"floodwaters" poems
There's a moment when everything accelerates
And there's no questioning, things just are.
Madly. Frantically. My mind gyrates;
Playing wildly, dancing upon each single star.
Blurred vision precipitates the tears
As I freeze, knowing in my heart of hearts
That each word falls upon belligerent ears,
And takes second place to your townhouse art.
What pain could Monet paint when floodwaters
Rise, and it becomes clear that the clearest
Understanding lies in the theatre's
Eyes? The curtains fall to the finale's dearest
Friend, and it's there I pretend that it's just a natural disaster,
That this is a craft I still find hard to master.
Aug 4, 2014
Aug 4, 2014 at 5:29 PM UTC
You caught lightning in your mouth
and kissed the world a thunderstorm
All Four Winds bleeding out,
moment by moment
and stilling the night;
instill it with silence.
Infuse it with waiting
bait our breaths--
_--The ocean's saline, and
I'm surprised to say,
it seems to like us.
Lips can clamp or loosen,
catch and hold or unleash.
Choose one?
it's catch-and-release._
I gulped wondering into my mouth
and I spit out an omen.
Dolmen smile fading now;
twin teeth releasing
floodwaters
from this tomb door of a frown.
Quell the squalling night;
implanting our silence.
Infused with surrender.
Hold no breath.
Anyway...
We don't check on each other...
_...or look at our neighbors._
Yesterday's just that, friend.
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 3:19 PM UTC
The heavy downpour
took longer,
easily, it spread all over,
the weight of water,
drenched the ground,
the plants.....it doused
the body and
silenced the mind.
I stared
at the gloomy, grayed
horizon...while rain
poured without end.
the water level
rose...and swelled,
all active and dormant fears
lost their tethers
and darkened the floodwaters.
It seemed, the sky
really needed to cry.
and here we are, humans,
twisted...tangled up in the chaos
of a grieving universe.
With just thin raincoats
and light scarves as shields,
how do we escape the aftermath
of life's heavy downpours?
For lots of reasons, the sky
disencumbers...and cries.
sally b
© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
August 31, 2022
Aug 30, 2022
Aug 30, 2022 at 9:45 PM UTC
I’ve got fifteen years tied in knots
of green and brown and I have
decided that it is time for a change
of scenery. So I climb onto the roof
and pretend I am a chimney, spewing
smoke of blue and grey and lung cancer and
voggy Hilo mornings. A helicopter
circles overhead at an altitude of 805 feet, its
searchlight catching the neighborhood
lying spread-eagled on the living room
floor, brutally desecrated and left
bare-bones to die. I am a catalyst,
an instigator, a cynic with a palm tree.
Today I read an atlas and find
naught but “A Hui Hou” scrawled across
the pages in black pen. I burn the
book, the bridge, and the old tires in
the backyard.
On Saturday it rained and the floodwaters
took my bicycle.
Sometimes I sit by the roadside reading
Bukowski with hibiscus in my hair and
Indiana in my eyes. Hunting dogs
clash with rescue dogs at the house
with the stop sign. The moon falls
from the sky and engulfs the mynah
birds and the plague. The floodwaters
recede and leave a jigsaw puzzle
on the slopes of Mauna Kea. “I am not
afraid,” I say, “for I am only gravel.”
I play the eight-bar blues on Fortieth
and sing songs of drugs and missed
connections. I am hit by a truck and
a little gold car, but I proclaim myself
immortal as I am flattened to the pavement.
I am the Ki’i Pohaku beatnik, and
I write of nature and nurture and
the never-ending rain.
Someone has painted my walls blue
and my hands grey. So I pack my suitcase
and run down the highway for
seven thousand miles and all I see
are mistakenly-numbered houses and
blank maps and dead neighbors
from families I used to know.
There are torrents of rain now,
forming puddles in the forest.
I know the reason. It is twelve
in the morning.
The neighborhood grows obscure.
We are demolished.
May 5, 2011
May 5, 2011 at 1:13 AM UTC
A slow-rising migraine seeps into my head
As toxic floodwaters that fill the rooms of my home,
Seeping into my skull with powerful fingers
Like heat-seeking needles to pierce the calm quiet
Of a relaxed and peaceful reverie.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
A father carries on his shoulders
his 3 year old son,
as the father walks waist deep in
monsoon floodwaters
seeking to escape the floods
and carry his child to safety.
Monsoon floods
happen every year in India
and every year people are in flood-distress.
I wonder
what is the solution to flood-distress?
Better infrastructure like concrete drains
linked to concrete waterways
linked to reservoirs
which save water for the dry season?
I wonder
who will build this infrastructure?
How will this infrastructure be built?
Who will pay for this infrastructure?
The development of poor nations
like India
is a mystery to me.
I wonder
how poor flood-prone villages in India
will develop the needed infrastructure
to prevent monsoon flooding?
Jul 21, 2019
Jul 21, 2019 at 7:36 AM UTC
All I want
is to dig you up
Push you out of my skin like oozing
pus, watch with intent and disgust as you
slither away from my desiccated corpse
I want you out of my head, I want you out of my
heart; I can feel the home I made for you in them
and that’s just it, it’s all my fault
I wanted this
It all flooded at me
and the floodwaters never fell away
Never ceased, constantly rising within my bones
Growing, reaching outward, mighty waves built
only to crash down upon a wavering shoreline
I did this all to myself in the end and you were just a part
This mess
is all mine to mop up,
so, I still cannot find all the words
to mend my own scars and I still
pick at the scabs and I still have not
found the right way to dispose of your dying memory
but it’s a start, a step that I’m taking to kick up some dust
I'm sorry
I just don’t think I can live with a definite noose around my neck
Ready to step off some creaky chair at every notion of
the lack of your affection
DDD
(11/9/2013)
Nov 9, 2013
Nov 9, 2013 at 11:08 PM UTC
We the people,
floodwaters rising over Kansas City banks
and marketplace levies,
are channeled into rooms
the size and shape of shadows
to be given direction,
to give direction;
waiting our turn to be
churned through turbines.
Our mass is growing stagnant
by this massive
**** This feels like surrogate thinking.
Our water is wasted on greco-roman men
chopping up districts into blues and reds
dividing and conquering the ocean.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
Erasure & Found Poem from
"On Photography By Teju Cole in april 16th new york times magazine
--
You were The fast moving disaster of a tsunami
added to the slow motion disaster
of a nuclear calamity
Towns flooded
Infrastructure wrecked
Forests splintered
more than 15,000 people dead.
earthquake cut off
my external power supply
Floodwaters damaged my backup generators
Disabled it's cooling system
Overheating ensued
Fuel in three reactor cores melted
Releasing radiation
Everyone saw The water coming in
The roads swept away
Towns and harbors destroyed
Extensive documentary work
was undertaken by photographers
Of the ruins,
Debris,
Cleanup and relief operations
The gut-wrentching scale of destruction
The professionalism of the emergency crews
The fortitude of the survivers
The extreme uncertainty I feel
in our current political moment
helps me understand for the first time
the curious twinship
of mourning and premonition.
Information
about the tragedy
Sorrow for the suffering it caused
Gratitude for the work
that makes sorrow visible
Foreboding about the future.
An alert flashes
your phone
Something terrible has happened
Far away, a flood, an airstrike,
Soon, there's footage of people picking through wreckage
what used to be their homes
It is easy to pity them
Difficult to imagine this will be you
Suddenly bereft of a solid place in the world.
Listening to anything
that touches on the sublime
makes me apprehensive.
Like The silence that greets us
waking in the middle of the night
Apr 17, 2017
Apr 17, 2017 at 12:57 AM UTC
There’s so much I wish I could say
But as the dam holds the floodwaters
It shall cease till the day breaks
And the waves finally crash down below
Dec 31, 2020
Dec 31, 2020 at 1:47 AM UTC
You call and say I'm aberrant
You don't wanna be stuck indoors deviating
I don't like your storms
I miss your floodwaters
I need an affectional sleet
I miss your earthquakes
Then you came with all your quaking
You must think I'm an aftershock
You must think I'm abnormal
Now I can't find the volcanism without you
Volcanism without you
Queer and two
Like the ingenue over slew
Subthalamic and cuckoo
And I'm dancing because you're undue
Twisters ain't nothing when I'm betraying with ya
Gay
Do you mind if I steal a permafrost?
I miss your downdrafts
Calamities are not safe
I don't like your cataclysms
And every homosexuality is failsafe
Then you came with all your frothing
You must think I'm a calvinism
It's time we had some infernos
Will you hold me tight and not go flaming
You don't wanna be stuck indoors backtracking
When I'm shaming with ya
Shaming with ya
When I'm with you, all I have is inappropriate thoughts
It's time we had some embarrassments
I'm rebuking 'til dawn
Na na na na gay
Na na gay
Like the tray over buffet
Na na na na gay
Like the valet over heyday
Transgender and ok
Got more halfway
May 8, 2019
May 8, 2019 at 5:59 PM UTC
"She...she. . .
loves me!
He says it just
- like that!
As if he had practiced it
and had got it
- down pat!
Or as if he were saying:
"Pass the coffee ***
Or as if...
...I didn't!
I watch him
distorted in the coffee pat
a short stout man
a little man with a long face.
I want to laugh but
I have lost my laughter.
"My...sister! My...twin!...The *****
"Go!" I tell him "...just: go!"
He: went.
She felt like an android
or replicant rather..
She thought of her
self now
in the( "Absurd!" )3rd
person singular
as if she had fallen
out of her self.
He: gone.
All those moments
lost in time
making love to Wagner's
Tannhäuser
( screaming the house down )
always his laughter
her music
stars dancing over
the Bridge of Sighs.
A Santa incredulously
in a gondola
singing Santa Lucia.
"So...
me d'oh!"
she hummed.
This the little song
of her self.
"So mi doh!"
trying to keep its head
above the floodwaters
of belief.
Bladerunner rewound 99 times
to that END.
All those moments
...lost in time
like( cough)tears
in a glass of
red wine.
May 16, 2015
May 16, 2015 at 3:31 PM UTC
my feet had barely greeted california
when my face matched the new summer,
cheeks blooming uneven,
eyes green as moss
and every face i glared upon
avoided looking too long.
walking through my least favorite airport
chin high, silent and ugly and wet,
i grieved for myself, i pitied my future, and mourned my past.
something lodged in my throat screamed with more assurance
and clarity and confidence than i have ever known
"this is not where i belong!"
i cried for my feet no longer squishing silica on white beaches
old skin disappearing in tiny fish
or kissing rainforest mulch, under-dressed in flipflops
taunting flora and fauna and fate
i cried for my skin, abused and bronzed
exfoliated in world heritage parks, the first shower in days
and oiled from water crossings in a run-down four wheel drive
a beard of blemishes i didn't bother to hide.
i cried for my ears, robbed of every accent,
of the crashing waves and roar of waterfalls,
or the same six songs played in every club in cairns
and the pterodactyl screech of flying foxes.
i cried for my hair, for my hands, for my nose.
i cried for my mouth and my tongue and my legs.
mostly, i cried for the death of laughter that started in the
pit of my stomach and rose up like carbonation
to my chest and my lungs and my neck and burst
like floodwaters in dorrigo
the elation and exhilaration and euphoria of being alive
that spilled out of me in screams and shrieks
and bubbled and flushed and insisted
so fiercely so strongly so urgently
that to relent was not even a choice but a right
and then half a year later
i sat dully in a fluorescent corridor at my transfer terminal
feeling my heart retreat, defeated
dreading the long months ahead
promising nothing but drudgery and boredom
letting the tears drip onto my boarding pass
black ink lamenting, too
and not a single person approached
or spoke to me
until i asked to wash away the moment
with a diminutive bottle of ***
a mile from the surface.
Jun 19, 2015
Jun 19, 2015 at 2:37 PM UTC
Every night I have dreams
Of storms
Savage
And ravaging
Everything I love
Tornadoes carrying off my mother
Baby bobbing in the floodwaters
Dad
Under the logs of the house
Calling out to me
And I’m searching frantically
Eyes on the sky
All the time tasting the salt
Of the rain
The sting
Of the cuts in my lips
But there is no lightning
In the storms in my mind
Did I ever tell you I got struck by lightning
Seven times?
Once
On the couch at your parents house
The first time
I felt your heart beat
Next to mine
Twice
Fogging up the windows
On a December night
My tears on your shoulder
Your kiss on my forehead
The third time
So far from home
Wrapped in your jacket
Smelling you on my skin
As I fell asleep that night
Four
We were saying goodbye
Without saying anything
And two hours away
I was thinking your name
Five and six
You pulled me out of mom’s car
Took the keys
Awake in the spare room
All night long
Braiding my hair
Feeling my collarbones
On New Year’s Eve
You brought me home
From St. Anthony’s
Like nothing was wrong
I was still beautiful in your eyes
So you carried me upstairs
Tucked me in
Whispered love
And it was only eleven
Central time
Then the seventh time I got struck by lightning
My heart stopped beating
I stopped breathing
I said “yes”
Imagining the day I’d say
“I do”
And designing my new tattoo
You looked into my eyes
Took my hand
And said “I’m going to take care of you”
“you don’t have to worry ever again”
But now old fears come flooding back
Love washed away like debris
In the scenes from my dreams
I’m looking for lightning
And getting soaked
On my porch in North Carolina
Knowing I’ll dream of storms
Again tonight
Praying I’ll feel a little jolt
From the dark beside me
The voltage running through my skin
Is the same as yours
500 miles away
Asleep in Missouri
Mar 19, 2012
Mar 19, 2012 at 4:02 PM UTC
Capitalizing on the cuts, Trench deep, hiding painful emotions as they seep. Playing peekaboo with blood that seems to trickle through veins, wishing only for it to course like the floodwaters of torrential rains. A noose tightly wrapped with imaginary hate, contemplating as a never blunted edge waits. Wanting only to release what cannot escape from inside, slowly deciding if it's worth it to.......try.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 12:57 PM UTC
Imagine yourself knee deep in floodwaters. Imagine yourself rescuing an old lady and her cat from a burning building. Imagine yourself actually living in a gutter.
Imagine a plane with no pilots. Imagine the moon, both sides. Imagine everything had changed; realize all of it has stayed the same. Imagine being drafted. Imagine war. Imagine the warmth of a room after coming in from the snow.
Imagine a grave, a shallow one, for me, or you, or no one. Imagine health. Imagine longevity. Imagine vanity.
With a knife to my throat, you ask my to say the alphabet from Z to A
With a gun to the head, you ask me to count the productive conversations between the two of us
Being that this hole belongs to me, imagine me lowered. Imagine dirt. On me. Worms, in my skin. Out of empty sockets and back in again through my ears. Forming a circle. Imagine me pounding, screaming to escape. Imagine red, blood. Imagine the end of the world.
Nov 16, 2014
Nov 16, 2014 at 5:50 PM UTC
There is a time to Reveal,
There is a time to Conceal.
There is a time to Stand in the Light,
There is a time to Search in the Darkness.
There is a time to Will as we know how,
and to Work with all the Might in our Arms.
There is a time to Yield to the Storms and Floodwaters,
and Surrender to the Thrills and Joys of the Fearsome Whirlwind.
There is a time to be Silent and Distanced,
and be Disciplined by Patience and Perseverance.
But there will be a time when Perfection is Restored,
Forgotten the Impossible Chasm
between the Glimpses and Glances
of the Desire for Oneness
in the Eyes of All Given Us,
And a Chorus of a Myriad upon Myriad of Angels shall Sing,
And Life shall be truly Life.
May 10, 2019
May 10, 2019 at 3:49 AM UTC
There's a limit to your love | There's no limit to my love
Like a waterfall in slow motion | Like the floodwaters in motion, or
Like a map with no ocean | A vast and placid ocean
There's a limit to your love | There's no limit to my love
Your love, your love, your love | My love, my love, my love
There's a limit to your care | There's a limit to your care
So carelessly there, is it truth or dare | I thought it was there, is it truth or dare
There's a limit to your care | There's a limit to your care
There's a limit to your love | There's no limit to my love
Like a waterfall in slow motion | Like the tidewater in motion
Like a map with no ocean | Adrift on this calm ocean
There's a limit to your love | There's no limit to my love
Your love, your love, your love | My love, my love, my love
There's a limit to your love | There's no limit to my love
So carelessly there, is it truth or dare | You had it for years, these are my worst fears
There's a limit to your care | There's a limit to your care
Aug 4, 2017
Aug 4, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC
angles of presupposed superiority
in floodwaters i am thrown to you
torched the abandoned barn in the middle of the woods with you last night
you said you'd never forget it but you'd try and i said nothing to you
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 11:11 PM UTC
#*All these thunderclaps
Yet all I applaud for is you
All these floodwaters
And my overflowing emotions
All these rain noises
Yet all I hear is your name*#
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 8:16 PM UTC
Abandoned,
Stranded on my own,
The pressure kept building,
The floodwaters rose,
You went and left me on my own,
Fled this mortal coil,
Now I'm broken, rust eternal,
I'm corroding in my mind,
You ******* left me stranded,
I might have done the same,
But this life held me like a briar,
Hooked into my flesh,
I could never escape,
Though the hooks are falling out,
Rotten just as I,
Never could come soon,
I'm doing in with doubt,
I'm scared for my friends,
Terrified for Family,
This thing that I could do,
The same as done to me,
You ******* left me,
Went without a word,
I told you I cared,
A brother you were,
To more than your blood,
A brother to me,
Tears came as a flood,
Now I'm a canyon,
Empty and dry,
I'm ******* empty and the alcohol isn't enough anymore,
All of these memories,
Would I be better without?
I miss you so much,
So very ******* much,
I ask why but you could never answer,
I can't answer,
All I can say is I'm fine and I'm not,
I lie with a smile,
I hide all the rot.
Jun 12, 2017
Jun 12, 2017 at 1:00 PM UTC
Good for Nothing
I have been up for an hour now
And I haven’t done anything constructive
I threw on some ***** clothes
Made coffee
Took a walk
When I got back, I turned my computer on
It flashed its reminders and appointments
“Do this. Do that.”
Deadlines and commitments
I clicked the little button that says
“I’ll be there”
But I’m not there
I’m still here
Guilt inexorably and surreptitiously
Seeps through my defenses
Like floodwaters through sandbags
Showing me its mirror
With its version
Of who I should be
But the dogs lie peaceful at my feet.
The cool morning air caresses my cheek.
The sun proclaims that the new leaves
are a thousand shades of green.
The birds scold me
for sitting too close to their food.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 12:46 PM UTC
Today, I hope you realize how much you are loved
And it sets off a spark inside of you that burns brighter each minute
A spark that turns into a fiery warmth from the inside out to warm your hands and melt your pain into a wax candle of memories
A fiery warmth that never goes out
Not even when floodwaters rise to your chest
Today, I hope you realize how much you are loved.
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 9:55 AM UTC
The sky was foreboding as we set sail
Dark tendrils dominated the horizon
And the telltale BOOM of distant thunder
Predicated a storm we will never forget
In defiance of mother natures fury
We pushed on
Uncaring and willing to face whatever
Obstacles she dared throw our way
Be it hell or high water
We would not quit
Neither the first disrupting sprinkle
Nor the darkening gloom could dissuade
The course we had set
As a cool chill began to soak to the bone
We yelled at the doom:
"Is this all you have to offer?
Nothing easy is ever good!
This temporary drizzle
Will never sour our mood!"
As if in response a thunderclap rose
And white lightning lit up the riverbank
Illuminating the disappearing islands
We had so stubbornly named
Engulfed by the swell of oncoming
Floodwaters filling the river to the brink
Pushing us ever onwards towards
Bank after bank
Hoping to capsize or submerge our hubris
For a monument to all who dared challenge
Her wrath
We yelled at the monsoon:
"We see you there
In the miniature big bangs
And the millions of bouncing diamonds!
We see you there
In the rising depths of oblivion
And the countless tons of tears!
We see you there behind it all
And we still love you
Mother nature dear!"
We yelled until we were mute
We rowed until our hands seized
We shivered until we were frozen
We pushed on never to be seen
May 15, 2017
May 15, 2017 at 4:45 PM UTC