Down…down…spinning
And plummeting
Down
Into this strangely familiar place.
Nothing is as it should be.
Here should be a sea of faces.
And there, a typical Bourbon Street scene.
Nothing is as it should be.
A savage wind rages around,
Ripping and tearing at everything.
Nothing can stand against it.
Nothing…nothing…completely
Devoid and
Empty.
City streets painted in shadowy shades of grey
Indistinguishable from the swirling, ominous sky.
Dusk melts into night which fades to day.
Limbs strain to whisper to their roots; a sign
That she’s there and it’s time.
Strangely familiar is this ghost town.
Silence reigns in place of city sounds.
Empty houses with closed eyes
Meet their fate and founder,
Inundated by the surging tide.
Look past the once crowded streets
To higher ground
And find that this isn’t quite a ghost town.
A call for evacuation came too late.
Few fled; circumstances forced most to stay.
The elderly and the impoverished, social outcasts,
Hunkered down, packed into a last resort public place,
Praying the storm’s fury will quickly pass.
A savage wind howls and screeches,
Pushing the sea further inland,
Turning streets into newborn rivers.
Terrible…terrible…absolutely
Empty and
Terrible.
City streets filled with the dead;
Corpses face down in river-streets.
Survivors desperately wishing they’d fled,
Not wanting to hear the frantic screams
Of the un-resigned, living-dead’s pathetic pleas.
What was once part of the sea, the hand
Of Triton has reached out and reclaimed.
Succumbing to the waters, a modern Atlantis
Crumbles and sinks to its awaiting place
Beside the golden palace, beneath the watery day.
