years
Or had in the books I’d read,
But not a one of them lived or breathed,
They seemed to be newly dead.

I got back down to my room again
Shivered, and closed the door,
Sat in a quivering heap of dread
But I knew that I wanted more,
They must have come from a future time
And delved way into the past,
Why would they want our cats and dogs,
Had they lost their own, at last?

I went again on succeeding nights
The traffic was still the same,
For men of science and drunken girls
And still the strangers came,
But then a bellow from in that room
And a crunching, crashing sound,
With voices raised in the midnight gloom,
The janitor came, and frowned.

‘You’ve seen too much, now you’ll have to stay,’
He growled, and pointed a gun,
Prodded me up the winding stair
‘Til we saw what was going on,
The door to the topmost room was blocked
By an animal, tightly jammed,
‘My god, we’ll have to get out of here,
This never was part of the plan.’

Two giant tusks blocked the winding stair
As I looked in its evil eye,
Its head and shoulders had blocked the door
With no way of getting by,
It let out a giant trumpet blast
Of pain, as I turned to run,
This was no elephant, that I knew,
But a giant Mastodon.

Then up above was a steady whine
Like a jet that was winding up,
‘Don’t leave me here,’ cried the janitor,
‘I have to get back, just stop!’
But the roof of the house was lifting up
And the bricks were falling away,
I caught a glimpse of a saucer shape
As this thing took off that day.

The winding stair came crashing down
With nothing to stop its fall,
I landed down in the basement, found
Myself by a Roman wall,
The janitor, not so fortunate
Was crushed by the falling beast,
Killed by a thing, so long extinct,
By a million years, at least.

I didn’t wait for the powers that be
But took myself on the road,
Looking for somewhere else to stay
To hide away from the cold,
I found me a mansion, streaked with soot
With its columns, black with grime,
And thought, as I took a second look,
It seemed to be lost in time!

David Lewis Paget

She went with a friend for the evening,
But she wouldn’t tell me where to,
Just turned as the two began leaving,
Said, ‘Where I go’s nothing to you.’
She liked to be so independent,
Go off, and leave me on the spot,
Then tried to make me feel repentant
For asking her why, where or what?

I sat up and waited till midnight,
Expecting that she would be home,
She must have known I would be uptight
Not knowing where she’d gone to roam.
I knew that her friend never liked me,
Would glory in turning the *****,
Encourage Darlene to defy me,
She’d tell her, ‘So what can he do?’

She hadn’t returned the next morning,
Nor even when it became noon,
The sun towards eve began falling,
So surely she must return soon.
I passed the time on the computer,
Watched Facebook alive on the screen,
When Darlene popped up using FaceTime
Then suddenly started to scream.

‘You’ll have to come in here and get me,
I seem to be inside my phone,
I tried leaving, it wouldn’t let me,
And Marge went and left me alone.’
The face on the screen began fraying,
And she was hysterical now,
Her face in the picture was greying,
‘I’ll come for you, just tell me how.’

‘Just follow me through all the windows,
The frames are all breeding like spores,
My mind’s in a haze, I’m caught in a maze,
There’s many more windows than doors.’
I looked for her picture in Instagram,
And searched for her trace in What’s App,
Then Googled her name, she ran through a frame,
But all that I caught was her back.

The high tension wires running overhead
Were humming and whining all night,
I lay in my bed, convinced she was dead,
Then heard her voice moaning in fright.
The Darlene I knew never came back home,
She travels by churches and spires,
A crackle in time and a hum in the line
Tells me she is the Wind in the Wires.

David Lewis Paget

She was always essentially evil with
Her long, straight raven hair,
Her eyes as black as a midden, and
Her cheeks, so smooth and fair,
Her lips were ripe with the juice of love
Though she had no love to give,
But coloured them with a hint of blood
From her last aperitif.

She lived in an ice-bound castle, pitched
Next to a frozen lake,
Under a towering mountainside
As white as her wedding cake,
The clouds that hung on the mountain top
Were dark and as foul as sin,
And every day was a shade of grey
Where the sun could never get in.

She wandered the dark and gloomy halls
In a fur, but shivered her bones,
Her footsteps echoing off the walls
Her shadow cast on the stones,
The braziers on the passage wall
Would light her way to a room,
The room where a magic mirror hung
Reflected her in the gloom.

The hearth held a blazing yew tree log
That never seemed to go out,
Apart from a sneaking graveyard dog
There was nobody else about,
She’d stand in front of the mirror there
And look at her hard, cold face,
Say, ‘Mirror, when will you let me be,
I need to get out of this place!’

The face in the mirror grimly smiled
With a look of evil intent,
‘Why don’t you visit the dungeons, dear,
You know you need to repent.’
She tossed her head at the steely gaze
As her conscience peered on back,
‘I only did what I had to do
To replenish the blood I lack.’

The woman back in the mirror snarled
And she grew long pointed fangs,
Her brow had darkened, her eyes were fierce
‘We reflect our rights and wrongs.
The darkness deep in your cold, cold heart
Has entrapped this place in ice,
Compared to what lies ahead of you,
This place is Paradise.’

The woman turned and began to sob
And she paced the flagstoned floor,
There wasn’t a hint of the word ‘Repent’
As she opened the passage door,
She ran down several flights of steps
To the dungeon underneath,
Then stood and glared through the rusted bars
At her husband, Gordon Reith.

But Gordon sat on the ice cold floor
His back to an icy wall,
The frost had set on his face and hands
He wasn’t moving at all,
The puncture marks on his neck were red
With the last of his lifeblood flows,
She’d screamed the moment she’d found him dead
And ripped and torn at her clothes.

And that was the day the blizzard came
To freeze the lake in the night,
Covered the castle and mountain top
In an endless coat of white,
The mirror showed her an evil face
In place of the one she had,
‘You’ll not be drinking his blood again,
The blood of a corpse is bad!’

She opened the lock of the dungeon door
And she walked right into the cage,
Shook his body and gouged his face
In a wild, impotent rage,
The door had creaked as she turned her back
And it slammed and locked for good,
As the mirror fell from the wall above
And shattered where she’d stood.

A castle sits in a valley green
And beside a wide blue lake,
With mountains towering up above
To a sky where the sun’s awake,
You wouldn’t know that there once was snow
And I don’t know if you should,
But down in the dungeon lies a man
And the woman who drank his blood.

David Lewis Paget

We’d bought a cottage, but sight unseen
At the edge of a thickety wood,
We’d had enough of the city scene
And thought it would do us good.
At one with nature, with birds and bees,
The owner was eager to sell,
He didn’t tell us it had no power,
And water was drawn from a well.

He wouldn’t leave us his new address
So we saw it after he’d gone,
I looked at Ellie and she at me,
She said, ‘I think we’ve been done!’
The thatch was leaking, the walls were cracked
And it needed a coat of paint,
‘Oh well, we’re stuck with it now,’ I said,
‘But a palace it certainly ain’t!’

The one surprise was a fairy dell
That lay at the edge of the wood,
And in the midst was a Wishing Well,
Under a Witch-Hat hood.
A wooden bucket was still in place
And hung from an oakum thread,
‘We’d better replace the rope on that,
Or you’ll be fishing,’ she said.

The ground was covered in bluebells, for
They bloomed, that time of the year,
And all around them were butterflies,
Testing their wings in the air.
‘Oh Jack,’ she said, ‘what a dainty place,
What a marvellous, magical scene,’
I had to admit, it moved me then,
So different to where we’d been.

We roughed it there for a day or so
While I fixed a couple of leaks,
I hinged the door and I blocked the draughts
Though the cracks would take me weeks.
We bought an antique paraffin lamp
For a little light in the gloom,
And lay on cushions that Ellie brought,
Made love on the floor of the room.

The water level within the well
Was high with the Springtime rain,
I only dipped the bucket a foot
To fill it with iced champagne,
The water there was so pure and clear
And cold, from the Wishing Well,
I said, ‘This couldn’t be water, Ell,
It’s more like a fine Moselle.’

We worked by day, then we sat and read
In the pale white evening light,
Then rose with the early morning sun
After a dreamless night.
But after a fortnight Ellie rose
And she said she was feeling queer,
I said it was probably just a bug,
‘It’s the flu time of the year!’

But the pains, she said, got worse, she said,
She began to sweat and grieve,
She couldn’t eat, but she drank a lot,
And then she began to heave.
I fed her the water from the well
And said it would flush it out,
But she soon went into convulsions,
And I panicked then, no doubt.

The doctor took over an hour to come
And that must have sealed her fate,
For Ellie lay, and she breathed her last
As he entered the garden gate.
He took one look at her pale white face
As I wept, and held her hand,
‘I think it’s a case of cholera,’
He said, ‘Do you understand?’

The white coats swarmed all over the place
And took in the Wishing Well,
Wanted to know if we drank from it
And I cried out, ‘God in Hell!
They grappled down to the very depths
And their hook was jagged at the bed,
Then hauled on up to the surface by
The hair, was a woman’s head!

She’d been down there for a month or so,
Was starting to come apart,
The rest they got the following day
And took away on a cart.
I drained the well in the Autumn, and
I filled, with gravel and shell,
I should have known by the Witches-Hat
It was under an evil spell.

They caught the guy in another state,
They fairly ran him to ground,
He hadn’t left a forward address,
He thought he’d never be found.
He’d killed his wife and had weighed her down
And had dropped her down in the well,
I pray to the God of just rewards
That his soul will burn in Hell!

David Lewis Paget

Out in the children’s playground
On the wasteland, near the flat,
There once was a shiny roundabout
They called ‘The Witches Hat’,
It hung from a greasy centre pole
And would spin, just like a top,
For once that we set it spinning
It would take an hour to stop.

They painted the Hat in black shellac
So it gleamed beneath the sun,
But stood like an evil entity, in the dark
When the day was done,
We never ventured abroad by night
For the land, we thought, was cursed,
With the Witches Hat a reminder of
Just what had stood there first.

Once it had been a Magic Wood
With Elves, and Grimms and Ghosts,
Witches covens and Goblins ovens
We heard about the most,
The land was cleared for a new estate
And they called the land a park,
But nights you heard the muffled shuffle
Of dancing, in the dark.

It was then that they set the Witches Hat
Up on a pole to spin,
One of us ran around with it
While others sat on the brim,
We always ran with it clockwise
Then stood back to count the spins,
For Mother Malloy had warned us
Never to turn it widdershins.

She said it would stop the earth, and that
The sun would go back down,
The Prince of Darkness lay in wait
For the Witches Hat, his crown,
We thought that she must be bonkers
And we laughed each time she frowned,
But never would spin the Witches Hat
Not once, the other way round.

But then on an Autumn afternoon
When the nights were coming in,
Mother said, ‘Take your brother out,
Go take him out for a spin.’
She wanted to clean the house, she said,
‘And you’re always in the way!’
So I took young Robin out with me,
He’d just turned four that day.

I put him up on the Witches Hat
And I spun, and spun him round,
But Robin was a querulous child
And he cried, to put him down.
So then in a ******-minded mood
And after a dozen spins,
I stopped the Hat and I turned it round,
And ran with it, widdershins.

It must have been almost dusk by then
For the sun dropped into the ground,
The Moon came up with a silver beam
And it lit the whole surround,
I ran as fast as I’d ever run
And the Hat spun like a top,
Robin sat on the opposite side
So I’d see him, once I’d stop.

I ran until I was out of breath
Then I stopped to watch it spin,
But no-one was on the Witches Hat
And I felt the fear begin,
I searched and scoured the land around
And I crawled beneath the Hat,
The little fellow had disappeared
So I ran back home to the flat.

I’ll always remember that awful day,
The day when the fates were cast,
I’d spun him into the future, or
I’d left him there in the past,
I shouldn’t have turned it widdershins
But now can’t bring him back,
At night it gleams in a pale moonbeam
That terrible Witches Hat!

David Lewis Paget

She stood in front of the mirror, staring
Combing her long dark hair,
A black cat jumped on her shoulder, purring
The Witch of Aberdare.
She took in the curve of her fulsome lips
And the dimple in each cheek,
‘Why can’t I find a lover for me?’
But the mirror didn’t speak.

She’d watched the girls from the village, keeping
Trysts with the ones they loved,
As hand in hand they kissed on meeting
Down in the darkening wood.
But nobody sought out Alison Gross
Where she stood by the wishing well,
Dropping her pennies in hopes that any
Would lure a man to her spell.

Her mother, Isabel Ingpen once
Had been ***** by Jonathon Dread,
But then had spelled by the wishing well,
Put him in a garden bed.
She’d witched him into a barren seed
But the evil in him came through,
Sprouted there as a deadly nightshade,
Tall, and blocking the view.

She told her Alison, on her honour
Her father had come and gone,
‘But better avoid the Belladonna
You don’t know where it’s from.’
She taught her all of the witchcraft rules
Of philtres, potions and spells,
‘But try to avoid the world of fools,
And men, who fancy themselves!’

But Alison had a disposition
For loving, though no-one saw,
The teacher who gave her impositions,
The boy who stood by the door,
The Baker’s lad and the Butcher’s boy
And the gardener, mowing the green,
But nothing would turn their heads her way
She was Alison Gross, unseen.

She sighed and cried as she cast her spells,
She wept as they sauntered by,
So deep in love with one another
And gazing up at the sky,
But Halloween was a day away
And Alison formed a plan,
‘I’ll weave my spells out in the heather,
I’m going to get me a man!’

The children were out, were trick and treating
As Alison took her broom,
She flew to the local witches meeting
At Heatherdale, under the Moon,
She looked at the other witches there,
So old, so sad and alone,
She swore before she was old as they
She wouldn’t be left a crone.

She slipped away and she left the coven
Then stripped off her hat and cloak,
She lifted the cauldron off the oven
Went down to the giant oak,
The young were dancing and dunking apples
She wandered into the throng,
And a young man said with his laughing eyes,
‘This is where you belong.’

He danced her under the Hunter’s Moon,
And he stole the witch’s heart,
She knew, without a potion or philtre
They’d never be far apart.
She holds a baby high on her hip
As she combs her curling hair,
And her lover stays, to trade her kisses
The Witch of Aberdare.

David Lewis Paget

You didn’t tell me, when I found you
That you were the Witch of Dreams,
You conjured spells in your afternoons
Of many and varied scenes.
When late at night put the sun to flight
And the moon rose over the hill,
You’d lie in bed, and you’d lay your head
In the dreams you are dreaming still.

You’d fill my head with colours and dread,
With your images light and dark,
And take my hand on a stretch of sand,
Or dance in a Faery Park,
I never knew if the scenes were you
Or spells, raised up in the mist,
With a goblin, elf, or your own sweet self,
And lips that I’d never kissed.

Your scenes float over the cyber seas
And come to rest in my head,
They take my words from a grim disease
That I may have written or read,
You conjure scenes that are lost in time
And you bring them back to my eyes,
Then I recall, with the tears that fall,
Each love, its time and demise.

Your dreams will ever bewitch me, girl,
Your scenes will tug at my heart,
Whatever spells are in store for me
You’ll send, though we are apart.
We neither dwell in the real world
In truth, for we’ve never met,
But surely, you are the Witch of Dreams
As sure as your name’s Jeanette.

David Lewis Paget

Just twelve, I swear, I must have been
The day they took the Witch of Steen
And put a halter round her neck
To teach her magic some respect.

The women in the village square
Tore off her clothes, and pulled her hair
Then called their menfolk out to view
Who crossed them there, what they would do.

They tied her hands behind her back
The rope around her neck was slack,
But tied to Jethro’s stubborn mule
They led her naked, like some fool.

And all her secrets lay out there
Uncovered, in the open air,
She looked quite beautiful to me
Her naked form, such artistry.

The mule dragged her, painful and slow
Along the lanes where they would go
As gusts of breeze blew out her hair,
Revealed what she was hiding there.

And I, I followed, just a lad
Whose eyes were full of her, by god,
Whose ******* were pert and firm back then
Whose thighs held secrets, hid from men.

I saw that tiny tuft of hair
That hid her womanhood in there,
That plagued me since, for every night
I’d think of it in dread delight.

But still they led her, lane and field
No place that she was not revealed,
They took her to the ducking pond
Where life or death would lie beyond.

And when they laid the ducking stool
With her aboard, across the pool,
Her voice rang out, this buxom maid
With words the villagers dismayed.

‘For all that you come judging me,
Look to yourselves, your pedigree,
What sons and daughters sprang at night
From phantom fathers, bred in spite.’

‘When husbands were out tending fields
And wives would wait, temptation yields.
What shadows stood by window ledge
Gained entry to some marriage bed?’

The women quaked before her spell
And screamed, then ducked the witch to hell
And would have left her there to drown
Had not the menfolk brought her round.

In mercy then, they set her free
And she had screamed, ‘A curse on thee!
‘Your cattle will roam free and late
Your catch won’t hold the cattle gate.’

‘Your crops will flatten in the fields
When hail and sleet destroy their yields,
And mud will fill your village hall,
Your church collapse, your roofs will fall.’

She left there with a final shout
The things she cursed, they came about,
But I was left a lifetime dream,
That naked witch, the Witch of Steen.


David Lewis Paget

There once was a wicked Warlock
Who lived on Crabtree Hill,
He lured the Witch of the Morning there
Who was my mother still,
My father, he was the patient type
Said, ‘Son, she’s just a witch,
And she’ll be back in the morning, once
That Warlock’s scratched her itch.

I didn’t know what he meant just then,
I was far too young to know,
What people did in the darkness once
Their feelings overflowed,
But I was forever curious
And suppose that I am still,
I wanted to know, so had to go
On a trek up Crabtree Hill.

The Warlock lived in a copse of trees
In a tiny little shack,
A goat’s head hung up above his door
I remember, looking back,
A window covered in mud and dust
Was the way I looked inside,
To see my mother down on her knees
Like a nasty Warlock bride.

I knew that I shouldn’t be looking
Then she turned, and saw my face,
And stopped just what she was doing
Though I’d seen her loss of grace,
I turned to run, then I heard his voice
As he called my mother, ‘Cath!’
Then caught me running off through the trees
As he stood, and blocked my path.

The man was a massive mountain,
And he wore a hat with horns,
His arms like a pair of Christmas hams
As he called, ‘This one of yours?’
I fought and struggled and kicked like mad
As he took me into his shack,
While ever the Witch of the Morning smiled
And said, ‘He’s just my Jack.’

‘I think we should cook him up for tea,’
Said the Warlock, with a wink,
And Cath, my mother said, ‘Let me see,
I must have a little think.
I hope that he didn’t see the act
Of love that I did for you,’
Then took my hand and opened the door
And motioned me out, said, ‘Shoo.’

Now I’m a man, and I think on back
To that day on Crabtree Hill,
And just like the Warlock, I will stand
In front of my darling Jill,
While she gets down on her knees for me
On the floor, without a stitch,
To show me the love she has for me,
Just like the Morning Witch.

David Lewis Paget

‘There’s a crafty witch in Willow Vale
Putting spells on all the men,
She lures them out with a lurid tale
Of what they might miss, and then…
She chews them up and she spits them out
And they go home looking pale,
She just wants to prove to fretful wives
That she governs all things male.’

Pamela stood in the door and paused
And she looked direct at me,
‘If you should fall for her witches charms
You can go, I’ll set you free!
I’ll not take seconds from lovesick men
Who come when the witch is through,
You’ll not come in through my door again,
That’s right, I’m looking at you!’

So I threw my hands up in the air
And I said, ‘Why pick on me?
Have I so much looked at a scheming witch
When she’s up to her deviltry?’
‘That may be true but your time is due
You’re the last one in the Glen,
She’ll get to you when she sees you’re new
For a perfect score of ten.’

‘I promise Pamela, I’ll be true,’
But she said to call it quits,
‘An easy promise that you can’t keep
Is a lie upon your lips.’
Then I got mad and I said I’d had
Being judged up front, was lame,
I said I’d travel to Willow Vale
Play the witch at her own game.

‘Well just remember that if you do
A touch is all it will take,
A simple kiss that will bring you bliss
That would be your first mistake.
Don’t think you might get away with it
For I have my little spies,
I even know how the spell will grow
If you look deep into her eyes.’

So I set off for the witch’s haunt
In a cottage, in the vale,
And hearing Pamela’s final taunt
‘You won’t live to tell the tale!’
I pursed my lips, and gritted my teeth
As I knocked on the witch’s door,
It swung out wide, to show her sat
By a cauldron on the floor.

She didn’t even look up at me
She was sorcering a spell,
Dropping roots in the cauldron there
And muttering as they fell,
Her hair fell over her shoulders and
Her face was in the shade,
And then she stopped and she looked at me
‘Did you come here to get laid?’

I blushed and stammered and caught my breath,
This wasn’t going well,
My blood was running as cold as death
As I fell beneath her spell.
She’d painted her lips and eyelids black
And her fingernails like claws,
She said, ‘I’m ready to claw your back
You need only say, ‘I’m yours!’’

Her dress she slid up above her knees
To reveal her silken thighs,
Her bodice open, she leaned right back
And I had to shut my eyes.
‘I came to tell you you’re not for me,
That you weave your spells in vain,
I have a love that is true, you see
I don’t need to play your game.’

She bounded up to her feet and cried
‘A kiss for a lonely witch!
I’m only asking a single kiss,
What could be wrong with this?’
I shook my head and I turned to go,
And I reached for the cottage door,
Then the wig came off and I heard her laugh,
And there lay Pam, on the floor!

David Lewis Paget

She could make a cow grow sick and die,
She could sicken a healthy pig,
She could poison somebody’s cottage pie
But she couldn’t harm Tom Rigg.
For Tom wasn’t born of woman
He’d been plucked too soon from the womb,
When his mother lay there dying
From a concoction stirred with a broom.

So he’d grown up broad, and tall and strong
With a warlock cast to his eye,
Whatever the spell she tried on him
He would turn on her, ‘Just try!’
She conjured a flight of vampire bats
To follow him here and there,
But the bats were spurned, and then returned
And they tangled up in her hair.

She would lie in wait by the farmer’s gate
With the graveyard dog in a ditch,
So he’d open the sluice that was not in use,
And soak her, every stitch,
She’d scream, come tumbling after him,
‘You think you’re so fine and big,
I’ll spell that you fall in love with me,
Just see if I don’t, Tom Rigg.’

For deep down under her witch’s pride
Was the beat of a woman’s heart,
And the sight of Tom had sent it, quivering
Shaking itself apart,
But Tom had kept himself to himself
Immune to a woman’s wiles,
Determined to fix the old windmill
On the other side of the stile.

He lived in the ancient tower mill
That he’d bought, picked up for a song,
It hadn’t been used for a hundred years
Since part of the works went wrong,
The sails were seized, poked up at the sky
In a way that said, ‘We’re spent!’
But Tom believed that he knew just why;
The cog on the shaft was bent.

He cleaned it up and he scraped the rust
And he greased the copper sheath,
He checked it over and sideways, down
And he peered from underneath,
But the shaft was rigid, it wouldn’t turn
He was giving up in despair,
When late one night with a mighty crash
There was something amiss out there.

He peered up under a rising moon
There was something caught in the sail,
All he could see was a besom broom
But then came an awful wail,
The witch was caught in the topmost sail
Where she’d swooped in the night unseen,
And now she was clung to the old wood frame
And all she could do was scream.

There wasn’t a ladder that went so high
So all he could do was stare,
‘Now how do you think I could rescue you,
And how did you get up there?’
The mill was starting to creak and groan
As the wind came over the hill,
The sails were starting to slowly turn
With the witch stuck firmly still.

The weight of the witch had freed them up
And she shrieked as the sails whirled round,
While Tom was laughing, joyfully, merrily,
Rolling over the ground,
‘I’ll swear you’ve done me a favour, Jane,
I was going to call it quits,
But now, if ever you come back down,
I’m ready to kiss a witch!’

David Lewis Paget

He came unbidden one frosty night
To the village of Barkly Chase,
He didn’t look out of the ordinary
But carried a single case,
The empty cottage of Peggy Sykes
Had been rented once before,
The neighbours watched as the Wizard walked
Right up to the old front door.

‘He’s going in, it’s as sure as sin,’
Said the Widow Marx from her blinds,
‘I’ll tell old Mrs. McCafferty
He’ll be playing around with our minds.’
She’d heard a wizard was headed their way
From Jenny, the Witch of the Moor,
And had bought up seventeen toilet rolls
From Rafferty’s village store.

‘What would you want with seventeen rolls,’
Said Ethel McGurk with the gout,
‘I don’t, it’s part of my strategy,
I’m going to drive him out.
There isn’t a store in a couple of miles
And they’re not delivered ‘til June,
We’ll see how long he can go without
When he’s bursting his balloon.’

The women cackled with evil glee,
They thought it a perfect plan,
‘We’ll see how his spells will help him out
When he has to use his hand.’
‘He’ll not come near, I can tell you that,’
Said the ******, Hazel Pace,
‘If he so much looks, I will knock him flat,
I’ve got fifteen cans of mace.’

The Wizard stayed for a week, he did,
And never came out the door,
The week turned into a fortnight, and
He looked like staying for more.
‘He must have been constipated,’ said
The Widow Marx to her friend,
‘He probably had a roll in his case,’
Said the woman from Brissom End.

Excitement grew in the village square,
‘His washing’s out on the line,
I’d never have looked but I saw it flap,
It’s a most mysterious sign!’
They held their breath at the news from Beth:
‘There are demons all over his jocks,
And you wouldn’t credit the Wizard’s gall,
There are magic stripes on his socks!’

A month went by, and the women pried
At night when his lights were out,
They’d peer on in though his curtains,
Widow Marx and the one with gout.
‘He’s got himself a computer thing
Those ones that glow through the house,
And he’s keeping a little familiar there,
I heard him call it ‘The Mouse’.

They lifted their skirts in horror, and
The ****** had jumped on a chair,
‘Those magical mice are demon things
And they climb up everywhere.’
‘This Wizard’s going to be hard to crack,
I thought he’d be gone by now,
He has to be brewing a terrible spell,
We have to find out, but how?’

The Wizard went for a walk one night
When he thought to get some air,
And Hazel Pace jumped out of a tree,
Poured honey all through his hair,
The Widow Marx had a besom broom
And beat him over the head,
‘We know you’re plotting the village’s doom,
What about this, instead?’

The Wizard packed up his single case
And left the very next day,
All the women hung on the gate
And shouted ‘Hip hip, hooray!’
‘We beat the Wizard, we saw him off
With his spells and his little case!’
But they wonder why there isn’t a man
Within miles of Barkly Chase.

David Lewis Paget

I have a man with a pointy hat
Lives under my desktop lid,
He came for muffins and jam, and that,
I call the Wizard of Did,
His beard got caught when the lid came down
So I had to trim it back,
But he says it’s comfy and warm in there
So he’s turned it into a flat.

I thought at first I would charge him rent
But he wasn’t too keen on that,
So I suggested a garden tent
And he said he’d pass the hat.
I’d try to type in the early hours
But he’d bang up under the lid,
‘How can I get my beauty sleep,’
He said, the Wizard of Did.

‘You’re going to have to pay your way,’
I said, ‘It’s not for free,
‘You’d better come up with something good
That’s of some use to me.’
‘You say you struggle for plots,’ he said,
‘Well I can help with those,
‘I’m full of people I want to be,
I just need different clothes.’

The Wizard was as good as his word
He’d pop up now and then,
Whenever I’d sit and scratch my head
He’d mention Holy men,
Then march along the top of the desk
With mitre, staff and cross,
And make me kiss the pontiff’s ring
On the eve of Pentecost.

He’d play the role of a murderer,
He’d play the role of a clown,
He’d play an old sheep herder-er
With a crook in a shepherd’s gown,
He’d pop up with a pirate’s patch
And ****** pieces of eight,
Or keep me longing for Molly Brown
When my ship came in too late.

Whenever I sat there at a loss
For a line, a rhyme, a verse,
He’d throw a bag on the table top
And say, ‘Now pick a curse!’
He’d turn mine into a haunted house
And he’d stalk me in the gloom,
And have me making a pact with Faust
In a dark and lonely tomb.

And now when I think my muse has gone
That my stories have been spent,
I tap-tap-tap on the table top
And he says, ‘You must repent!
I’m not a bottomless pit, you know,’
Climbs in, and closes the lid,
I say, ‘You promised a constant flow,’
And he groans, ‘I know… I Did!’

David Lewis Paget

Elizabeth Paddington Warrington Ware
I met on a path today,
I knew by the wind that was blowing her hair
She’d not have a lot to say.
I said my hello and she turned then to go
And she stuck her nose up in the air,
Like she didn’t know me, or sought then to throw me
Which I didn’t think very fair.

I said, ‘Aren’t you talking?’ but she just kept walking
So I turned around and caught up.
I caught at her sleeve in a moment of peeve
And in doing, spilt tea from my cup,
She snapped ‘Understand me, young man, and unhand me
You’re showing that you have no couth!’
I thought she was blind or was being unkind
I’m a pensioner, far from a youth.

‘Don’t say you don’t know me, you’re trying to snow me,
Remember, we once had a fling,’
I had her engaged, but she flew in a rage
And said, ‘I don’t recall such a thing!
You’re merely a stranger, I feel I’m in danger,
I’m calling for help in a thrice,’
‘How could you forget me, with all that you let me
Back then, don’t you think it was nice?’

‘I’m Ellen Pengellen O’Fogarty Fair,’
She exclaimed, and I said, ‘then you’re not…
Elizabeth Paddington Warrington Ware,
I’m so sorry, I must have forgot.’
I thought, ‘I’m in trouble, she must have a double,’
Then thought of the tat on her bot,
‘Do you have a sailor?’ She blushed, I had nailed her,
For Fair she was certainly not!

David Lewis Paget

I’d seen her coming and going for
A couple of years or more,
Her hair in the wind was blowing
Every time she walked on the shore,
I must admit I was taken in
By her eyes and her lips of gloss,
She made me think of imagined sin
The woman who never was.

She wore the flimsiest blouses that
Were loose, and tied at the waist,
And lived in one of those houses they
Put up in the new estate.
She seemed to delight in teasing me
By wearing her skirts so high,
The slightest gust from a breeze would free
A glimpse of a naked thigh.

She never actually spoke to me
But she’d raise a brow my way,
While I hung over the garden gate
Thinking of what to say,
And soon it became a ritual
She’d pass in the early hours,
Then come again in the afternoon
With her basket full of flowers.

In time I noticed a subtle change
In the way she wore her hair,
She started to pin it back, and then
It didn’t seem so fair.
The eyes that had used to tantalise
Became harder, and the gloss
Was fading out on the ruby lips
Of the woman who never was.

I thought I was slowly losing her
But just a little each day,
Nothing would stay the same, I saw
Her slowly fading away,
I said to a friend, ‘What’s happening,
I have this sense of loss,’
And he replied she was trapped inside,
The woman who never was.

‘She doesn’t really exist you know,
It’s better you let her free,
You’ve compromised and idealised
Till she thinks, ‘I can’t be me.’
She may just show if you let her go,
If you don’t, you’ll count the loss,
She’ll stay forever inside you then
The woman who never was.’

I switched her off and I walked the shore,
Went up to the new estate,
Then held my breath and knocked at her door
And I said, ‘I know I’m late.’
She looked at me and she smiled, you see,
And she said, ‘My name is Roz,
It’s been so long I was feeling wrong
Like the woman who never was.’

David Lewis Paget

She wore a net that covered her hair,
A shawl in a peasant green,
A ragged dress that covered her breast
But with nothing in-between,
Her legs were scratched and covered in mud
And her feet were shod in clogs,
I wouldn’t have noticed her passing, but
For the barking of the dogs.

She looked aside at the dogs that barked
And she made an evil sign,
Sent them panicking back to the barn
And I called, ‘Hey you, they’re mine!’
She looked at me from under the net
With glittering eyes of scorn,
‘Your dogs will not recover themselves
‘Til the Black Beast comes, at dawn!’

I stood agape and I watched her pass
To the shade down by the creek,
She kicked her clogs on the dewy grass
And she washed her legs and feet.
I wandered down and I stood aside,
‘You’re a stranger to these parts!’
‘I’ve been away, but I think I’ll stay
‘Til the Mass of the Woodland starts.’

It wasn’t really a village then,
Was more a scatter of homes,
Built on the edge of the woodland where
The cottagers laid their bones,
The cemetery wandered into the trees
With the headstones, green with moss,
And each was graven beneath the green
With a dark, upended cross.

‘The people here are strange, you know,
They don’t like passers-by,
You’d best be moving along before
The sun sinks in the sky.’
She laughed a terrible laugh that sent
Cold shivers down my back,
‘I’m only here for the sacrifice,
You can tell your Brothers that!’

The people came from the cottages
At dusk in their hoods and capes,
Wandered into the ancient hall
Half hid by its ivy drapes,
They genuflected before the font
With its rust and ****** stains,
That sat before the upended cross
On a wall that was hung with chains.

A man stood tall at the podium
In a hood that hid his face,
I caught a glimpse of the mask he wore,
A skull that he held in place.
‘The ravening beast will be abroad
When the Moon is full and round,
We have to be at the woodland creek
Before the beast comes down.'

He led the way to the woodland creek
Where the girl had sat in wait,
‘I hope you’ve chosen your sacrifice
For the time is getting late.’
A cloud then blotted the moonlight out
And we heard a beastly roar,
The girl had gone when the moon had shone
And her clothes lay on the floor.

And in her place, a hideous beast
As black as a lump of pitch,
Leapt on one of the Brothers there
And dragged him into a ditch.
It mauled and ripped at his carcass there,
He didn’t have time to scream,
While I took off, back to my croft,
Away from the nightmare scene.

I lay in the barn, beside my dogs,
They seemed to be terrified,
I sat and loaded my .22
My eyes were open wide,
The Beast came prowling around at dawn
Just as the girl had said,
I shot it once, and between the eyes
But the girl lay there, instead.

David Lewis Paget

It’s only a week since I raised my head
From the depths of my favourite book,
The final tale in my library
And my basic foundations shook.
It had been so long since the world went wrong
And I fled from the things I heard,
To hide my head with the living dead,
And lose myself in The Word.

For the printed word is a friend of mine
Its sentiments never change,
It’s comforting when you read a rhyme
That no-one can rearrange.
No matter how many have read it once
The story will still suffice,
You know that the ending will be the same
When you come back to read it twice.

But the world outside, it seems had died
With its people all grown cold,
There was nothing left I could recognise
From the world that I’d left of old.
There wasn’t a smile on a single face
Or a humorous moment left,
There seemed a general loss of grace
With everything so correct.

The money hangs from the tallest tree,
Too high for us all to climb,
This world is new, belongs to the few
It certainly isn’t mine.
Another stabbing, another death
Is all that I read out here,
And populations take to the boats
As millions live in fear.

Small wonder then, I wander the streets
To look for a library,
In the search for a book I’ve never read
On the way that it used to be.
A former time when the world was mine
I’ll find it, by hook or crook,
For distant smiles and a woman’s wiles
I’ll bury my head in a book.

David Lewis Paget

It looked all right through the windows of
Our cosy sitting room,
The day was light and the sun was bright
But the house was like a tomb,
The other rooms were as cold as hell
With their stalactites of ice,
That dripped from the bedroom ceiling down
To meet the stalagmites.

I’d settled Eve on the couch and spread
A blanket round her arms,
I didn’t think I should tell her, just
In case she became alarmed,
She’d spent a week in the sitting room
For she wasn’t feeling well,
How do you say, ‘We’ve fallen into
The Seventh Circle of Hell!’

They taught us the laws of physics were
Impossible to change,
Gravity, mass, and basic math
Had a certain, definite range,
But men of science had interfered
With the particle known as ‘God’,
They’d built the Hadron Collider and
The results, they said, were odd.

I could have told them how odd they were
When I went outside to see,
My car was covered in mushrooms
And a train sat up in the tree.
A whale was floating beneath the Moon
And a porpoise lay in the park,
The light was bright in the sitting room
But outside, it was dark.

Nothing remained the way it was
For all the colours had changed,
The lawn, the colour of strawberry jam
And the sky was rearranged,
The stars were falling like sequins in
A cluster of drops like rain,
And ice was forming up on the eaves
That tasted like champagne.

I went inside and I slammed the door,
I turned on the News at 6,
They said there’d been an apology
But it wouldn’t be hard to fix,
They’d run the Collider backwards to
The way that they’d done before,
And hopefully, the ‘particle God’
Would be as he’d been once more.

I sat with Eve as the sun went down
And I tried to keep her still,
Away from the hallway mirror so
She wouldn’t scream or squeal,
The lines were deepening on her face
As our lease on life had lapsed,
I hoped she wouldn’t go out today
With the world outside, collapsed.

The sun rose up in the morning as
It had for a million years,
And everything was familiar,
They’d run the thing in reverse.
The News went back to the good old things
We were used to, from before,
Stabbings, murders, infanticide
And that good old standby, war!

David Lewis Paget

They’d arranged to meet on Charter Street
At the point that midnight chimed,
She was to come with a yellow bag,
And he with a book of rhyme,
The ad had run in the Daily Mail
And had said, and here I quote:
‘Wanted: A gentleman for fun
With a high speed motor boat.’

Then he’d replied that he had the boat
Could she bring along the fun,
And she wrote back, ‘Nice to meet you, Jack,
I have fun for everyone.’
He saw her in front of the Gaumont
That had played ‘The Cruel Sea’,
Standing there with a yellow bag
And thought, ‘That’s the one for me!’

He wandered up and he waved the book
With the title ‘Nonsense Rhyme’,
She gave him a cool, appraising look
Like a laid back Valentine.
‘It’s much too late for the boating lake,’
He said, ‘Would you like a drink?’
And she stood there with a vacant stare
But replied, ‘What do you think?’

He led her down to the Castle Club
Where he had a private booth,
Then sat her down till the drinks came round
And remarked upon her youth.
She raised a brow when he asked her how
She had come to advertise,
She said, ‘It’s something I have to do
If I need to meet new guys.’

They drank their drinks and they talked a bit
About nothing much, per se,
And then he asked her about the fun
But she said he’d have to pay.
‘I thought a ride in my motor boat
Would be payment,’ he began,
To which she said, ‘I’m not free to ride,
I’m a working courtesan.’

While back in the heart of Charter Street
Where the leaves blew from the trees,
A girl stood there in a party dress
And the wind blew round her knees,
She’d been in watching ‘The Cruel Sea’
For the time had seemed to lag,
But now stood out on an empty street
Holding her yellow bag.

David Lewis Paget

I’d known Dionne since her coming out
In a dress of tulle, in cream,
And held my breath when she took the floor
To glide like an autumn dream.
My eyes had followed her, all that night
As she danced from hand to hand,
I knew from then I would be in thrall,
She became my promised land.

She married badly the first time, and
I thought that she’d come to me,
She leapt from the fat of the frying pan
To the fire of the Presbytery,
Her husband Sol gave his sermons on
The fires in the pit of Hell,
Eternal moans in a fire of bones
With a terrible brimstone smell.

She seemed subdued, in a sullen mood
When I went to tea one day,
I asked her if she was happy now
But she simply looked away.
I saw a tear on her dainty cheek
And it took me by surprise,
‘I’m such a fool,’ she revealed to me,
‘I should have been more than wise.’

She said she wished she had never wed
For the first had made her cry,
He’d come home drunk for a solid month
And she said, she’d wondered why.
‘I loved him then, and I slaved for him
For I thought that he loved me too,
But then I heard about Annabelle,
And she, just one of a few.’

She married, after a swift divorce
A man with a flinty soul,
‘So much different to Adam, he
Is true, but his love is cold.
He tortures me with his tales of Hell,
Of sin in this earthly place,
And threatens that I might meet him there
If I don’t live in God’s Grace.’

She told me about a yellow doll
That she’d had since she was four,
She’d lavished love and affection on
But she didn’t, anymore.
He’d burnt its hands and he’d burnt its feet
When he’d been annoyed with her,
And said that she was the yellow doll,
The devil was waiting for.

I told her that she should leave him
That the man must be insane,
And told her that I would take her home,
That I would bear the blame.
She smiled at me with her sad blue eyes
And she said, ‘You’re really sweet,
But he has threatened to hunt me down
If he sees me in the street.’

She said he’d threatened to burn her feet
As he’d done, the yellow doll,
She’d not be able to walk again
And leave him, like a trull.
I left that day with a heavy heart
But at least, I knew the score,
Though when I tried to return again
I found that he’d barred the door.

The months went by and I thought of her
For she never left my head,
But then one day came the welcome news,
It seemed that he was dead.
I stood well back at the funeral
And I watched the widow’s face,
Under the flimsy widow’s veil
She shone with an inner grace.

We kept apart for a month or two
But I knew that she was mine,
We tried to avoid a scandal, it
Was just a question of time,
We married after a year had gone
He’d long been in the ground,
We couldn’t believe the harmony
And the love that we had found.

But then on a cold, black winter’s day
Dionne cried out aloud,
For beating ******* the cedar door
There was someone in a shroud,
And lying there on the welcome mat
Lay the little yellow doll,
Its feet were totally charred and black
And Dionne cried out, ‘It’s Sol!’

She clung to me and was petrified
And I tried to calm her down,
‘It can’t be Sol, for you saw him planted
Six feet under the ground.’
The shroud continued to beat the door
And Dionne, her voice was grim,
She pointed to the doll on the floor,
‘I buried the doll with him!’

David Lewis Paget

He sat in his favourite corner,
Each day, just taking his pills,
The old man, Frederick Horner
Counting his cash and paying his bills,
They watched and noted his every move,
Took note of each sign of life,
He’d outlived both of his daughters,
And even his scheming wife.

He never revealed how old he was
And nobody knew the truth,
He said he was old as Methusaleh,
Remembered the Biblical Ruth,
He still had the very first dollar he’d earned
Had framed it, and locked in his drawer,
But now he had multi-billions,
And each day added more.

‘You’d think he would give us some,’ they said,
His sons, Nathaniel and George,
For they had to work for their daily bread,
And Nathaniel slaved at a forge.
‘He can’t live forever,’ George opined
‘And then it will pass to us,’
The money was always on George’s mind,
As he drove the local bus.

‘We’re not getting younger,’ Nathaniel said,
‘I’m forty and you’re forty-two,
We could have made good if he’d shown some trust,
But look at our Becky and Sue.
They both died young, of neglect they said,
And mother, she died from the shakes,
But he goes on, he’s just about dead,
It must be those pills he takes.’

They’d watched him taking his yellow pills,
He never said what they did,
The blue, kept under the windowsill,
The orange, the old man hid.
‘It must be them that keep him alive,
The orange, the yellow and blue,
What if we take the pills away?’
‘You can, but it’s up to you.’

‘Maybe we ought to try them first,
They could give us both long life.’
‘They didn’t do much for her,’ said George,
‘The old man’s second wife.’
Nathaniel nodded and looked quite grim
He remembered the yellow pills,
Spilling out of the woman’s hand
When she fell down, deadly ill.

They’d never been close to their father when
Their mother suddenly died,
Whenever there was an argument
They’d taken their mother’s side,
The old man sat in his corner and
Would mutter of stains and blood,
Would wait for a glimmer of light to shine
But doubted they understood.

‘We’ll try the blue, one pill apiece
One night when he’s in his bed,’
And so they did, they swallowed them down
In seconds they fell down dead.
The old man grinned in his final breath,
‘Too curious, those two,
They should have asked who their father was
For it wasn’t me… I knew!’

David Lewis Paget

Giselle went down to the Supermart
For milk, and a loaf of bread,
‘Don’t be too long,’ said her husband, Tom,
‘It looks like rain ahead.’
The sky was dark and the clouds were grey
And a breeze was gusting the trees,
As she walked a block to the corner shop
The road was covered in leaves.

She tarried a while at the Mercers,
Checked the price on a bolt of silk,
Picked up a colourful tie-dyed scarf
Before collecting the milk.
She noticed the aisles were empty when
She got around to the bread,
The only girl at the checkout said:
‘It looks like a storm ahead.’

The thunder came rumbling over the shop
And the rain began to pour,
Giselle had nothing to keep her dry
So stood by the sliding door,
She read the messages on the board
For Sale, to give or swaps,
But one stood out like a weeping sore,
‘This is where reason stops!’

‘This is where reason stops,’ it said
In an ugly, spidery scrawl,
The damp had made the lettering run
And the ink dripped down the wall.
Guiselle had shivered and stepped aside
As she noticed the second line,
‘You’ll never be able to find your way
When caught in the tangle of time.’

The lightning flashed and it lit the store
But nobody else was there,
Not even the only checkout girl,
She’d gone, but heaven knew where.
Giselle dashed out to a clearing sky
Where the rain had ceased to pour,
She checked the time, was surprised to find
She’d been gone, two hours or more.

Tom would be more than mad, she thought
As she hurried along the way,
She’d never been able to keep good time,
For it seemed to slip away.
She never had kept her appointments
And Tom had been known to yell:
‘You’d keep the Devil himself in thrall
If you went to Hell, Giselle!’

The sun was dipping beneath the earth
And leaving a twilight glow,
She noticed that all the leaves had gone
That were there, a while ago,
There were fences now she’d never seen
And some gardens overgrown,
And on the block where her house had been
She was stood there, all alone.

There wasn’t a house, there wasn’t a brick,
Just bushes and bundles of weeds,
And trees, she turned for a second look,
She’d planted them all from seeds.
She thought that she must have lost her way
And ran to the corner to check,
The sign, as always, said ‘Shepherds Lane’
And a chill ran down from her neck.

She knocked on the screen of the house next door
And her neighbour, Ted, came out,
He cried, ‘Good God! You must be a ghost,’
And called his wife with a shout.
‘Where is my husband Tom,’ she said,
‘And where is my lovely home?’
‘Your Tom’s been dead for a dozen years
Since you left him here on his own!’

‘The house burnt down and they cleared the block
When they found him dead inside,
It was just a year since you took off
And he said that his heart had died.’
‘But I’ve only been two hours,’ she said,
‘I’ve just come back from the shops;
I should have known there was something wrong,
This is where reason stops!’

David Lewis Paget

It was threatening rain for a week or more
It was always threatening rain,
The Weather Bureau was always sore
When the threatening rain never came.
We’d hold an open air barbecue
Each time they said it would come,
‘Hey it’s gonna rain,’ said Oliver Payne,
‘What do they think, we’re dumb?’

But the Bureau Chief, one Adrian Reef
Said he was sick to the core,
Why wouldn’t the weather behave itself
Like it had done before,
‘It’s making us look like a laughing stock,’
He bitterly said to Jane,
‘I want you to ring up the airport now
And charter a small, light plane,’

He loaded the plane up with dry ice
And a generous load of salt,
And lugged along an elephant gun,
The plane took off with a jolt,
He peppered the clouds with ice that day,
He put his job on the line,
The last thing he wanted to have to say:
‘The weather is going to be fine.’

And down on the ground at the barbecue
We were sizzling snags and steak,
Having an ice cold beer or two
And trying to stay awake.
The sultry weather was drowsy then
We’d heard the report, in vain,
But just when the steaks were nicely done
It came down, bucketing rain.

We didn’t have time to pack it up,
We couldn’t save snags or steak,
In only a couple of minutes there
We were staggering round in a lake,
And Oliver’s esky floated away
With the rest of the beer we’d bought,
While we took shelter as best we could
Under cover of Maggie’s porch.

The water rose right up to our knees,
Our cars were afloat that day,
The chickens drowned and the old hearth hound
Was found seven miles away,
While on the Teev was the Bureau Chief
With a grin that was not quite sane,
He knew he’d won with his elephant gun,
‘The sky is threatening rain!’

David Lewis Paget

We were on a tour of the Breton Caves
That had stalactites galore,
A one-time trip to that limestone drip
Forming stalagmites on the floor.
There were only eight, and the tour was late
Was the last one for the day,
It was getting dark in the tourist park
But the guide still led the way.

And that’s when I first saw Monica
Who hung on her boyfriend’s arm,
There was something about her, even then
Some quiet, ineffable charm.
I tried to speak, to engage her there
But she snubbed each tame advance,
And flashed the ring on her finger that
Proclaimed her one romance.

The party wandered about the caves,
Spread out on the limestone floor,
And even Monica wandered off
For what she was looking for.
So when the ceiling had tumbled in
Creating a great divide,
With she and I all alone in there,
The rest on the other side.

The only light was a single beam
That came through a crack above,
And Monica stood in fear, and screamed,
Called out to her new-found love.
But he was stuck on the other side
Of a thousand tons of stone,
I told her, he couldn’t hear a thing,
She said, ‘Just leave me alone.’

She treated me with a great disdain
As if it had been my fault,
That she’d been caught on the further side
At the drop of the limestone vault.
I said, ‘We’re lucky to be alive,
It’s better than being dead,
Under a thousand tons of rock,
Get that in your pretty head!’

The beam then slowly faded away
And left us sat in the dark,
I heard her sigh, and begin to cry,
Our future was bleak and stark.
I thought that I’d try to comfort her
But she pushed my hand away,
‘Don’t let my fears give you sick ideas,
We’ll be out of here in a day.’

That was a long and lonely night
And the worst, by far, of three,
‘They may come looking for you,’ I said,
‘There’s no-one looking for me.’
‘Haven’t you got a girl at home?’
She ventured, one little spark,
Said in an almost friendly tone
As we lay there in the dark.

We heard the skittering sound of rats
As I said, ‘No, I’m alone.’
And then she suddenly came up close,
‘I’m sorry,’ was in her tone.
We shared a couple of chocolate bars,
I sensed her shivering form,
And threw my coat round her shoulders then
Just trying to keep her warm.

The beam appeared as the sun came up,
She finally met my eyes,
‘I’m sorry if I was off before,
You seem to be kind, and wise.’
‘I simply think that you’re beautiful,’
I said, with a touch of awe,
‘Your guy must think you’re incredible.’
‘I wish…,’ and she softly swore.

The hours dragged by, and a day and night
Seemed more than a week to me,
‘Maybe they think, on the other side
We’re buried, so let us be.’
The pangs of hunger were bad by now
And nothing to slake our thirst,
‘If only I’d known,’ said Monica,
‘I’d never have come, we’re cursed.’

The cold got us on the second night,
She didn’t resist me much,
My coat we draped over both of us,
I felt the warmth of her touch.
Her head was lying across my chest
My arms held her, in bliss,
And that’s when she raised her face to me
And gave me a gentle kiss.

Three days we lay there in misery,
We felt that it was the end,
‘If we’re to die, then I wonder why
I’d not make love with a friend?’
The thought of death fairly takes the breath
There’s things we wouldn’t have done,
But she was as eager as me, you see,
In coming together as one.

They broke on through in the afternoon
Of the third day after the fall,
And there her guy with a glistening eye
As she climbed over the wall.
They took us both to the hospital
And I thought she had gone for good,
A brief respite in a lonely life,
But suddenly, there she stood.

I felt bemused and a mite confused
When I asked her, ‘Where’s your guy?’
She shrugged and said we were almost dead,
While he was as sweet as pie.
‘He didn’t share my imprisonment,
So what did you want to do?
It only took three days in a cave,
I've fallen in love with you.’

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