First Foot
Two small brown pennies were thrust in his hand,
Some bread, and a lump of coal,
Our Mam had added a sprinkle of salt
‘For luck, ’ she said, and his soul.
‘The Devil is waiting for you out there, ’
She laughed, and shivered for real,
‘You have to be gone when the clock strikes twelve! ’
She let out a little squeal!
It was ninety-nine; it was New Year’s Eve,
Victoria sat on the throne,
Our house a terrace on Coal-Pit Street,
It was cold and damp, but home.
Our Da had gone as the miners go
Under a fall of coal,
His body was left where it fell that day
They closed off the tunnel wall.
He left a couple of likely lads
That’s Joe, and me, right here,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Stake
The dig was held at Sozopol
Beside the Black Sea shore,
Where Iskra Angelova
Came parading, past my door.
She asked me, was I Stevens,
From the Bramling Institute?
But my eyes were full of lips and hair,
And so I sat there, mute!
She had those Slavic cheekbones
And those bright, wide honeyed eyes,
And a smile that told my fortune,
Partly truth, but mostly lies,
And I knew we'd be together
While we foraged at the site,
So I smiled at her in greeting,
And her eyes beamed in delight!
‘I'm glad you're so much younger
Than that pesky Androvich,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Music of the Reeds
It had been the worst of years, I seemed
To always be in strife,
First my business in receivership
And then my darling wife,
She decided that our poverty,
Once Banks had seized our home,
Was the perfect opportunity
For her to leave, and roam.
So she roamed with a protector,
The accountant I'd released,
When I found that through his perfidy
I'd have to call the police,
He was always just one step ahead,
My wife knew me too well,
So they took the Channel Ferry, left
This fool, to rot in hell!
I was heading for a breakdown,
All this fretting, and the grief,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Gravedigger
I was leaning on my shovel, in a hole
As black as pitch,
With a plug of fine tobacco in my pipe
To scratch my itch,
But I hadn't even lit it when
I heard the voices clear,
'You'll be married on the morrow,
We'll be rich within the year! '
I sat down and there I rested at the
Bottom of the grave
I'd been digging for a friend of mine,
Whose life I'd tried to save,
I could see the figures dimly, talking,
Plotting in the dark,
Then they kissed, and he went one way
While she tripped across the park.
It was not that they were strangers;
Her I knew as Anne Morrell,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Panzer
Gretchen wept in her easy chair
And called for her husband, Karl,
They'd been together for sixty years,
Though both were worn and frail.
They'd met in the ruins of München, when
The Reich collapsed and fell,
Escaped to live in Australia
From their own idea of hell.
For Karl had served in the Wermacht,
In a Tank Corps at Dieppe,
Had served in the Panzergruppe von Kleist
Had roamed the Russian steppes,
His tank had taken him through Ukraine
They'd taken the plains by force,
But found their pain when the Russians came,
In their huge T-34's.
But that was the world of way back when,
For Karl was old and grey,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Fair Exchange
Two soldiers sat in the rubble
Out by the Berlin autobahn,
Schulz had once been an artist, while
Ludwig came from a farm,
They huddled down as the allied planes
Roared over, dropping their bombs,
The war was pretty well done with,
They were going back to their homes.
Their Units long had been shattered
As they retreated over the Seine,
While Hitler raved in his bunker
That they should hold out, just the same,
They knew their lives would be forfeit
If they were seen there, out in the street,
So only moved in the darkness,
Prayed for the peace that came with defeat.
They each of them carried a shoulder pack
Of things they were taking back,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Andamooka Storm
The saltbush stirred in a sullen breeze
At the Coober Pedy Mine,
Where the ground was baked to a shallow crust
With the surface cracked, and lined,
For it hadn't rained for a seven month,
And the sky was clear and blue,
While a spirit crept from the Opal stone,
At Andamooka, too.
At Mintabie, the wind crept out
Of a hole in the sacred ground,
It swirled and it swept across the land
As the spirit scowled and frowned,
It formed a cone and it swept around
To the Andamooka side,
And joined with the Coober Pedy wind
Like a bridegroom to a bride.
The cone spread out three hundred miles,
It growled as it whirled in grace,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Landau
The winter fogs roll in from the Thames
While frost forms up on the eaves,
The damp will settle in aching bones,
While the trees are bereft of leaves;
The streets were stark in the old East End
A footfall echoed and died,
And nights when the homes were shuttered in
They listened to wheels outside.
A Landau, black as the devil's sin
And drawn by a single horse,
Rolled slowly up to The Black Dog Inn
By the side of the watercourse,
When out there came from the bawdy house
In black from her head to tail,
A dollymop with a nosegay,
Wearing a bonnet, black, with a veil.
She'd climb up into the Landau while
The coachman, clad in a cloak,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Crazy Lady of Jiao Ba Lu
Jiao Ba Lu is an ancient street,
The cobbles are overgrown,
A few mean dwellings still bar their doors
The others are falling down;
They say a woman who lives down there
Is three parts gone to the moon,
While children mutter a curse, or pray
When she stumbles out in the gloom.
For Gao Fang Fang has pure white hair
That blows like a ghost in the breeze,
Her eyes are wild, and she never smiles,
And she often falls to her knees;
She falls to her knees with a cry of pain
At visions she only sees,
And wails at night when the moon is bright,
Or shadows form through the trees.
Over the hearth of her meagre home
Is a picture of Mao Zedong,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Hole in the Bathroom Wall
The cottage was old, it needed some work
The walls were of crumbling stone,
The windows, like eyes in a tumbledown Kirk
Were staring, like sockets of bone;
I hadn't much money, I hadn't much choice,
'I'll take it, ' I said to the man,
If only I'd known what the future would bring
I would never have shaken his hand.
My marriage had failed, I had my young son
Just three and a half in the spring,
We bought an old bed and a table, two chairs,
Drove up there and went to move in;
The floorboards were creaky, the walls were damp,
The place was as filthy as hell,
I sat the young lad on the floor by a lamp
And I cleaned, until darkness fell.
The rooms were all empty, they echoed and stirred,
I thought I heard whispers and moans,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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