Bad Blood Poem by David Lewis Paget

Stars clash, and pale moons
Gloat over you, my pretty witch
While brooding shadows of the loom
Reflect you in some shining dish;
What vivid patterns of despair
Have you designed to harness me
Within the ever-changing snare
Of your disingenuity?

Your rage has torn the tattered storm,
The sheeted sky I crawled beneath,
While slatterns, with some jealous dye
Have stained us, injudiciously;
Of all I left behind in you
Some slim deceit has marked your moan
To wean you from disloyal truth
And cast you from your tragic throne.

Embattled clouds stretch you ahead,
Gales whip you onward, as before
The tides conspire with your desire
To drive against a dismal shore;
You sit astride the wreck of dreams
Like some grim ruin, at the flood
To loose the rusted anchor seams
And leave sad tidings, in bad blood.

29 July 1980