A Tale Will Tell

He was only a simple storyteller

But looked much like a clown,

He wore red, yellow and jingle bells

When coming to our town,

He’d sit outside by the wishing well

And gather up all the kids,

Who’d laugh, and clap their little hands

At everything he did.

The parents, they didn’t like him much,

Their eyes were filled with fear,

They thought, like the Pied Piper, all

Their kids might disappear.

He seemed to be so harmless, though

He won their trust, despite

The stories that he would whisper by

The wishing well each night.

He set up a little pay booth at 

The well, and scrawled a sign,

‘I only charge but a dollar each

For the stories that are mine.’

But no-one left any money 

At his tiny little hut,

So everyone woke one day to find

Their doors were nailed shut.

And then they found in their gardens

There were strange things in the ground,

All their veggies were growing square

That should be growing round,

He told a tale of ungrateful folk

Who proved to be so mean,

Their square was filling with artichokes,

Their lawns were blue, not green.

He asked, would nobody pay him

For his stories and his verse,

They said there wasn’t a way in hell,

But he could do his worst,

The beer was turned into water down

At all the local bars,

And when they went to go home, they found

They couldn’t start their cars.

They dragged him before a magistrate

Who said, ‘You’re quite a threat,’

He jingled his bells and said, ‘Oh well,

You ain’t seen nothing yet.’

The bench the magistrate sat on

Was wood, cut down from trees,

And suddenly sprouted branches

Five feet high and thick with leaves.

They couldn’t admit what he had done,

He’d made them look like fools,

He had a rapport with nature and

He’d modified the rules,

‘I’ve only to tell a story, it

Becomes a new creation,

Anything that I want, I get

From my imagination.’

Everyone pays their dollar now

The streets are neat and clean,

The carrots aren’t growing upside down

And even the lawns are green,

But everyone’s still suspicious when

It comes to telling tales,

They still remember about their doors

And hide their hammers and nails.

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A very good tale written. I enjoyed this tale. Thank you David for sharing the excellent poetry.
Coyote

[TPK Stories]

Good story David as always

[Strider Marcus Jones]

You are up there with the best poets writing today David. Magic.

[Frozen Eyes]

"He had a rapport with nature and
He'd modified the rules"
Just took my breath away!