The Blueshell Bar

From Monday through to Friday and,
For some, on the weekends too,
There’s a constant round of students here
Attacking the Chinglish stew,
They sweat on the riddle of English tense,
Of gender, of verb and noun,
But Friday nights and their teachers here
Are ready to hit the town.

In old Wenzhou, Canadians,
The Poms and the Aussies rule,
New Zealanders with their flattened vowels,
And Yanks with their godamm drawl,
The Scots are there with the Sassenachs
Their vowels like treacle glue,
‘If ye’ dinna gae doun tae the Blueshell, man,
I’ll nae hae a drink wi’ you! ’

For after a week of adjectives,
Blank faces and wo bu dongs,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Lizard Pie!

We’d set the date, and I’d bought the ring,
The dress was ready, and so was I,
But Liz went down with a fearful chill,
Her forehead burned and her mouth was dry.

They did some tests and they called me in,
The doctor muttered, and shook his head,
‘She’s diabetic, as sure as sin,
She’s lucky to be alive, ’ he said.

‘You’ll have to be married another day,
We’ll get those sugars controlled, ’ he said,
‘I’ll give her a course of insulin,
But you make sure that she stays in bed! ’

It took a while for the sugar count
To drop, and Liz had a throbbing brain,
The Gila Monster’s saliva gland*
Would feed her nausea, over again!

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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One-Sided Conversation

She sat, head bent,
In her old, grey chair,
The blinds were pulled and drawn,
The shadows caught
In the gathering gloom,
But she moved not at all;
Her husband, stood by the old oak door
He'd cleared his throat to speak,
'You wanted to see me, then, ' he said,
A pallor upon his cheek.

She knew, he thought,
She knew full well
His cheating, shiftless ways,
He'd married her more for her money
Than for her wit, her charm or grace.
She'd warned him once
She'd warned him twice,
She'd said that he made her sick,
Now he was the one who was feeling ill

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Devil's Loco

I live by an ancient railway track
Near the village of Nether Stonely,
Though the trains were left in the distant past,
And the ribbon of track is lonely,
The rails are rusted, covered in weeds
And lead to an old stone tunnel,
That squads of Victorian engineers
Once sealed to the height of a funnel.

As lads, we'd clamber up to the top
And peer through the gap left up there,
Into the pitch of the blackness, where
You could still get a whiff of sulphur.
We'd shout ‘Hello! ' there, into the dark,
And listen to hear the echo
Bounce off the curve of the soot-black walls
That seemed to be whispering ‘Loco! '

The legend went that a local lad
In '93, in the winter,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Water Tower

I sit and stare at this empty page,
The wind howls long at the winter eaves,
The cloud is heavy, and black with rage
As squalls dance in through the myrtle leaves.

While deep inside in the cottage gloom
My love lies weary, cocooned in dreams,
I hear her cry in the darkened room
Call out one name from a nightmare scene.

‘Michelle, ’ she mutters, then groans aloud
I grit my teeth at the open door,
The wind it eddies in dust and leaves
And echoes long at the water tower.

‘Michelle, Michelle, ’ it grumbles and groans,
‘Michelle, ’ it whispers, then skips and howls;
My love rolls over in deepest sleep
While I keep watch through the early hours.

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Lystrata

On the outer edge of darkness,
On the other side of sleep,
And beyond the mist, the starkness
Of the landscape makes me weep,
For Lystrata, like a phantom
Glides and shimmers through the trees,
As her hair trails out behind her
At the slightest subtle breeze.

But the sun has not yet risen
So the shadows there are dim,
And the voices in the distance
Mutter words that sound like ‘R.E.M.',
But Lystrata leads me further
Through that one repeating myth,
Where we leave the trees behind us
At the stark edge of the cliff.

I can hear the breakers rolling
On the beach, so far below,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Betrayal

I'd come home unexpectedly,
I know I should have said,
But found you with another man
Both sleeping, in our bed,
I have no words to censure you
No words to spell my grief,
But years of trust have shattered,
You betrayed me with a thief.

What have I done, these thirty years
To turn your face from me,
That love you swore, undying
Now just some anomaly?
You opened up our secret place
For some dark stranger's whim,
What does he have that I must lack,
Why did you go with him?

I left you both there sleeping
Staggered down to nurse my pride,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Blue Mountain Coffee

I take my seat at the Golden Grove
And watch the waitress, Xu,
She's sweet and pert, and her shortened skirt
Shows off a dimple or two;
She brings the menu, a pretty smile,
I get to the "Wo xiang yao...."
But she shakes her head, before I've said
What I want, would like, or how!

She points to the meal I didn't want,
I crease my ‘lao wai' brow,
"No no - Lan shan" is my one response,
"Lan shan kafei, niu nai..."
Do you have it? - this is a coffee shop?
All I want is a cup - that's wrong? '
She rolls her eyes, looks up to the skies
And mutters: ‘Wo bu dong! '

I check my book, have I overlooked
Some word, some phrase - a tone?

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Passing

The change, it comes so slowly
Like the winter of our lives,
It encroaches while we're playing,
While we're laughing with our wives,
As the children wave goodbye
The first brief chill will still the air,
And that silence settles on us
As they turn, and close the door.

Then we stare long at each other
But we find no words to say,
You have been the faithful mother
That I married, back some way,
But I see your smile has faded
With the passing of the years,
And you turn your face away so I
Won't see that trace of tears.

Are you thinking of that moment
When you held that new born child,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Love that Binds

My father died of the cholera
In eighteen thirty-two,
There wasn't a place at the cemetery
To bury him, that we knew,
The signs were posted at Netherton,
‘Don't bring your bodies here! '
The Sexton spoke: ‘Try Gospel Oak,
Or maybe, Wednesbury.'

We loaded Pa back onto the cart
And whipped the old grey mare,
We'd not long buried our cousin Jack
At the turning of the year,
From Manchester to Birmingham
The epidemic spread,
From Liverpool to Leeds, to York,
With one in twenty dead!

I walked along with the horse and cart
And I passed so many more,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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