Payback!
We'd flown on up from Townsville
To patrol the northern gulf,
It was just a routine flight, and we
Felt lazy, after lunch,
With a pale blue sky above us
And an azure sea below,
I just felt like turning turtle,
Napping out, while things were slow.
I remember that the Beatles came
Across the intercom,
Sang a song from Sergeant Peppers
Of some Lonely Hearts Club Band,
I was down there in the nose cone
Strapped and buckled to my seat,
Feeling warm and safe and cozy
In the tropics, in the heat.
While down in Carpentaria
The water was sublime,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Twin with the Purple Heart
One of the girls had unblemished skin,
One had a purple mark,
But for the stain on her shoulder there
You couldn't tell them apart.
While Jane was born at quarter to three
Joan was at ten to four,
Jane was destined for wealth and fame,
While Joan would be always poor!
As Joan had cried, the mother died,
The bombers were over the town,
The hospital where the daughters lay
Was hit, came tumbling down.
An aunt took Jane, and headed north,
A nurse took Joan due west,
So one was raised in a simple home,
The other had only the best.
The Marchioness of Huntingdon,
The title was left to Jane,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Ice Man
From Cap de Hault to Frenchman's Lease
Lies seven miles of moving ice,
A lady comes there once or twice a year
To view that precipice.
The glacier, that tortuously
Grinds along that deep moraine
Is known to all as 'Adam's Fault',
And Eve despairs the bleak terrain.
Eve Grise de Mare du Montalban
The countess from her place of fame,
Who played coquettish with her fan
When first to Adam's Fault she came.
Gervase and I both courted Eve
But she played him, and then played me,
The contest was uneven, for
Gervase was old nobility.
We both enjoyed a hearty climb
And took our contest to the 'Fault',
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Silvertongue
He came down from the mountainside,
His beard was white, his hair was grey,
He brought his retinue of priests
All buckled in a warlike way.
They strode into the village square
And said: 'Now listen, everyone,
Just gather round, pay heed to him,
He's come to warn you - Silvertongue! '
His brow was cold, his face was grim
And we were silent in his stare,
We didn't make a single sound,
Stood hushed within the village square.
His priests were stood with weapons drawn,
Their swords and helmets bore a spire,
And on their breasts, the holy sign.
The symbol of St. Elmo's Fire.
'I am the Word you must obey, '
He said, in tones that chilled the soul,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Taking Root
I'd seen Lianne at her cottage door
When I'd walked the old bush track,
The cottage had been abandoned, but
She was gradually bringing it back,
She painted it and she patched it
There was nothing she couldn't do,
I even saw her up on the roof
Repairing a faulty flue.
I simply waved at the girl at first
And she'd smile, and wave on back,
She must have been used to seeing me
On that little-used outback track,
I wondered why she would settle there
In a cottage, out on her own,
I never saw anyone else to share
The place that she called her home.
I stopped, of course, and I spoke to her
Once I'd passed a dozen times,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Jus Primae Noctis
(In medieval times, the right of the
Lord of the Manor to spend the first night
with a peasant's bride) .
John and Jayne at the altar stood,
To put up their wedding banns,
In the Church at Haversham, Holy Cross
On Sir Robert de Courcy's lands,
When a clatter of hooves on the cobblestones
Brought dread to the open door,
As the Lord of the Manor came striding in
And planted his feet on the floor.
He looked at the two with a great disdain,
His hand on his scabbard sword,
His knights stood silent across the nave,
Not one would utter a word.
His voice rang out in that hallowed place
As Jayne cowered down, distress'd,
'I come to claim the Lord's First Right
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Gypsy Twist
The gypsy walked at the shingle,
Her dress flared out in the breeze,
Her hair tied back with a coloured scarf
As she wandered at her ease,
She fed the gulls at the water's edge
And she gazed back, moodily,
Where the Master of Harrington Hall was stood
As he watched her, through the trees.
While back at the house there, on the hill,
His wife sat in despair,
She'd worn her prettiest dress for him,
She'd combed her auburn hair,
She'd flushed her cheeks with a touch of rouge,
Her lips were gypsy red,
But she hadn't attracted a single glance
From his lordship's noble head.
He'd taken her as a child, and taught her
How to walk with grace,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Love, to a Fault!
They met at the Station of Henley Scarp
Set deep in the countryside,
He told her he'd meet her in London Town
When the hue and the cry had died,
The train pulled in with a blast of steam,
The carriages ground to a halt,
He was sure to tell her to change her train
When she pulled in at Bishops Fault.
They stood at the empty platform then,
And ventured a parting kiss,
He'd always remember the touch of her lips
As a promise of future bliss,
The guard appeared with his little flag
And signalled the train away,
As he hurried on back to the waiting car
On that fresh, first day in May.
He checked his watch, it was four o'clock,
They wouldn't have missed him yet,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Guardian of the Pit
He'd worked at the pit since he was ten,
Was quite at home in the dark,
Worked by the light of a miner's lamp
Avoided the slightest spark,
He chipped away at the face of coal,
He chewed tobacco, and spat,
His face was black as he wandered home
With pride in his miner's hat.
But the mine had closed as it petered out
And the miners went on the dole,
While Jack Coltrane had fretted at home
For his work was his very soul,
The entrance tunnels were sealed up tight
And the Colliery wheel was stopped,
It sat like an aging dinosaur
Set high on its wooden props.
The miners drifted away for work
The walls of the houses cracked,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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A Penny for the Guy
(Ever remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot,
We see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!)
I was sorting through my father's things,
A month since he had died,
And flipping through the books he'd loved,
To still the chill inside,
When out there fell a photograph
Of me, at nine years old,
A tiny square of black and white
That made my blood run cold!
It brought the memories rushing back,
For in that ancient scene,
I stood before a building that
Would make an old man scream,
An air raid shelter, from the war,
A roof so flat and square,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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