The Chapel

The road was a-twist and turning

As I crested the mountainside,

The sun in my eyes was burning

Then it set on the hills, and died,

The night had settled into a gloom

As the moon rose up from the sea,

And then in the dark, an ancient tomb

Appeared in front of me.

It stood in the grounds of a chapel

That was ruined and empty now,

I stopped and I ate an apple,

To quench my thirst, somehow,

I parked the car by the chapel gate

And ventured to look around,

When by the light of a flimsy torch

I caught at my breath, and frowned.

The name on the tomb was Tangell Garth

An inscription said below,

‘He lived when the giants roamed the earth

Till the Floods had laid them low’,

And there on the top stood a mighty skull

With a long, extended dome,

I thought it was sculptured, till I looked

And saw it was made of bone.

Its eyes were the size of dinner plates

Its jaw like a dinosaur,

With teeth for ripping and tearing like

Had never been seen before,

A bitter breeze then began to blow

And soon it began to rain,

I sheltered then in the chapel,

Before hitting the road again.

The chapel walls were of mud and stone

With the roof part fallen in,

A smell rose up from the bracken floor

Like some odour of ancient sin,

But by the altar a graven beast

That must have been ten feet high,

Stood scowling down like the skull I’d found

On the terrible tomb outside.

And on the altar were running stains

That first I had thought were mud,

Until I had shone the torch on them,

And then I could see, were blood.

Such ancient stains sunk into the stone

They never could wash away,

As terror entered my very bones,

I needed to get away.

Then lightning flashed in the evening sky

And lit up the graven beast,

For just a moment, suddenly I

Was there when it came to feast,

A ghostly girl on the altar screamed

As a blade ripped through her throat,

And blood dripped out of the sculpture’s mouth

From a thousand years, at most.

I ran headlong from that chapel as

The thing began to roar,

While thunder crashed and the lightning flashed,

I ran to my waiting car,

I’ve looked in vain for that place again

When the sun was bright and high,

But never remained when night would reign

For fear that I’d surely die.

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Einstein Noodle]

David!!! i have missed you and your story telling poetry .. I have been thinking of you for a month or more but could not remember your name and did not have you in my friends .. so sending a FR .. i followed you before as i subscribed to your work ... i hope you accept my FR so i have another way to find you :)
what a fine and ghastly tale the "Chapel" is! i don't think i would, like your hero, search for it ever ...daylight or not ;) hope all is well with you and your family ... i see you have changed your avatar .. very distinguished sir!
E.