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.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

A look into night and her seeking of victims, well done, good read.

[minisla]

We are foolish beings to fall for love. Great poetry.

[A Soap Mess Stories]

Good story.

[Adam Lebzo -RonninWarri..]

Unbelievable!! So entrancing indeed, David!!
So thoughtfully written...

[The Witness]

Wow. This is very good. It is really cool when I can see the poem being played out in my mind as I read. You are an incredible writer and this poem about love, lies and fate is a wonderful play on modern television. =) God Bless.

[quinfinn]

i am a firm believer in the karmic wheel. i have lived long enough now to have seen what happens to people who have hurt others and i loved this write because it reminds me that there are some stories i can tell. very nicely penned!

[Valentine]

Funny how something can grip one so tight that they cannot see through onto daylight until something bad happens.Trying to folow one into that dark tide can only drown you along with them..lifes lessons are often learned the hard way..Like how your descrtiptive words made up this story line..God bless..Kathie

[Tate Morgan]

On the road tonight but loved this one oh so many times we play the fool yet youth can afford it so glad I'm old enough to avoid it so easy to see when another is being used so hard from the inside out to see what is so evident to everyone else I'm in the Carolina's tonight near mt airy the town later to be called Mayberry in the fictitious All American dream of Andy Griffith something about this town holds onto me with a vice it oozes goodness to this day as I just passed aunt Beas kitchen talk to you tomorrow you know if circumstances were reversed this tale would truly fit my daughters boyfriend he is the dark black tide

[Natasha]

Amazing what you can write about with one simple theme, as a Black Tide. It really encompasses the whole feeling of this poem. Human interaction and the feeling of bad things happening to someone that has clearly done wrong. Sometimes things are so blind, when we want to believe what our heart believes and not what our head thinks is right. I also think the first few stanzas has a Shel Silverstein feel to them, which is always a good thing!

[roarke]

A very karmic piece. Once reality sets in, truth comes pouring out. I'm always amazed how you build your pieces with such interconnected conflicts in life and portray them so clearly and creatively. Excellent stuff.