One Lonely Night Poem by David Lewis Paget

I thought to write of love;
And did, until the critics tracked me down,
To warn me of the blackout in the town...
No lights above.

No lights above, no voices raised in praise,
No worth in words, no thought for life or love,
But scarecrows that will turn away the birds...
On silent days.

And love then wheeled about,
To threaten of some dull monopoly
To halt my pen and stall my mastery,
And turn me out.

There’s little love to write;
Distemper is endemic in the race,
And jaundice is a peril of the eye,
To leave us stare at some receding face...
One lonely night.

25 January 1979