The Stand-Over Man Poem by David Lewis Paget

He told me that once he’d killed someone,
A long, long time in the past,
He’d held him down and he’d used a gun,
I said I was just aghast.
He said it merely to threaten me,
I don’t know if it was true,
He said if I kept on seeing her,
‘In future, that could be you! ’

He shocked me so that my hands had shook,
I reached and grabbed at his coat,
I said, ‘Don’t ever dare threaten me
Or you’ll feel my hands at your throat! ’
His face went white and he backed away
He wasn’t the bravest one,
But turned to say as he walked away,
‘Next time, I’ll carry a gun.’

I asked Joanne if she even knew
Just what he was really like,
She laughed, and said it was said in fun,
‘Just tell him to take a hike.’
She’d once gone out on a party date
With him, but only the once,
He seemed to think they were drawn by fate,
‘But really, he’s such a dunce.’

‘Do you think that we should tell the police,
You know, it might have been true,
How would you feel if someone died
And all on account of you? ’
‘Believe me, he wouldn’t have the guts,
He’s just a weasel at heart,
Put him next to a skunk, you’ll see,
You couldn’t tell them apart.’

Joanne and I went our different ways,
It hadn’t been working out,
I found her nice but her heart was ice,
That’s not what it’s all about.
She passed me by with a man called Guy
And I wished them well to begin,
She said that Ted had gone off his head,
Had started his threatening.

It must have been only a month or more
That I heard how Guy was done,
His body lay in the city morgue
After a hit and run.
Joanne was almost beside herself
In fear, and took to her bed,
‘It’s true, I should have listened to you,
It must have been Ted, ’ she said.

The Spring had faded to Summer when
I ran into her again,
Clung to the arm of the hated Ted,
I couldn’t believe it then.
But the fear was there in her startled eyes
It was all too plain to see,
He looked at me with a faint surprise
And he said, ‘Now look at me! ’

I wasn’t surprised when the news came down
Along with the winter flood,
A woman ran from a house in town
Upset, and covered in blood,
A man lay stabbed in the bed in there
It seems that she’d cut his throat,
She said it was more than a saint could bear
In a hasty, scribbled note.

I don’t know what will happen to her
They say it’s up to the court,
But I’ll be there as a witness for
Joanne, and the justice sought.
She’d known it wasn’t an idle threat
When she saw what happened to Guy,
And said that he had her terrified
When he mouthed the word, ‘Goodbye! ’

6 July 2015