No-Name The Cat

The cat and I stare at the room
No-name the cat, the cat and I,
She stares at me, I at the gloom
The house lies still as a vaulted tomb.

She sits and waits, No-name the cat,
Sits and waits for a sign from me
But I in the corner chair am sat
And make no sign for No-name the cat.

We’re all alone, alone are we
No-name the cat, the cat and I
Only the two, No-name and me
Yet once in the past we numbered three.

Now on the floor, between us two
No-name the cat, and me, lies you.
Your eyes are staring, your cheek is slack,
Your tongue’s thrust out and your face is blue.

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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To My Wives

You may believe, my ladies dear,
I took away your sun,
To cloak you in my darkness
While our time was left to run;
You may believe I took your youth
And brought you to despair,
But that was not my purpose;
It was life that took us there.

The old recriminations
That have saddened all my years,
As each and every one of you
Went off, in search of tears,
The old recriminations, using
Truths I can’t retract,
Come back to haunt me, every one:
‘Was I as bad as that? ’

The life that is behind us now
Is locked in some old hearse,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Beached Morning

Steel grey above;
We tripped the silver beach
At some crisp, splintered morning
Traced beyond our line of reach,
We breathed the fluted air as if
In some remembrance
Of dreams once dreamed, let slip and tossed
Beyond deliverance.

And rivulets of cold did etch
Stark patterns in the sand,
While silence tugged at rock and pool
To spill their contraband;
I stole for you a morning shell
That caught the coloured sun,
But dreams and shells once dreamt and thieved
Mist over, every one.

The sea will lap the sandbar
The sand catch at the foot,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Larkspur

Words roll free from a tongue sometime
From a sometime, tongue-tied tongue,
Words that were heard by the stream and the bird
When the world and the wild were young,
When the world and the wild were young, sometime…
(Larkspur, marigold, ebony, lime) .

Sounds that were born in sweet young breath
In a bubble-sighed, trouble-tried time,
Sounds that were found by a child at the breast
In a bubble-tried pantomime,
In a bubble-tried pantomime, no less…
(Nightshade, cinnamon, green watercress) .

Love is the sound of a word, soft-said
From the lips of the love you too,
Love is the dove of the bubble-thought read
Soft sift from the me to you,
Soft sift from the me to you, soft said…
(Homespun, empathy, marmalade, bread) .

poem by David Lewis Paget (16 December 1973)
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Black-Haired Girls

The black-haired girls are graceful, like gazelles,
Their haughty stares would strike a ‘lao wai' blind,
As they cruise on through streets, where rubbish spills,
Ignoring all, the poverty, the slime.

In knee high boots and skirts that lift the thigh,
In leathers, black, and frills and pretty lace,
They swing their hips so slowly, to invite
The dreams of men, who marvel at each face.

The teeth so white and straight, the lips that curl
In condescending fashion at each gaze,
The one brow arched, as if to look on down
From some great height they fashion from each frown.

If Gods and Godesses have ever walked
This petty planet's poor and pitted earth,
Those Gods have gone, the Godesses remain,
To haunt old men, who worship at their shrine.

poem by David Lewis Paget
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Does She Stalk Pathways

‘How much we change...
I well remember when, ’
She said -
But that was years before
And now, she’s dead!

Who was she - why,
And what to me,
Who once lived, died,
Yet stirs my memory?

A brief spark, struck
From some ancient flint
That caught, soared, burned
Cooled,
Teetered at the brink;

Then sputtered, died
Leaving no mark,
No trail beyond the heavens

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Father & Son

There is the family photograph
That is your father’s face,
There is your father’s father
Grey-gathering years apace;
The son, bright-eyed in the morning,
The father, lined and drawn,
The son became the father
On the day that you were born.

We’ve all set out on the highway
Our fathers wished us well,
The sons became the fathers
In the same distinctive spell;
The road of all beginnings
Is all there is to lend,
But many a twist, and many a turn
Has marred us at the end.

He was my father’s father,
I am my father’s son,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Contract

I see with eyes
Not of my conception.
I steal sighs and weave why’s
Wrought from some disaffection with your
Wherefore’s and therefore’s, and buts
Ifs, ands, hands and thighs.

Am I to lie, dissatisfied
In tides of life’s distractions
With your ‘what’s more’s’, cricket scores
And less of interaction with your
Lipsticks and silk slips, and knees
Tongue, tights, slights and flaws?

This contract slips
Contrasting inclination
With my part clause, refer yours
Regarding dissipation of my
Needs, pleas, misdeeds, and tears
Ties, lies, sub-para four.

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Isabel Allende

I did but see you once, and that
Upon some distant screen,
You spoke of life and love, and death,
And wickedness, supreme;
Your eyes reflected truth and pain,
Of life's relentless round,
Where happiness is one brief glimpse
Before death puts us down.

You spoke of your dear daughter
How she passed within your arms,
How sudden stillness stayed your grief
And soothed your vague alarms,
You fear not death, nor even life
You said, and won my heart,
For such as you inspire the few
Too timid to depart.

Your face reflects the aura
That we see in ancient saints,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Sink Or Swim

The sea of storms came in
To batter our barley coast,
I was determined to sink or swim,
You to be drowned, and lost.
The lightning struck at our moorings,
The thunder silenced our needs,
The wind howled out our candles
And darkness caught at our creed.

But he was tossed in the fury,
Our love, our darling boy,
He clung to the drifting flotsam,
He clung to the well-loved toy.
One minute in every moment
Is lost to the best of men,
One moment of rage and anger
Cost me my lovely son.

The years went by in a whisper
A whisper of wind, and gone,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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