Riding the Wenzhou Bus
They squeak and rattle, and jerk and pull
And throw you across the floor,
The double-deckers, the number 5’s,
The 3’s and the 64,
They come in colours of red and blue,
Of green, and in spattered mud,
They wait for no-one but bully on through
If you get in their way – there’s blood!
The seats are plastic and hard as nails,
The roof is but four feet high,
You scramble along on your knees at the back,
Unless you’re a dwarf, or sly -
And climb the stairs to the upper deck
To slide in the slime, and cuss,
You need to be dressed in your army boots
When riding the Wenzhou Bus!
The brakes are shot, they rumble and howl
As they wheeze and groan to a halt,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Shoes
'Get rid of those old shoes, ' she said,
'Their time has come and gone.'
I looked down at my battered soles
And smiled, as she went on;
When women talk of 'romance', then
It must be dressed to kill,
But these old shoes saw more romance
Than she could ever tell.
I took these shoes to China,
They passed through Singapore,
They trod old Wenzhou's meaner streets
In silence, pride and awe;
They padded through fine Restaurants
And stood before my class,
While Chinese students bit their pens
Translating Poe, en masse.
These shoes took me to Shanghai,
To walk the Nanjing Road,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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To My 7 Children
When you were young, as I recall,
I watched you grow, I watched you crawl,
You took your first few steps with me
And I was your security.
Though never rich, we plodded through
And loved each other, me and you,
We made do with the things we'd got
Though they were few, we'd not a lot.
A roof, good clothes, and you were fed,
You had warm blankets, and a bed,
While I did all that I could do
To keep you, and your mothers, too.
I worked and studied, called away
To try improve things, day by day,
But one by one your mothers left
And took you too, I was bereft.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Ship To Shore
When you pulled at the wheel with me
To steer our fragile ship of state
We nosed toward uncharted seas
But found our course within a lake.
And every where that we did turn
There loomed another barren shore,
We turned, and then did turn about
To find we'd sailed each course before.
And you would chafe at each restraint
And I would rush to catch each squall
That filled our sails a little while
Before we lay becalmed once more.
Then you would see each distant point
As bearings, where your freedom lay
And drive our ship before the storm
For day upon each battered day.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The End Of The Ming
Out in the hinterland the wild wolves call
While the soldiers shiver, strung along The Great Wall,
Their hands on their quivers, with their arrows, full flight
As they listen for the Manchu troops in the night.
They would beat off the peasants at the Shanhai Pass
As The Wall held firm, for the Ming's last gasp,
But the rebels beat the army of the last of the Ming,
In the city of the Emperor, the Old Beijing.
And they fired the city under Li Zicheng
While the Emperor despaired, he was called Chongzhen,
He threw a final feast for the House of the Ming,
And he called for his daughter, the Lady Chang Ping.
When the feast was over they awaited his word
But he slew each one with the point of his sword,
And his daughter too, bowed down to his will,
Then he fled the palace grounds, to Jingshan Hill.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Diabolick!
(Byron's governess, May Gray, would come to bed with him at night
and 'play tricks with his person'. According to Byron, this 'caused
the anticipated melancholy of my thoughts—having anticipated life') .
I lay awake, most every night,
Tucked in my bed at Aberdeen,
And waited for that footstep light,
My Governess, my Demon Queen.
I was but nine, or ten at most
When she climbed underneath my sheet,
I heard her breathing in my head
Her hands, ice cold about my feet.
And she would whisper soft to me
Would play strange tricks to rouse me there,
My teeth would chatter in my sleep,
Across my face, her perfumed hair.
Her lips were red, would seek my mouth
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Mumbo Jumbo
They came from the land of Jumbo,
Crossed the sea in their little boats,
Carried their wives and children here
In anything that would float,
They wanted the sort of freedoms we
Had always had for our own,
Would we be able to squeeze them in
And welcome them into our home?
They brought all their bags and baggage,
A thousand years of despair,
When life had been such a hardship
In the jungles of - 'Out there! '
We offered the hand of friendship,
They took it, and came right in,
Along with their prophet Mumbo
Who they carried right under their skin!
They settled in little pockets,
They kept themselves to their own,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Wych Elm
Green is the wych-elm
Torn is the tiding,
Ghosts in the old country
Surely are riding,
Deep lie the shadows
On dull days in waiting,
Trace the old harmonies
Long in creating,
Sharp is the memory,
Dark is the will,
Lost for all seasons
In some rippling rill.
Long did he wander,
He that in I
Took to the meadows,
Gazed at the sky,
Rambled by rivers and
Rolled in the corn,
He that in I was
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Maps And Charts
For part of your voyage, Captain
I was there at the helm with you,
So young, and the world had flowered,
I caught my breath at the view;
But you stood grim, determined
And saw what I could not see,
You spoke of the storms and tempests
That I had coming to me.
Your words took shape, exploded,
Then burst at my head and heart
Like shooting stars in the sunset,
Like embers, glowed in the dark,
I lost so much of their meaning,
Ignored so much that was said
Your thoughts flashed bright on the water
Then dimmed, went out – despaired.
You tugged at my understanding
Set course for the verities,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Tryst
Ambrose stood at the cottage step
A bouquet in his hand,
He'd come to woo sweet Adeline
From a strange and far off land,
They'd known each other since children, and
They'd made to each a vow:
‘I never will love another more
Than I love you, even now! '
They'd played in the heat of the summer sun,
They'd played in the autumn shade,
But winter carried him far from home
And the love that they'd almost made,
They wrote through spring and the summer's height
They wrote right through to the fall,
But the winter chills saw the postman fill
No letterbox at all.
His letters came back, duly stamped
‘Not known at this address! '
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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