Flood------------

Flood-----------------------------------------

Houses topple one over the other,
like neatly spinning dice within an ellusive game
of ordered chaos.

A mist of splintering glass spews forth propelling large picture windows into ferocious marriage with crumpled pick-up trucks
and crushed children's toys.

Trust and faith in all things permanent
are viciously raped into submission
as once sturdy oak trees symbolising
ever-lasting permanence take flight.

Victims which lay in their path are instantly transformed into shredded and bloodied stumps.
The howling, screaming wind suggests the worst is yet to come.

Layer upon layer of torrential rain threatens
to burst the few remaining dams and shelters.

Millions of gallons of water cascade,,,
"Helter-Skelter" through once stable communities with an armipotent resolve which is equal
only to that of the "great-god-all-mighty", himself.

When all is said and done,
decisions which have been made in haste, (like for example whether or not one had turned right or left, at the last street crossing)
play their part merrily in determining who will survive natures tempestuous rage and who will not.

We, who live in and around nature,
know all too well of it´s insidious timing
as it vents it´s wrath upon sleepy villages
and bustling cities around the world.

Old and familiar landmarks are wrenched abruptly from their well established positions,
and distributed with metioric velocity
through the air with a vengeance.

We witness the unfolding Armageddon
with a mixture of awe and sheer terror.

Once dry computers and micro-wave ovens
adapt to their new environments submerged beneath a newly-begotten "Sea of Galilee".

This newly spawned eco-system extends through village after village, blanketing once prosperous farmlands with tempestiouess rolling waves.

The unprepared are delivered to hardship
and hard times.

In the blink of an eye ominous darkness descends downward through skies which moments before heralded crystal blue tranquillity.

The churning of a great and powerful energy produces a statement of gale force winds.

Wind,is a phenomena that can be neither seen
nor smelt.

It´s effects though, are manifest within a wall,
swiftly moving and unstoppable, whose impact is immediatly felt.

Survivors of such a cataclysm are those
possessing a mutable resilience and flexibility.

Humans function efficiently untill the floor beneath them is transformed into the wall
against which they are leaning.

Or suddenly to become the roof under which they are standing.

The faint moaning in the background
of the family pet as it´s life slowly expires
beneath the weight of a hobbyists workbench,
perched atop the roof of a battered
and war-torn Cadillac,
could be a distraction to some
in thier efforts to re-assemble what no longer exists.

Sheathed beneath a camouflaged mantle
of copper rain gutters,
broken plastic toilet covers
and the neighbours shrubbery;
a lone telephone pole emerges
from a wet and dismal quagmire
blending (almost) unnoticeably amidst the
carnage and destruction strewn rudely about.

Once identifiable streets and pathway´s
are lost forever in the swiftly changing scenery.

Once great symbols of our material success
and security lay helplessly intertwined-
straining beneath the mayhem.

The children of violence have rollicked gleefuly
thru the wilderness
and we´ve inherited the flip-side of all
that once was---------------nice.
Good night.

This text has been inspired from my experience in the great flood of 1982 in Deep River,Connecticut in the United States and was completed several days before the flooding of the Rhein-Mosel rivers in West Germany, 1994.