How The Eye Deceives!
I walked to the back verandah
And stared at the midnight sky,
The moon, long gone, lay hidden
By the rainclouds, up on high,
The wind howled out in the treetops
Then grunted back through the eaves,
My mood was black as the midden,
I thought – “How the eye deceives.”
You lay with your back towards me
As you’d often lain in the past
When the gods of war were stalking
And your eyes turned red, and flashed.
My life, like the earth, was turning
While all you could do was weep,
And the pit of misunderstanding
Lay there, where you fell asleep.
I’d read in your daily journal
Some thoughts of yours that bled,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Fairy Light
A light appeared on the darkest hill,
The girl fell once, and was left behind,
I caught her arm and we crossed the rill:
‘I can’t go on - I think I’m blind.’
‘We’ve all been blind to the things that count
But there’s the light - if you’ll follow me
We may be able to sight the truth,
And catch a glimpse of eternity.’
The light had pranced by the farmer's gate,
Followed the stony lane along,
Leapt a thicket of tangled thorns,
Flashed and fluttered, and bounded on.
‘It’s only a lonely firefly,
A torch, or maybe a will-o-wisp, ’
She clutched her leg and she gave a cry,
I left her there in the morning mist.
‘I must go on! ’ I could hear the words
The wind had snatched at my shallow breath,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Peterloo Massacre
The people marched to St. Peter's Field
On a fair and a sunny day,
They'd gone to listen to Henry Hunt
A radical, in his way,
For Manchester was a ruin then,
The people could beg or starve,
For the looms were sitting in silence there
With the wages more than halved.
The government passed the Corn Laws
To protect the growers at home,
But the British corn was inferior,
And the price quite overblown,
The people, faced with a famine sought
To reform the parliament,
A million folk in Manchester,
With just two to represent.
And only a hundred and fifty were
Electors, here I quote,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Bogeyman
When I was a child, the Bogeyman
Lived in our water tank,
He'd grumble and rumble and growl all night,
I had my sister to thank,
She told me about his giant claws
And the great big teeth he had,
If I couldn't get to the foot of the stairs
He'd be hot on my heels - How sad!
The tank sat next to the toilet seat
In a cupboard, close to a hatch,
It used to spring open and freak me out,
There was something wrong with the catch,
I'd pull on the rusted, clanking chain
And head for the landing, stairs,
If the water had stopped, before I dropped
The Bogeyman would be there!
He was only a second behind me then,
A second of terrors and fears,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Al Cobdogla's Hearse
The mood in the town of Warramine
Was grim, and getting worse,
For stuck on the town's old hump-back bridge
Was Al Cobdogla's hearse,
The brakes had failed and the motor quit
And the footplates wedged each side,
The springs had sprung, and the body hung
On Emily's final ride!
The coffin lodged in the back was black,
As black as Emily's sin,
There wasn't a man in the great outback
That hadn't been out and in,
For Emily Gray was more than gay
In the old sense of the word,
She only charged a dollar a spin
Out there in the cattle yard.
For Emily was an outdoor girl
She couldn't abide inside,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Confession
‘I'm ill, I'm ill, ' said Rockingham,
‘I'm ill, ' then took to his bed,
He tossed and turned in his fever there
As the visions danced in his head.
He couldn't tell if the world outside
Was real, or a crazy dream,
But muttered into the night, instead
Of some of the things he'd seen.
His wife, Marie, was a surly wench
She said, ‘I'll not be a nurse!
I'll not be tied to a sick man's bed
And left the room, with a curse.
She called the maid and she told her: ‘Sit!
And mop at the old man's brow,
I'll be abroad in the coach and six,
If he dies, go milk the cow! '
The fever turned to delerium
As he tossed and turned all night,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Rainbow
The rain came down in swirls that day,
The rain came down in sheets,
We sat in the back of the S.U.V.
As the rain, it turned to sleet.
‘I think it’ll show by Bleddows Hill
When the storm decides to pass’,
I said to Ben as the clock struck ten
From the tower of Gormenghast!
I set the G.P.S. to range,
And checked the lat. and long.,
I’d bought a second-hand S.D.A.*
To track it, right or wrong,
The rain kept up its steady beat
The clouds were dull and grey,
For never a beam of moon or sun
Had shown, for many a day!
‘You’d better go wait in the Jeep, ’ I said,
‘And turn your mobile on,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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One Step On
I can see the pit of darkness stretched
Before my hapless eyes
And another week should see me in its fold,
For my steps have long been faster
At the brink of my disaster
When the master plan refuses to be told.
But from some deep, hidden augury,
Eternal stories spring,
And the loss of me may be some other’s gain,
If it weren’t for bitter memories
Dredged from the darkening rill
Of your being, I might even love again.
I remember how the forays first
Were thwarted at the pass,
Where your armies dug in tight around your eyes,
How my heavy armour failed me
And your cynicism railed,
But a flower brought the first of your replies.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Bellman
He rang it in the marketplace,
He rang it in the street,
Old Silas was the Bellman
In the village of Purfleet,
He'd rung the bell for sixty years,
He'd rung the bell for war,
He'd rung it for the harvest
But would ring the bell no more!
The Mayor and all his councillors
Had met within the Hall,
Discussed the ponderous questions
That would bear upon them all,
Their gowns were trimmed with ermine
And the mayor, he wore his chain,
The solemn Majesty of State
Was heard in their refrain!
‘We must dismiss the Bellman, '
Said the hoary Abel Creep,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Witches of Little Begone
Little Begone was a tiny place
Untouched by the fronds of time,
The cottages there, since Edward the third
Had lain in a valley sublime,
Wisteria climbed at the cottage walls
Where lilies and lilacs grew,
And over a fence, the witches stared,
In Little Begone there were two.
They hated each other in Little Begone,
The youngest was Annabel Prank,
She'd stolen the seeds of a magical herb
From the garden of old Mother Skank,
So Skank put a spell on her garden that
Instead of the herbs, would grow
An army of huge zucchini's that
Would spread, right into the road.
Annabel tried to dig them out
But they seemed to grow and grow,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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