The town of Theodore, north of Brisbane, is one of many communities devastated after weeks of torrential rain (photo: http://www.bbc.co.uk)
Dream Toll
My girlfriend, shoulder high, spills into a river
paddles people’s homes through a ghost town
she is a swollen snake swallowing up dry ground
come. Who will see her worst bits
abandoned on a murky sunrise?
We people bedded danger and deserted
the surreal barricades of heartbreak.
We never heeded the electricity rising
we waded through plastic and traffic lights
missing the low-focus sirens across a tin stream.
Worse, we expected to balance our mood
on a mooring, to shelter our bodies from bad dreams.
Just browsed your website and wanted to say that my dear, you are a poetry goddess! Love the poems and love the concept.
Sad but sweet. Love this line “she is a swollen snake swallowing up dry ground.” Yessssssss!
Another engaging poem, thank you!
The introduction of the girlfriend, feminising the flood, and the snake link very neatly to flood mythology, particularly indigenous Australian myth. Are you from Austraila? The poem seems very similar to Gunwinggu myths surrounding the rain serpent;
http://absentnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/vivid-wanderings-gunwinggu-rainbow.html