The Raggedy Man Poem by David Lewis Paget

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.

24 June 2014