The Hole in the Bathroom Wall
The cottage was old, it needed some work
The walls were of crumbling stone,
The windows, like eyes in a tumbledown Kirk
Were staring, like sockets of bone;
I hadn't much money, I hadn't much choice,
'I'll take it, ' I said to the man,
If only I'd known what the future would bring
I would never have shaken his hand.
My marriage had failed, I had my young son
Just three and a half in the spring,
We bought an old bed and a table, two chairs,
Drove up there and went to move in;
The floorboards were creaky, the walls were damp,
The place was as filthy as hell,
I sat the young lad on the floor by a lamp
And I cleaned, until darkness fell.
The rooms were all empty, they echoed and stirred,
I thought I heard whispers and moans,
The ghosts of the past tried to warn me, I guess,
I couldn't interpret their groans;
I tucked up the lad after dinner, in bed,
And I wandered the house overall,
Then checked out the water, and turning my head
Saw a hole in the bathroom wall.
It wasn't that big, but was over the bath,
I could see through the damp and the rot,
It wouldn't take that much to fill it, I thought,
Then I took a long walk, and forgot;
For days I was painting, cementing and fixing
The cracks were all over the place,
But never a thought of that hole in the wall -
To my ultimate shame, and disgrace.
Outside the cottage, a paddock ran back,
All burnt up and brown in the sun,
There wasn't a leaf or a stick that was green
The summer had barely begun;
Old pieces of iron lay thick on the ground
And lizards lay under their shade,
I should have been warned, but it just didn’t dawn
On me then, to my utter dismay.
A month had gone by, the weather was dry,
So hot that we suffered like hell,
I drew a warm bath, only tepid and low
So the lad could cool off for a spell,
I reached for a towel, but nothing was there,
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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