To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

From what I remember of yesterday

The world was simply a mess,

Everyone at each other’s throats,

It was awful, I confess.

I thought, we can’t keep living like this,

There’s going to be a war,

Someone will drop a nuclear bomb

It will all be on, for sure.

 

I had a drink with a couple of friends

And we sat discussing our plight,

Nobody wanted to go on home

‘Til the clock had struck midnight,

I felt so tired when I went to bed

And the last words that I spoke,

Were: ‘Everything’s going to be all right!’

In the morning, nobody woke.

 

I staggered out at seven o’clock

Splashed water on my face,

Looked in the mirror, taking stock

With my hair all out of place,

A silence seemed to settle on me

From the road outside my door,

There wasn’t a car to be heard out there

From the morning traffic’s roar.

 

I went outside and the road was clear,

And the barking dogs were still,

Barely a sound but the rustle of trees

In a breeze from over the hill,

I tried to ring on my mobile phone

But the signal tone was dead,

I called my neighbour, over the way

But he lay, stretched out in his shed.

 

I went and knocked at his own front door

And tried to alert his wife,

But she was sat on a couch in there,

There wasn’t a sign of life,

I took the car to the hospital

But the ambulance door was shut,

And not a nurse was on duty there

As the tension grew in my gut.

 

I checked the patients in every room

They lay so still in each bed,

All the alarms were going off,

But everyone seemed to be dead.

I drove in panic each winding street,

But not a soul did I find,

I was the only living man,

I felt they’d left me behind.

 

There wasn’t even a dog or cat

Though I saw their bodies lie,

Just as if they’d fallen asleep,

Forgot to wake up, and died.

I checked the radio in the car,

Each station, nothing but hash,

And TV flickered on empty screens

Though I’d paid the cable cash!

 

Each day I wake to a silent world

Though I cry out loud in my sleep,

I find I’m having to talk to myself

Or forget how I used to speak.

But nature grows in the open streets

And green invades each home,

While waters rise in the dry creek beds

And the rivers are overflowing.

 

There’s eucalypts in the barley fields

And the sea encroaches the shore,

The rain that falls is so clean and clear

That I drink it, more and more.

The stores that sit in the supermart

Went off when the fridges died,

I walk alone on an empty shore

And find I’m crying inside.

 

We thought the world was a crazy place

When the human race was whole,

We’d talk and bicker among ourselves

On everything bought and sold,

But now the earth is an Eden, I

Can’t help but think it’s a joke,

I keep expecting an Eve to appear

Since the day that nobody woke!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Veronica Chandler]

The adventures seem to spill with ease and thrills from your pen; each more grand than the last. I would push all other writes aside to gobble another verse. The pieces you create delight with twists and turns; I crave them like cakes and candies. In a mere few lines I am utterly engrossed, and I don't think you have failed to capture me one single time. Thank you again David for such thrilling ride.

[ROSALIND]

This is an interesting bit of work thought provoking ...please can you review a piece of my resent poems thank you

[Becky C Strukamp]

I get lost in your stories, its as though I am watching a clip of a movie. You take the reader right to the edge of glory! Most excellent rendition of what we could wake up to one day! As always a pleasure to read you David!

[quinfinn]

great horned toads! shades of "Omega Man" and "I Am Legend"! and why do you think you were the only soul spared by this apocalyptic event? this is a frightening reminder of how boys should be careful with their "toys" i even thought about that old Gregory Peck/Ava Gardner movie, "On The Beach"....what a resonant message, written superbly, as usual....

[Marie]

I'd hate waking up in a world where no one else did.

[Emerald Seas]

Careful what we wish for, I suppose. We may receive exactly that.