The Clock in the Norman Tower

Down in the village where I grew up

That sat on the eastern shore,

Viking marauders had once shown up

To raze, to pillage and more.

They cut a swathe through the countryside

And the least that they did was rape,

To leave descendants with flame red hair

From Skorn, to the Widnes Cape.

You’ll see the genes they left in our eyes

That startle you when we stare,

A brighter blue than the summer skies

Will follow you everywhere.

Then some had come to settle and thrive

While the local folk would cower,

They left their mark in the village park

By building a Norman Tower.

I don’t know when they added the clock

It must have been later times,

I only know that as I grew up

I lived my life by its chimes.

It boomed on out through the countryside

Would even sound through the night,

We found it safer to stay inside

Than risk a dying in fright.

The strangest things had happened at night

That seem aligned to its chimes,

When ghostly shapes would gather and fight

Drawn back from previous times.

And men were found by the Norman Tower

Their faces twisted in fear,

Their bodies hacked, stabbed in the back

But the swords were never there.

It almost always happened at ten

And just when the chimes rang out,

I’d lie abed, counting the chimes

And hear a desperate shout.

It got so bad that a friend and I

Decided to hide and see,

We climbed at nine to the top of the tower

To check on the mystery.

We hung on over the parapet

That, castellated in stone,

Would let us view, if anything new

Appeared at the final tone.

The vicar rode outside on his bike

Just as the clock struck ten,

And suddenly there, in front and behind,

An army of fighting men.

They knocked the vicar clean off his bike,

And sliced a sword though his head,

Then hacked and thrust through his mortal dust

To leave him lying there, dead.

My friend cried out, on seeing the blood,

He couldn’t disguise his fear,

While I shrank back, with them looking up,

I said, ‘They’re coming up here.’

He made a dash for the tower stair

Intent on getting back down,

They must have met at the halfway mark,

I found him dead on the ground.

The coroner said that he simply fell,

He wouldn’t listen to me,

He ruled the vicar was murdered in

What seemed was a mystery.

But someone must have listened to me

For shortly, up in the clock,

Somebody wedged the workings tight

With a huge old hickory block.

There hasn’t been but a single chime

From the tower clock since then,

Those ancient hands still stand in a line

At just one minute to ten.

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A amazing story my friend. I must find time to order more of your books. I love how you make the characters come alive to the reader. I like this tale and the standing time on the clock. Thank you David for sharing the amazing poetry.
Coyote

[Tony Jordan]

One of the best DLP.
Wordsmith extraordinaire.

[A Soap Mess Stories]

Another good story David....