Death's Call
I heard my friend died yesterday,
It knocked me off my feet,
I'd passed the time of day with him
Last Wednesday, on the street,
He'd caught me at an awkward time,
I strained to get away,
He had some awful flu, or cold,
I didn't want to stay.
He phoned me later, chatted on,
I looked up at the sky,
I'm always so impatient with
This one annoying guy,
His jokes were inappropriate,
He laughed at them himself,
When wit was handed out, they left
His sitting on the shelf.
He wrote a bit, of prose and verse,
It wasn't up to scratch,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Goddo & Me...
‘He slept through the Paleozoic Age,
He yawned through Neanderthal Man,
When dinosaurs walked, he was fixing a hole
In the floor of the Sea of Japan,
When Lincoln was making your favourite speech
He was out with a spanner, near Mars,
Adjusting some angle, inclined to the sun,
And admiring his favourite Stars.’
‘It was fun in those days, when he used to display
An amazing addiction to Math,
His Geometry, angles, and parallel spangles
He’d scatter whilst running his bath;
His compass, divider and measuring tools
I would hide, with the keys to his locks,
When questioned, he’d say that he’d need them today
For precessing the Equinox.’
‘I never thought much of mechanical things,
I left all that headwork to him,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Dreamscape
You woke me, crying out in your sleep
That a part of you had died,
I could hear the birds by the window seat
As they woke and chattered outside,
So I turned and shook you gently
Thinking to ease your troubled mind,
‘I dreamt I'd been to my wake, ' you said,
‘And the folk were so unkind! '
‘It was only a dream, ' I thought to say
But my tongue was swiftly curbed,
You'd slipped so quietly out of the room
And the bed was undisturbed,
I followed, down to the kitchen but
You must have gone outside,
Out by the dear old mulberry bush
I could hear you, as you cried.
Your sister came and she made the tea
You were talking on the phone,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Www.
At night, I sit in this darkened room
And stare at the hollow screen,
The World-Wide Web is a crystal ball
Of tides, and hopes, and dreams,
Though the world goes on outside my door
And time, it flows like the sea,
I have no truck with reality
When the web washes over me.
For I dredge the depths with a grappling hook
And I haul my catch on board,
Then I read the thoughts of a million minds
That were left on the furthest shore,
While the colours swirl and the lights go dim
And the sounds fade from without,
I float in the mass of cyberspace
'Til the light of the moon goes out.
Then emails beat at my cyber door
To ask if I'll let them in,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Smugglers Pie
The body of smuggler Robert Long
Hung by the road in chains,
His flesh was mouldering from his bones
Washed clean by the Cornish rains,
The crows had taken his sorry eyes,
His wife, the gold from his teeth,
But some kind soul from near Mousehole
Had left at his feet, a wreath!
The Excise men ranged over the cliffs,
The Revenue men below,
And Customs Officers manned the cutters
That intercepted the flow,
They boarded the bold East Indiamen
Who sold their goods tax free,
And many a thief has come to grief
When the waves tipped them into the sea!
The goods that lay in the Cornish coves
Tobacco, brandy and rum,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Choice
The house had stood in the forest since
The passing of George the Third,
Ivy clung to the western wall,
The pillars were cracked and scarred,
The windows were bricked and boarded up
From the days of the window tax,
And the name FitzAdam was burnt in sin
In its myriad faults and cracks.
The oaks threw shadows in early morn,
The elms threw shadows at noon,
There wasn't a single sunny wall
To be found ‘til the month of June,
And deep inside in the gloomy halls
Sat the last of the family tree,
Two aging spinsters, Jan and Jane,
And a dead man, that made three!
For Henry sat as he'd always sat
Since the day that he'd come to call,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Before I forget...
The China stint is over,
There’s only a week to go,
I packed up a box of souvenirs
And trudged to the ‘you zheng ju’,
They cost me an arm and leg to send
By ‘shui lu lu xin jian, ’
I just have to pack a suitcase now,
Say ‘ron’ to a special friend.
The apartment’s almost empty,
It looks quite bare, forlorn,
As bare as the heart I gave to them
The people of old Zhejiang,
Their lives will go on without me now
As I head to the ‘Fei ji chang, ’
But I take my memories, every one
To the land where I come from.
The children dancing at ‘Dou Mei Li, ’
At the end of Wendi Lu,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Hush!
'Hush! Dear, Hush!
Your mother has went,
To fly all night
A broomstick, to Gwent.
You must be quiet,
Lips heavy as lead,
Or father will wake
To a broom in his bed.'
'Hush! Dear child,
She's painted her nails,
Rubbed in the ointment
Of bats and snails,
Put on a hat that's
As black as pitch,
And ducked right under
The candlesticks.'
'Three times three
The cock has crowed,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Voice In The Wind
I could hear her whispering under the trees
Whenever the breeze crept in through the pines,
And then when the Moon rose out of the sea
It soughed and it sifted out from the vines,
I'd stop and I'd listen, straining to hear
What the voice would sigh in the bright green sedge,
‘Ah me! ' it started, then faded away,
Went searching for dreams at the water's edge.
I'd follow it down through the rocks and pools
As the tide swept in, and over my feet,
Down where the crabs and the lobsters ruled
A ledge that was straddled by Neptune's seat.
The tremulous voice in the runnels there
Was inarticulate, ravaged with pain,
But the breakers crashed, and they drowned it out
When I called for the creature's name, in vain.
But back in the shack on that lonely shore
Where I'd fled to, after the accident,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Farewell, Dick!
He bowed and he doffed his tricorn hat
As the wagon both lurched and swayed,
It rattled on over the cobblestones,
And the mud in the alleyways,
The crowd had cheered when he passed them by
As he stood, so debonair,
In a new frock coat and a pair of pumps
With a ribbon tied up in his hair.
They rumbled along the Tyburn road
From York, as the people stared,
Then came to a halt at Knavesmire
Approaching the 'Three Legged Mare',
He mounted the ladder boldly,
Stamped his foot to allay his fear,
Then spoke to the executioner
In a voice both calm and clear.
The rope was knotted around his neck,
He spoke to the crowd at last,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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