Perfidious Paradise Poem by Blair Gowrie.

The golden rays of the morning sun
Descend from on high and fall upon
The long beach lined with tall palm trees
Their green fronds swaying in the breeze,
The dark blue sea, little crests of white,
The silver shore stretching out of sight,
Paradise on earth it would seem to be,
What peace, what calm, what serenity.

But are there people enjoying this?
Yes, you can see them motionless,
Pale bodies stretched out on the sand,
Sun-lovers lined up on the strand.

Then instant pandemonium
As a giant tide comes raging in,
A seething, swirling, swarming mass
Carrying all before it in its path,
Thrusting people, cars and trees
Violently forward amid the pleas
Of those in the water, half dead, half alive,
Clutching at straws in a bid to survive.

In eerie silence the waters peak,
And slowly at first begin to recede.
Then faster and faster with a loud sucking sound,
Their vicious current vacuums the ground,
And sweep out to sea, to surge back once more
To deposit their victims back on the shore.

Again the pale bodies are there on the strand,
Lying there motionless on the wet sand,
Just as before, except that instead
Of their being alive, now they are dead.