The Wake

We’d been at sea on a cruise ship,

Some days to Paradise,

An island in the pacific

Of beaches, trees and spice,

But storms, they were foregathering

Not just for the ship at sea,

For frost with us was travelling

Inside Caitlin and me.

 

With eyes averted we rarely spoke

There were demons in my head,

For she would flutter about at night

Not join me in our bed.

The ship ploughed on through a restless sea,

While the clouds outside were grey,

And I began to regret that we

Had chosen this holiday.

 

I woke each morning before the dawn

And not a word was said,

For Caitlin lay, facing away

On the far side of our bed.

I’d roam around in the early hours

The silent, deserted ship,

But a life aboard alone, it sours

By the fifth day of a trip.

 

The clouds grew dark, enveloped the ship

And mist lay deep on the decks,

While down beneath the fathomless sea

Lay a thousand sunken wrecks.

A thousand wrecks of hopes and dreams

That started away like this,

Lost forever beneath the sea

At the lack of a touch, or kiss.

 

We sailed, we sailed, by God we sailed

With our heartsick contraband,

For days we sailed as the storm winds railed

But we caught no sight of land,

We caught no sight of the what-we-were

Before, when our world was new,

For love was blind in the mist and wind

That sailed with the cruise ship too.

 

Surely there was a meeting point

Between the land and the sea,

But the ship sailed on with our tempers gone,

We sailed in misery,

A day beyond our arrival point

The Captain came to say,

‘The land has gone, there’s something wrong

We were due there yesterday.’

 

Wherever we looked about to see

The sea was all we saw,

I’d turn and spin, keep my hopes within,

All hope had flown before.

We cruise around in an endless sea

With never a sight of land,

And nothing is left of what was ‘we’

It’s buried in sea and sand.

 

Buried alive in the sea and sand

With a frost that shatters the eye,

Gone with the hope of sighting land

Between the sea and the sky.

We’re drifting now, for we’re out of fuel

In a world of liquid pride,

With she content at the prow of the ship

And I with the wake that died.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Barbz]

We often plan a get-away, when life becomes humdrum. Best intensions on our minds, like times when "we" were "one". Cruising was their trip of choice, Paradise to see. But choppy seas brought icy stares, and Love was not to be. With storms on hand, no sight of land and tempers start to flare. Rapport was naught, they missed a Port, victims of Neptune's lair........better Luck to you characters, D.L.P., on their next vaca.......Barbz

[Ellen Hammond]

Wow! This stirs all kinds of thoughts and emotions. I can't help but think it was a ghost ship caught in the nasty weather for eternity, with the ghost of a marriage that was also shipwrecked. Love your poetic tales!

[Marie]

It seems to me that the ship and its disasterous voyge are symbolism for a relationship gone wrong. It goes nowhere, has no future, is sustained by nothng.

[R Smith]

lovely David, i think you sailed into the Bermuda Triangle, but oh dear to spend eternity with your loveless wife, more astounding story telling bravo :)

[Valentine]

Wonderful and a very well written tale. I am just thankful it is not the truth as you managed to land on the earth again. There are too many great lines in this one to point out a few. Very nice write. Kathie

[MomzillaNC]

Another matchless write. Sometimes, I wonder what your wife thinks when she reads writes like these, if she ever takes it personally…

If it was me, I wonder if I'd be confident enough not to take it as some kind of commentary.

[Lizardo]

What a twist at the end with the captain saying that there was no land and sail in the ship for days an days.
Another great poem David, Fine piece of work!