Elegy for a Poet
I hark back to the days when I
Began, in pen and ink,
To scrawl some petty poems,
How to feel, and how to think,
And people seemed to like the way
My simple little rhymes
Would trace a basic pattern
Through the heartache of their times.
So I continued writing; then
I typed my manuscripts,
I hit the keys so hard that
All my paper fell to bits,
But still I persevered, until
Computers stole the scene,
And little plastic keyboards
Put the words up on a screen.
But all along I used the name
Of Earle E. Everett,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Daydreams
I sit every day in an office, and play
With a ledger that carries my name,
And stare from the window, the clouds scudding grey
On a sky that is always the same,
The river winds down by the weed-winding bank
But is sluggish and slow in its ride,
Heading on out to the estuary, carrying
Debris, adrift on the tide.
Just about here was the place, where in fear
They once straddled the river in chains,
And called up the hundreds, with helmet and shield
To defend this poor land from the Danes,
And often I peer through the rain and the mist
And the grime on the window without,
Imagining Vikings enmeshed in the chains,
And struggling there, to get out.
The office is staffed by grey people in need
Who would like to get home to the wife,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Gathering of the Spoils
Marcus Julius rose at dawn,
Splashed water on his face,
He'd spent the night at the Lupanare
With a pretty girl from Thrace,
He saw the glow in the morning sky
But shrugged, and went back inside,
Roused the slave from his slumber
Kicked the dog, sat down and sighed.
She'd cost him three Denarius
And money was getting tight,
The marketplace had been quiet of late
And his purse was rather light,
He'd made just ten Sesterces
With his trade the day before,
People were getting nervous but
He'd seen it all before.
Whenever the ground was trembling
As it often used to do,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Book
It was late in the autumn of 2210
The shuttle had gone off to Mars,
The highways of Asia were solidly blocked
With a billion Chinese cars,
I'd wandered around the Museum of Trees,
The Fruit Section opened my eyes,
The bitterness taste of electronic apples
So cleverly changed, and disguised.
I seemed to be wandering round on my own,
Museums were on their way out,
The Virtual Channels were simple to screen
And more easy to access, no doubt.
The ancient attendant had followed me round,
He warily started to say:
‘I have something hidden, way out in the back
If you're interested, come out this way! '
He led to a room that was dingy and dark,
Went over and pulled up the blind,
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poem by David Lewis Paget (3 September 2012)
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Oradour-sur-Glane
I woke to the smell of new baked bread
From the bakery, down the way,
Mama was singing and feeding the hens,
I had no school today,
Pierre and I had arranged to go
For a ramble, soon or late,
To look for the trilling skylark's nest,
And the hedgehog's rolling gait.
Papa was sat in the garden, he
Was fixing my sister's bike,
While Grandpa sat on the old wood bench,
Filling his gnarled old pipe,
The sun was set in a pale blue sky
And the lord smiled down on the town,
The war was a million miles away
From Oradour-sur-Glane.
Pierre was waiting across the street,
We ran with a whoop of joy,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Season of the Witch
Most of the country is hushed out there
As the Moon climbs over the hill,
The creatures out in the wild beware
And the air is breathless, still,
The deer is stood at the edge of the wood
Afraid to go in too soon,
With the animals skittish, out in the yard
A hare stares up at the Moon.
There's something amiss in the air tonight
Both furtive and dark, unclean,
Shadows are lurking by old stone walls
In wait for a sign to be seen,
The men all sit in a vacant trance
As the women go out by the ditch,
Wearing their smoke-black cloaks in the dance
For the Season of the Witch.
Then like the flutter of vampire bats
The witches take to their brooms,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Beddgelert - (pron. Beth-gelert)
‘There once was a Prince called Llywelyn, Dai bach,
The Lord of this Snowdon Wales,
Back in the mists of the mountain, when times
Saw wolves leave their blood-stained trails.'
(I sat by the Church of St. Mary out there,
The vicar stared out on his fold,
His rheumy old eyes held the myth and the lies
That the Welsh told the people of old!)
I listened, he spoke, and I doubted him then,
The story he told so bizarre,
But when he had finished, I baited my breath,
Walked musingly back to my car.
Llywelyn, the hunter, was given a hound,
A present from England's King John,
A mighty wolf hound that he treasured and took
On his hunting trips, loping along.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Sir John de Vere
Sir John de Vere has took a quill
And set himself to sit and write
The sweetest love that is of men
To take unto his heart's delight.
And he has took a damsel fair
That flitteth by, beseemingly,
And with a strand of golden hair
Begun to weave her mystery.
The hair it flows from quill to sheet
In whorls and ripples it doth flow,
In twists and bends it eddies forth
To settle on the sheet below.
The hair is sweet in light perfume,
The quill it flows from page to page,
The lady's love has settled there
For all to read and all to know.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Angel In The Barn
It’s hot, by God! - in Warranar,
It’s hot, too hot by far,
The sun leers down from a barren sky
To scorch the where-you-are!
The ground is hard, burnt dry within,
The snakes curl up and die,
And trees take on a crippled shape
As birds fall out of the sky!
The farm is dead, six months a year,
Brown earth and endless dust,
It never rains! Why do we stay?
Despair says that we must!
One night I lay all bathed in sweat,
A hot wind seared the plain,
I seemed to hear some scraping sound,
Then thought: ‘Could this be rain? ’
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Death Whispers in My Ear
The doctors said: ‘Take her away,
There's nothing we can do,
The life is seeping from her blood
Her soul is weeping too,
But keep her in a darkened room
And hidden from the light,
Perhaps you'll gain a week or two
Before her soul takes flight! '
I drove her to ‘The Grange' at that,
Post haste, in coach and four,
I veiled her in black crepe and lace,
She fainted at the door.
I carried her, she was so slight
I feared she might be dead,
And laid her on the davenport
A pillow at her head.
I covered her with red damask
And drew the velvet drapes,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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