The Tiger

Do you ever get that feeling that
You’re flying, or you’re dying, and
You’re watching, like it happened once before?
When your mind is rather hazy, or disturbed
And much too lazy to remember where
You saw that scene you saw?

I just get this one returning, like
A ghost that's finished haunting
Other folk, but who has settled now on me.
But I know that I remember that this
Ghost of mid-December was a Terry James
I knew when I was three.

He would start his Triumph Tiger while
Enraptured by the window I
Would watch him in his leathers and his jeans,
Then he’d stroke his tank and wave me, for he
Always called me Davey; 'little Davey'
He would say, for I was three.

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Dragon Lake

Bao Peng sat back and lit his pipe,
The hob was cold, the ash quite dead,
He drew a tiny firelight
That lit the scar high on his head.
While Zhang was hushed, he gathered round
Each brother, cousin; neighbours too,
‘Bao Peng will not begin his tale
Until your silence asks him to! ’

‘In years gone by, ’ Bao Peng began,
‘When revolution ruled this land,
Our village lived at peace back then,
We helped each other, as we can!
We grew rice in the paddy fields
Kept pigs and horses, sheep and game,
And lived, though poor, contentedly
Until the Helmsman’s Red Guards came.’

‘We drew our water from the lake
And shared in everything we grew,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Rasputin

The Tsarevitch lay moaning,
He was dying in his bed,
The bleeding wouldn't stop,
It turned the little fellow's head,
When somewhere through the darkness
Where a peasant dared not roam,
A bearded monk came lumbering in
And headed for the throne!

He had some mystic power, this monk,
Worked miracles, somehow,
And Alexandra wept to see
Her son, so peaceful now,
The Tsar was more than overwhelmed,
Invited him to court,
This Grigori Yefimovich,
The healer they had sought!

Each time the haemophilia
Brought young Alexis low,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Robot City

I live in the city of Wanna-Be
In the State of Much-Too-Hard,
And watch for the all If-Only folk
Who stick to their own backyard,
The schools are breeding their robot kids
That I call, I-Know-My-Rights,
The courts acquit them of larceny
And turn them loose in the night.

And some are ticketed Not-My-Fault,
Or Somebody-else-Not-Me!
Along with the other Why-Should-I?
They all just Wanna-Be-Free,
Then I-Had-A-Lousy-Childhood think
They can moan, and cry on the stairs,
While I have a word to answer them:
Find-Somebody-Who-Cares!

But often I notice, way out there
The ones who greet with a smile,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Spirit

‘I died early, ’ said the Spirit,
‘So I didn’t have the chance to learn,
And though I don’t exactly burn
With envy for your thirty years,
It’s such a pity dying young,
The pleasures of a youth, unsung…
For all I left behind of me
Were memories of my mother’s pain
In birth and death,
Though such a breath of time it took,
It’s hard to judge that I had been,
That any could remain.
But for my father’s constant hurt,
His burden through a lonely life
Was such to crush the living breath
Right out of him, but could I see,
And crush the death right out of me.’

‘I hunger then, for knowledge
Of the seven wonders of the world

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Artist's Dilemma

The wind blew in and the wind blew out
And it surged around the eaves,
The door out to the patio slammed
And the yard filled up with leaves,
Then Susan sighed, ‘There's goes my ride,
I was going to take the mare,
Now what can we do on a Sunday when
The wind's so wild out there? '

Her aunt lay back on the couch and stared
At me, with her doe-black eyes,
Not much older than Susan, she
Was Venus, in disguise,
Her fingers ran through her coal-black hair
And her hand smoothed down her thigh,
‘Why don't you ask the artist, dear,
Before his paints run dry.'

I'd finished painting the background in
Of the leaves that swirled in the air,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Flawed Fidelity

‘Life is a great disappointment, ' mused
The sailor on the quay,
And he sighed again, and frowned, and then
Looked sadly out to sea,
‘We start by thinking it wonderful
With a whole wide world out there,
But the world is thin, and it hems you in
If you have no love to share! '

The man he'd met on the promenade
Stood silent by his side,
The sun dipped into the ocean on
Its slow but stately ride,
The Moon, the queen of the evening rose
To light the Milky Way,
‘I shouldn't have gone to sea, but then
She'd have left me anyway! '

The man in the cheap and shoddy suit
Had nodded in the gloom,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Tick Tock!

There once was a time
When there was but one,
He came in a sleigh with his bells turned on,
With a long white beard and a fat red pelt
And a tassle and a bobble and a Sam Browne belt!

Just once in the year
He'd appear on high,
With reindeers, winging through the stars in the sky,
And he'd bring all the presents that the kids desired,
They'd send him all their letters in the smoke from the fire.

But the year came round
When it all went wrong,
While singing and a-playing of the reindeer song,
For a boy lay awake while the world was asleep
As Saint Nick clambered down the chimney-piece.

The fairy on the tree
Looked down and around

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Angel of Mons

He called for me from his hospital bed,
He needed a priest, and soon,
The old man lay in his disarray
In the cool of the afternoon,
I started to read the Viaticum,
His face was turned to the wall,
But then he stirred, and muttered one word
From the depths of his troubled soul.

'Mons', he muttered, and I was still
While he raised his gaze to mine,
I saw the struggle he fought within
Then I noticed his eyes a-shine,
'I was an Old Contemptible, '
He said with a trembling voice,
'I've been to the shores of Hell, old son,
If you thought you could give me a choice.'

'Now, I've never spoken of this before,
War is a terrible thing,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Day That Time Would Stop!

The passageway was longer than he thought
He would have said,
It seemed to go forever,
But the words stayed in his head.
That drumming in his ears was surely
Just the lack of sound,
And could it be, he floated,
With his feet just off the ground?

The ambulance had called for him at just
On half past three,
He'd told his wife: ‘Don't bother,
It will go away, you'll see! '
His wife was more determined than she'd
Ever been before,
She dialled up on her mobile
And she waved him, at the door.

‘It's all just fuss and bother, this, ' he thought,
And flushed quite red,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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