Night Mites Poem by David Lewis Paget

I'm sitting alone in my easy chair
And the lights are turned down low,
Listening to the midnight hour
As it chimes, so long and slow,
There's a sudden whirr as the hammer lifts
And a click before it strikes,
A startling boom from the brazen bell
That echoes throughout the night.

The page of my Daily Journal lies
Unwritten upon my desk,
I'd meant to write something infernal
But my thoughts had been burlesque,
I hear the whispers of tiny folk
Who laugh, perform and rage,
All hanging about in the darkness
As they try to get on my page.

There's Pixies, Elves and Trolls unseen
And a couple of monsters too,
And there in the background stands the Queen
Of the Kingdom known as Loo,
The Dwarf of the Seven Rings is there
And the Land that Time Forgot,
And a flower girl from Trafalgar Square
With a bunch of forget-me-nots.

I wave my hand and they disappear,
Go grumbling off to tea,
I haven't a use for them tonight
And it all depends on me,
I'd rather look for a murderer,
Or a villain, up for the chop,
As the hangman carries his length of rope
While calculating the drop.

There's such a babble of voices in
My head, I can barely think,
My pen has leaked in a giant blot,
I reckon it's out of ink,
A bride climbs up and she claims the page
And she drags the groom on board,
The only preacher I see out there
Is a Cardinal with a sword.

A train steams down in the valley
Puffing smoke rings up at the moon,
I cross the Cardinal off the page
And then get rid of the groom,
I take the bride on a fearsome ride
Through the Valley of Discontent,
While she sits glum by the window, says:
‘Is this what you really meant? '

‘Who knows, ' I said, ‘I'm only the scribe
That sits here holding the pen,
You people come from an alien tribe,
Far from the world of men.
You saturate my horizons and
You fill my eyes with tears,
You live on the border of every page
And have, for a thousand years.'

The clock struck one and I fell asleep,
Was slumbering in my chair,
You tried to wake me up from a dream
With curlers in your hair.
I woke with ink on my fingers as
The pen crept over the page,
And read the words it had written there,
A poem, fit for a sage!

10 January 2013