Gomorrah,Golem,Gonorrhoea,Golly    by  Les Wicks

It came up the valley
with a stone rolling roar beyond metaphor.

We exert so much poetry, so much bullshit
over broken toes & broken hearts that
the truly mighty have no exclamation left.

It came up the hill as we human dials
swung from wonder to worry.
A lifetime noise, unique as a slow flying bird.
An unlistening noise as windows blew &
roof tiles were scythed
like the old wars of trenches & charge.
A storm for the News.

In the morning, blinking neighbours
surprise themselves by introductions....
sharing tales while homes are wrapped in plastic
like salves & blankets for the wounded.

Flesh beaten volvos weave the traffic lights,
past corpses of birds,
drifts of leaf litter.

An odd kind of disaster, severity scored in dollars
somewhere between East Timor & Armageddon.
The papers say "SYDNEY DEVASTATED".

But the coffee still flows,
terracotta consultants
sway in harmony.
Hyperbole beats poetry
as trucks race from Mt Druitt to save us all.

© Les Wicks