The Raggedy Man

Driving blind through a flurry of mist

On a road beyond the glare,

I’d left the hurrying city behind

For the peace of who knows where,

There wasn’t a light on the country road

But a glimmer from the stars

Was high ahead where the road had led

To the faint red glow of Mars.

 

I’d had to get me away that day

Or I thought I’d go insane,

My life was sputtering in the gutter

And all it brought was pain.

I’d had my fill of the diesel fumes,

Of the cold, unloving ways,

The condescending, trivial chatter

That marked and maimed my days.

 

And she, the light of my underworld

With the flaming, golden hair,

Had gone with one of the chattering kind,

Had turned and left me there.

The lips that had whispered words of love

Way back, when our world was new,

Had now been pursed as my world was cursed

With her eyes, ice cold and blue.

 

My headlights, dim on the road ahead

Formed a short and rounded arc,

I couldn’t peer past my inner fear

That my road ahead was dark.

The wind blew up and the rain came down

And it burst across the screen,

I couldn’t see twenty yards ahead

So I questioned what I’d seen.

 

A sudden flash on the roadside there

Of a figure draped in rags,

That flapped and fluttered about his form,

A hat with a brim that sagged,

A paltry second I’d seen him there

Then gone, as the car swept by,

I sat in shock, and was taking stock,

Should I stop and help the guy?

 

I’d travelled almost a mile before

My conscience had got to me,

Then turned around and retraced the ground

Where I thought he’d surely be.

He stood alone in his flapping rags

As I turned the car around,

Glistening wet on the darkened road

He stood, not making a sound.

 

He wouldn’t sit in the front with me

But sat in the back, and sighed,

‘It’s awful wet on the road tonight,

I thought that you’d like a ride.’

I saw him nod in the mirror then,

He just inclined his head,

But then I saw that his eyes were gone

And I felt a creeping dread.

 

The things that I thought were rags I saw

Were feathers, tightly sewn,

The feathers of some black, evil bird

That had once both soared and flown.

‘I’m heading North, I can drop you off,

But you’ll need to tell me when.’

He mumbled something I couldn’t hear

And, ‘I won’t tell you again!’

 

His voice sent shivers all down my spine

For it croaked, just like a crow,

Rumbling up from some deep pit

Nightmares and phantoms know.

I kept one eye on the mirror then

As the sweat formed on my brow,

He seemed to sense I was more than tense,

‘You mustn’t be worried now.’

 

‘I’m leading you to a future that

You’d possibly never find,

I wouldn’t normally help you, but

You stopped, and were more than kind.’

He said to turn on a track ahead

And I did, but didn’t know why,

Then saw a glimmer of light ahead,

The flames reached up to the sky.

 

A house was burning, the upper floor

Was bathed in an eerie glow,

I jumped on out of the car and went

To scour the floor below,

A girl lay pale on the kitchen floor

And I scooped her up where she lay,

Carried her out to the waiting car

As she woke, in a mute dismay.

 

The figure stood in the pouring rain

And rustled his feathered cape,

‘Your future lies in your own hands now,

The past is yours to escape.

Be strong and true, it will come to you

That you’ll never have to atone,’

His feathers fluttered, and then he flew,

Leaving us there alone.

 

When people ask how we came to meet

I always let out a groan,

While Amity says, ‘That’s a subject

That we think’s best left alone.’

We might tell them of the burning house,

How I scooped her up from the floor,

But never mention the raggedy man,

His flight, or the clothes he wore.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[cartera]

The pace matches the speed of the fleeing car. The story is imaginative with an almost Victorian ending.
Good narrative poem for reading out loud.

[TPK Stories]

A great story of tragedy and triumph....

[Marie]

It pays to be kind, doesn't it? The raggedy man may have been evil, but whateve rhe had for a heart was touched. Wonderful story.

[Tate Morgan]

Oh yeah definitely Paget And here we see again the great weaving of the tapestry of a tragedy turned to a triumph. bravo