The Awful God
Richard Bryce was a mystery,
He lived on a back street lot,
The house was the old half-timbered sort,
Paint peeled on the old wainscot,
The blinds were drawn through the day and night
And the garden a neighbourhood moan,
Full of the bodies of rusting cars
And creepers, all overgrown.
We rarely saw him out in the street
But he'd peep from the side of blinds,
And stories were told in the neighbourhood
That were often more harsh than kind,
There'd been a wife and a daughter once
But they hadn't been seen in years,
Since the echoing raft of arguments,
Doors slammed, and a flood of tears.
Old Grandpa Bryce had lived in the house
Since thirty odd years before,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Interview with the Executioner
'A very good morning to you, my good lord,
I trust you've been sleeping exceedingly well,
The lodgings are cramped at this time of the year,
Not what you're used to
But now that you're here,
I'll be your host 'til your conscience is clear.'
Sir Francis Throckmorton, in fear for his life,
Stumbled and strained at the chains in his mind,
Eyes black and troubled, a stubble, sore knees,
He'd spent his last night
In the cell, 'Little Ease, '
But two foot by three foot, and full of disease.
Courteous ever, the Rackmaster Norton
Was eager to show off his gadgets and gears,
'These are my children, my lovers, my life,
Caress you and press you,
Impale you in strife,
Persuade you to talk, or distract your poor wife.'
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Devil and Demon Park
The girl that captured my heart, I knew
As Angela Dupree,
She stood at the centre of every group
At the university,
The comb in her hair was tortoiseshell,
Her necklace, crosses and beads
And silver bangles jangled her wrists
While her dress trailed lace at the knees.
The hair that fell at her shoulders was
More silvery then, than grey,
She said: ‘It's a strange genetic thing
That came from my grandma's way! '
We went to the self-same English tute
But she barely spared me a glance,
She favoured the sweatier, sporting type
So I didn't stand much of a chance!
I'd watch her in the refectory
As she sipped her herbal teas,
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poem by David Lewis Paget (3 August 2012)
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The Exodus
I think it began with the airline strike,
No planes, not in, nor out,
The pilots didn't know who to blame,
‘Not us, ' they said, ‘old Scout! '
‘It must be a Union thing, ' they said,
But then the trains had stopped,
And the truckies set their trucks in a ring
That the diesel tax be dropped.
A city of half a million
Where everyone stayed at home,
Petrol ran out at the bowsers, so
There was nowhere left to roam,
‘It could only happen in Westernport,
This City of the Damned, '
The people moaned, and the airwaves groaned,
And the Internet was jammed.
People were phoning the government
But they weren't returning calls,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Grandfather Clock
The old Tudor house was half-timbered and gaunt,
Was gloomy and dim in the hall,
And time had stood still, since my father was born,
In the clock that had stood by the wall.
Its pendulum hung, never making a sound
I'd never so much heard it chime,
But then, on the day that my Dad passed away,
Its tick had begun to keep time.
My mother was dead and my father was gone,
The half-timbered house passed to me,
I wandered its passages, sad and distraught,
As lonely as one man could be!
I'd sit in the lounge and I'd read by a lamp
With the rest of the house cloaked in gloom,
And heard the dread tick of that grandfather clock
As it echoed in time through the room!
Each tick was a portent, the passing of life,
Each tock brought me nearer to death,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Wedding of Jenny McGill
There were red roses, and white roses
At the wedding of Jenny McGill,
For she was a Roman Catholic,
And he of the other ilk,
But the priest had refused the Catholic Church
In the way that it was, back then,
For she was a Roman Catholic,
And he Presbyterian.
But her love had bloomed like a red, red rose
And his love had bloomed as well,
For love is the great uniting force
Of the Lord, this side of hell.
So she baked the bread with her loving hands
And he broke the bread with his,
The love shone out of his Protestant eyes
At the thought of wedded bliss.
Now she'd been raised in West Belfast
And he on the Shankill Road,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Wood of Forgotten Deeds
I'd been depressed for a year or so
For the way ahead was grim,
Each venture failed left a legacy
That had said, ‘You can't come in!
No smell of sweet success for you
But the canker of despair,
Don't hope for wealth or accolades
In your life, they're just not there.'
My wife took off with a businessman
That I once had called a friend,
I hadn't known what was going on
‘Til she left me, in the end,
The lure of money and trinkets turned
Her face from a dismal past,
And her one delight was to scorn me then
When her love failed, at the last.
I often thought that I'd end it then
When my world was black as pitch,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Castle in the Marsh
The Castle out in the marshes ruled
The serfs with an iron rod,
The yeomen, hidden in cottages,
Were careful where they trod,
The soldiers poured from the Castle walls
And rode the peasants down,
They stole the women they caught abroad
And returned to the Castle grounds.
There was only a single causeway that
Was guarded, night and day,
Many a father came to grief
When crossing the moat, to pay,
To save his daughter from certain shame,
A fate that, worse than death,
Was tearing the heart from Amber Vale
As the mothers mourned, distressed.
The Baron, Ralph Fitzherbert held
His acres from the King,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Devil Made Me Do It!
My father said, advising me
On a winter's afternoon,
'If you ever sup with the devil, son,
Then sup with a long spoon.'
'He'll always try to cozen you,
To draw you into his schemes,
Whenever you're down and out, my son
He'll fill your head with dreams.'
'He'll make you feel grandiloquent,
With a power so sublime,
You'll think you're all but immortal, son
As you stray from the bottom line.'
'And slowly, slowly, he will fix
His hooks into your soul,
You'll never notice the hooks, my son
As you head toward your goal.'
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Karma
He looked down over the valley,
Over the verdant green and trees,
And suddenly felt so humbled
That he sighed, and fell to his knees,
He'd only been out a single day
With the world before him spread,
So still he could hear those prison gates
As they'd clanged behind, in his head.
He'd finished his twenty seven years
He'd paid society's due,
Locked in a cell of eight by ten
For the things that he'd had to do,
He'd shown no mercy to Annabel,
No more to the Widow Peak,
He'd drowned them, just as he meant to do
When they'd met, in less than a week.
He thrilled at the thought of their staring eyes
As he held them down in the bath,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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