Oklahoma in the Spring

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

Oklahoma in the Spring

 

A young mother cradles her broken child
Amid the fragments of her world, her soul.
Blood drips.  Rain-sodden insulation drips.
Stillness between storms.  The trees are all gone.
A dark Sargasso Sea of shattered wood,
Bricks, clothes, books, toys, rags, glass, papers, bodies.
In the gasping heat the rot begins now.
No houses.  No lights.  A helicopter
Floating valley boys with plastic boxes
Taking cruel pictures and O-My-Godding
For the telescreen (between soda ads).
And in fortresses of personal affronts
Keyboard commandos leap into inaction:

People who choose to live there deserve it.

We told you that global warming is true.
We didn’t have these things ‘til they kicked Jesus
Out of these here schools. And paddling, by God.
It’s Obama’s fault.  Or is it George Bush?
It’s the Republicans. Public schools. Gaia.
British Petroleum.  Coal.  SUVs.
Suburbs.  Not reading the Bible.  Comets.
You’re stupid. Well eff you, then.  Eff you more.

While in the second lowering line of storms

A young mother cradles her broken child.

Tornado Warning

Mack Hall, HSG Mhall46184@aol.com
25 January 2012

Tornado Warning

The scanner squawks in protest ‘gainst the sky,

Shrilling its delicate electronics
In irrelevant made-in-China fury
While dark, Wagnerian clouds fall upon
Our fragile lives, and Wotan’s magic fire,
In slashing shadow-blasts, encircles all.
The wavering weaving of the Norns has ripped;
Wyrd’s wilding winds now warp our weakening world,
Rain shrieks green agony upon the walls,
And even darkness shudders in the rage
Of obscene anvil-music and dragon’s blood.