The rain pounces in violent waves, stripping trees 

and bursting streams with a torrent of pine and clay. 

Venomous snakes thrive, slithering across 

the crumbling sky. Ahead of us, sparkling crack-offs 

contort in a demented dance of electric shocks 

on the pulsating path of blood-red mud and boiling 

incisions. Beside us, a thirty-foot beam of timber 

splinters and careens down the roaring forest river 

as snapping branches fly at us like swirling black 

vultures attracted to our stumbling, bleeding lives. 

Why is this happening? I scream as the slashing 

wind slices at our skin through soaked clothing. 

Bracing, we are forced to face our wretched lies

as the storm, like a panther, snarls across the sky.

****

Categories: Poetry, Selection: 2018, Uncategorized