Jack Ketch
I was only sixteen, when I was seduced
By a woman of thirty-three,
The Governor's wife at the Prisoner's Ball
And she offered to dance with me,
I blushed, I stammered, and hung my head
But she moved with a fluid grace,
She took my hand for the Colonel's Waltz,
And squeezed in a warm embrace.
I did the odd job at the prison then,
Just sweeping and cleaning the yard,
Carrying messages round each wing
But nothing you'd call too hard,
I'd sometimes go to the Governor's House
To help with the garden there,
And I'd see his wife, sweet Caroline,
As she sunned herself in a chair.
She would lie in that part of the garden
Shaded cool by an apple tree,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Great Eastern
The bones of the great and troubled ship
Lay under a greying sky,
I'd travelled on up to Liverpool
To see the monster die,
The wreckers were ripping the hull apart,
Were opening wounds of old,
Not only the bones of a rusty ship
But the bones of a tale untold!
My mind went back those thirty years
To the time when we built the ship,
When I was a poor, young riveter,
Just out on my maiden trip,
I'd found some digs in Millwall,
Right down in the Isle of Dogs,
Where the Thames sweeps on forever
In a miasma of mist and fogs.
I moved on in with Ted and Jane,
The Lamptreys they were called,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Lightning Jack
The air was still, the eve was chill
And the Elders forecast rain,
They looked to the distant rolling hills
At the ominous cloud that came,
The doors and shutters of cottage folk
Were slammed and barred in the dark,
With the first of the lightning forking down
On its way to the village of Stark.
A figure stood at the crossroads there,
And stared at the cloud in dread,
His boots were muddied, his topcoat wet
And his hat just drooped on his head,
With thunder rumbling like a growl
At the back of the Devil's throat,
The figure dropped to his knees and howled,
In a long and a high pitched note.
The crossroad gibbet was made of oak,
Had carried a hundred moans,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Reluctant Visitor
The Reverend Peter Porter Guys
Was a gentle man with anaemic eyes,
Pale blue, that watered wherever he went
From Epiphany, to the fasting of Lent.
He walked the villages of his flock
From door to door, from knock to knock,
And always he mentioned the Organ Fund
To the full of life, and the moribund.
He went from house to house with glee
Consuming hundreds of cups of tea,
And never noticed - and there's the rub,
That 'hubby' had gone to hide at the pub.
The ladies listened with wringing hands
To the trials of Job and the Lord's commands,
And simpered long in the hopes that he
Could give them a personal 'Heaven' key.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Lost August
‘No, it’s not that I want to be awkward’,
He began, as he stifled a sigh,
‘Though I don’t understand your intentions,
And I’m not even going to try,
I will bow to your final decision
In this, as in all we have done,
Only, please try to show me some kindness
As the man you once loved for your own.’
She looked from the living room window
Her arms tightly crossed at the breast,
Her back was so sternly toward him
That he feared for the worst, (and the best) ,
‘There once was a time, ’ then she halted,
Some things were left better unsaid,
Then she sighed, ‘Well, it’s just for one Christmas...
Then she snarled, ‘But I wish you were dead.’
And he smiled, as she turned back to face him
In that wistful expression of old,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Return of Jonathon Grise
I stood on the porch
Like one in a daze,
And stared at the oak panelled door,
She'd shut it so quietly, there, in my face
That I just couldn't take it on board.
Her face was composed, but determined I knew,
Dismissive, but what could it mean?
The wedding we'd planned for the Spring was no more
Said the love of my life, Annie Deane!
I stumbled on out
In the gathering gloom,
And winter crawled into my heart,
The night was a portent of shadows and doom
As an owl fluttered past in the dark,
Storm clouds were filling the evening sky
And the wind set its wail in the trees,
The name of a monster was echoed out there,
The name of one, Jonathon Grise!
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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The House of the Scarlet Moon
I fell in love with a Chinese girl
Her name was Chen Xiao Fei,
We worked together in Middle School
In the Province of Anhui,
She'd join me in my apartment when
The working day was done,
But never would take me to home to meet
Her mother, Chen Shaojun.
Xiao Fei was going on thirty, which
Had meant, in Chinese terms,
That she was a spinster, on the shelf,
She had no marriage plans,
I asked her once if she'd marry me
But she laughed and said, 'No way!
My mother would jump from the balcony
If I married an old Yang Wei.'
I called in once to the family home
To win her mother round,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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