Nobody paid attention
when the dogs began to bark,
then whimper.
When the sky leaked wet lavender
into the roiling aubergine clouds
building from the west.
Just another electrical storm,
brewing up an aphasia of boredom.
The wind begins to shift and stutter,
rasping at it's own thin skin,
inflamed and livid,
the breath of doom,
exhaling curls of charred oil
into a malevolent arsonist's sky.
And only then did people look,
with upturned eyes,
as the first elemental rumble shook,
as the dust did rise and drift.
Like the Cyclops, roused from slumber.
At the mercy now
of tectonic grind and shift.
The rock and roll and lift
of man's fabricated structures.
The crack and rupture
of Earth's fragile mantle.
To the screeching music
of the earthquake's horrific canticle.
Entombed in silence,
drowned in darkness,
shrouded in futility,
with only time
to play on the mind.
As the world watches,
as the world waits.
I cannot stop crying,
as little miracles re-emerge
from living hell.
After hope had almost gone.
After many nights and days.
In this brutal land of Cain,
where everything is smashed,
where broken people
sob and pray.
Too tired now to fight another day.