Black Tide

I never was one for warnings

Never could see the way ahead,

I always thought that the dawn would bring

Glad tidings to my bed,

The sky lit up and the stars went out

As the sun came up each day,

And so it would for a million years,

Or so I heard them say.

 

The grass was green and the sky was blue

And the earth a dirty brown,

Nothing was going to change my view

While the earth and the stars went round,

Each day had followed the day before

The months were bundled in years,

And if I wished I could draw them out

Like the coins in a long-loved purse.

 

Then you walked onto my palette brush,

Were painted into my life,

I’d never seen beauty such as yours

That hadn’t been someone’s wife,

You said your name was Ophelia

And you took me on for a ride,

While friends had muttered aside to me,

‘Beware of the long Black Tide!’

 

I couldn’t see it, I never could,

To me you were just a dream,

Your star had lit up my neighbourhood

But nothing was what it seemed,

You borrowed money from everyone

With a smile and a ‘thank you, Jack,’

And spent in rivers that rose in flood

But I had to pay it back.

 

Your smile was a smile for every man

But the women had seen you through,

They caught you out when you held a hand

Beneath a table or two,

The days when you said you’d stayed at home

With a fever, taken a pill,

I swallowed, while you were out to roam,

You said you’d been feeling ill.

 

Then often I saw your eyes were bright

Though your speech was a little slurred,

I thought you had drunk too much that night,

You’d stop, you gave me your word,

The laughter grew a bit wilder, and

The parties you went to, gay,

I couldn’t keep up with that side of you,

I had to work by the day.

 

I felt that a tide was rising, that

Was colouring everything black,

The world was a sad and grimmer place

As you slowly turned your back,

I’d fret as the conversation died

And you made each lame excuse,

As rumours brought the conclusion that

All that you were was loose.

 

One night you rode on a Harley, with

Your scarf adrift in the breeze,

On the back of a bike with Charlie

With your skirt up, showing your knees,

You waved and laughed as you passed me by

And clung to the fellow’s back,

He took you down to the woodlands there

Along the old farmer’s track.

 

They phoned the news in the morning, I

Was shaken, pale and tense,

For he was impaled on the handlebars

And you on a barbed wire fence,

I knew that you had been lost to me

When you went on that final ride,

And the gorge had risen to choke me like

The surge of a long Black Tide.

 

My heart is grey and it’s leaden, while

The land is riven with drought,

The sky is grey and forbidding, since

The stars in the sky went out,

The days still follow the days before

But there’s darkness here inside,

And I ponder more as I walk the shore

On the number of times you lied!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[David Scott]

It seems the tide does rise all manner of "ships". We never want to admit the facts even when they ride by on a Harley with their dignity bare...
I liked how the fates were left to deal their own justice here.
One more very fine poem to press into the bank of fond reading experience.

[Enid Blake]

Dark days... and nights!

[sue]

Brilliant and so sad. Reminds me of Karma.

[Jack...]

Loved the line, "with a smile and thank you, Jack". It seemed familiar to me. Isn't this a fine kettle of beans and our hero finds that the darkness still sits on his shoulder. I think he would be wise to smile and rejoice in what the earth has now given him.

Anoter fine epic poem

[spiritwind]

A grievously sad tale--Ophelia's alternate ending.

But still bouncing above all the darkness of the destruction this woman brought was this: " Then you walked onto my palette brush,
Were painted into my life,"

I envy your pen.

[Marie]

This is a somewhat depressing poem. Men are fools--alas, so are women. It reminded me of Kipling's "There was a fool/ And he made his prayer..."

[Draven]

I want to cry with head in hands, i want to scream and laugh and dance. This is true poetry, and I am privileged to be able to read something like this. I am a bit depressed now, my day darkened by the gloom of this writing. However, it holds much beauty, and that sheds in some light.

[Emerald Seas]

Great writing, David. What a tragedy. We don't see the negatives in those we love. A Universal truth. Personally, I can handle all sorts of things, just don't lie to me. That's the killer. Another wonderful tale.