The Tattooed Man
He looked like a common sailor
As he wandered up from the port,
Carried his swag on his shoulder,
Wore a cap of the jaunty sort,
His eyes were livid and bloodshot,
Staring, under a tattooed brow,
And on his cheeks, a scatter of stars
As seen from an old ship's prow.
He stopped at the Mariners Arms
And bought a room on the upper floor,
Went out and stood on the balcony,
And stared on down at the square,
He'd left his shirt in the tiny room,
His torso, full in view,
There wasn't an inch of his sailor skin
Untouched by a bright tattoo.
His arms were covered in serpents
Writhing up, and under his chin,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Age Rage
I was wandering through the Nursing Home
In the town of Morton Rise,
Seeking an old and weathered face
That I'd known in another guise,
For Richard Spratt was my father's friend
That I hadn't seen for years,
I was going to let him know his friend
Had taken a turn for the worse.
The eyes that stared from the armchairs there
Were blank, and devoid of pain,
They'd taken the pills that dulled them down
So they wouldn't be restrained,
The nurses treated them all as fools
This gross humanity,
Whose only sin was they'd given in
To age, and infirmity.
It was all so very depressing, I
Imagined my future there,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Plot
My class were all slow payers,
And they weren't the best of stayers
When they came along to evening classes
Straight from keeping shop,
So I'd try to entertain them
Though I knew I'd rather brain them,
All I wanted was some input
When their heads began to drop.
'Come on guys and girls, get with it, '
I would clap my hands, 'let's live it! '
'Give me three basic ingredients
You need to build a plot! '
'A beginning, ' said one joker,
'...and an end....' - (I thought I'd choke her!)
But I couldn't get a 'middle' from them,
That was all they'd got!
'You told me you were writers
That you burn the midnight light as
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Lord of Misrule
In the London of James
We ran wild in the parks,
Assaulted the toffs,
Ruled the streets after dark,
We slit many noses,
Ungirdled each wench,
And lifted their kirtles on
Many a park bench.
They called us the Mohocks
We rambled each street,
Tipped many a chair
On its side in the street,
Caused mayhem and riot
And ran with the sword,
Put pastors to pleas
On their knees to the Lord!
When Christmas, it came in
A quiver of white,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Wattle & Daub
She lived right next to the forest
In a cottage of wattle and daub,
A roof of bark and a floor of dirt
With a whisk of milk, absorbed,
Her man had died of a heart attack
For over a year, he'd gone,
Had left her to fend for herself out there
In the shade of a ghostly gum.
He lay right under a stringy bark,
She'd dug the grave herself,
Had made a cross with her loving hands
Deep planted at his head,
On lonely nights she would sit out there
And whisper him under the stars,
'Oh Jim, where now are your strong, brown hands,
Where now are your loving arms? '
She didn't cry, for she couldn't cry
For her heart had turned to stone,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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A Viking Morality Tale
He pulled his woollen jacket on
That stretched down to the knee,
Then donned a coat of heavy mail
And scowled, toward the sea,
A fleet of ships was waiting there
For winter snows to thaw,
Before he sailed for England,
For Danegeld, and for war.
The sons of Ragnar Lodbrok
Took up their beaten swords,
They sharpened up their spearheads
(The manuscript records) :
The sound of bloody tumult
Was music to their ears,
The wives held close the tiny bairns,
Allayed their yearly fears.
For every year the Vikings
Set out to plunder shores
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Ampitherium
The schoolroom overlooked the downs,
The heather in full bloom,
As Paul Remarque sat heavy-eyed
All through the afternoon,
He heard the teacher's droning voice
But nothing that it said,
As trees and animals and birds
Went racing through his head.
No thoughts of plain arithmetic
Had sullied up his mind,
He had no thoughts of nouns or verbs
Or any of that kind,
He sat bemused, and filled his head
With purple daffodils,
With giant gargoyle anthropods,
And distant, flowered hills.
He'd had the cane so many times,
His hands were almost raw,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Mistaken Identity
The mother lay in a stupor filled
With alcohol and drugs,
The twins lay wet in the carry-cot
And screamed at the top of their lungs,
The boyfriend of the moment sat
At a bar in a nearby town,
Drinking away the welfare cheque
And taking them further down.
Sally Pearce was a homely girl
As such, and easily led,
Many a teenage male had found
His way to her maiden bed,
They bought her favours with alcohol
And hooked her on cocaine,
They so befuddled her mind that she
Could not remember her name.
So Jack had her in the morning when
The sun was low in the sky,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Trip to Nowhere
The bus stood still in the cul-de-sac,
He knew it had come for him,
For the colours of day were beginning to fade
And the nights had been closing in,
He'd not been bad, as in 'terrible bad'
Was less than a good man, true!
But the bus stood still in the cul-de-sac
With the legend - 'Coming for YOU! '
He waited there by the myrtle hedge
Then he heard the motor catch,
The driver, he was a terrible man
With a cloak and a hood to match,
He stopped the bus with a squeal of brakes
As the doors had folded in,
And rasped, 'Hey Carcass, clamber aboard
Let the ride of your life begin! '
The passengers sat there two by two
All grey in the fading light,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Barton Leas
You can't see the tiny village
In the bush, called Barton Leas
For it's hidden in a hollow,
Down a track and through the trees,
And you'd pass it on the highway
Never knowing where to stop,
If it wasn't for a broken sign
That indicates a shop.
There are just two dozen houses
By the shop, a little pub,
And an oval with no grass on
All burnt up, just like the scrub,
While the buildings look forsaken
Peeling paint in every street,
And the roofs are made of iron
Fending off the scorching heat.
You would think the place deserted
If you ventured there by day,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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