The Shading Out of Poetry by Deadline

Like old-time washerwomen floodwater is sousing trees and shrubs out on the drainage. Floating wrack dribbles seaward from their labour.

Last time rains poured day and night in this way, the country was refilling after years of drought. This deluge spreads mirror over roads.

Human effort gets its pages turned and blanked under microgroove and parchment is how media display our towns. Tornado, tsunami are words we hear

at home, that were exotic in teapot times. Downpour and inferno are states that people drive between, discarding their senators and whitegoods.

Global warming’s chiller wintertimes rule both hemispheres. Arizona snow golf, Siberian wheat, English vineyards stricken by blizzard in their chardonnay.

Sports folk touching pharmacy face ruin: arts folk taking drugs may boast of it. Slapped mud makes Saharan cities cool but this week HIV spared an infant.

Families are steered by suicide bomb and cargo cult to set sail. But HIV quit an infant.