Witching Kate Poem by David Lewis Paget

Whenever I went with winsome Kate
She'd say, ‘I'm a witch, and that, '
And while in bed, with love in my head,
All she would do was chat.
She'd chatter about the latest spell
She'd found in her old Grimoire,
While I would lie, and dream of her thighs
And hope she'd surprise me there.

And so she did, a number of times
Each time that I'd reach for her,
Like shifting sand, I'd find in my hand
A handful of pussy fur,
The black cat under the counterpane
Would wriggle and spit and scratch,
And I'd withdraw, away from its paw
I'd find it more than a match.

Then she'd go on about frogs and spawn
While up above in her flat,
And hanging down from her ceiling fan
The nastiest looking bat.
‘I hope that's not going to drop on us, '
I'd say, but she didn't care,
It often lay on her pillow case
All tangled up in her hair.

‘Wouldn't you like to make witching love? '
I'd say to her, in despair,
While she would lie, with spells in her eye
And some that would really scare.
She said she needed to concentrate
And would make some terrible moans,
They seemed to come from the mantlepiece
Where she kept a pile of bones.

She called them Fred, he was certainly dead
And he stared at us from above,
She'd cry, and say that there was a day
When he was her one true love.
But he'd fallen into her pickle jar
One day, when casting a spell,
And she'd pulled him out, too late, no doubt,
He'd pickled his way to hell.

I bid farewell to my witching one
Before I suffered his fate,
I'd prayed for love to heaven above
Knowing it was too late.
She'd filled a cauldron with toads and newts
Then turned and reached for my hand,
But I had fled, the moment she said,
‘Now all I need is a man! '

4 January 2017