A City In The Mist

Neither Lud nor London is this town where thoroughfares are floored with mud and skies are roofed with heavy grey cloud. Residents shake their fists and curse the rain never seeing sun. Grey is the city, only relieved by brown where thoroughfares are floored with mud. Bluffs hang over water, heavy-browed and the river downstream carries a spreading stain as far as it runs. Weighed down by water, the bluffs frown as the river rises, swelling to flood and skies are roofed with heavy grey cloud. Cliff-face crumples as if in pain knows itself undone. Slow slide of soil from the cliff’s crown, river water swirls red as blood. Fleeing on foot, desperate, once-proud residents shake their fists and curse the rain even as they run. Now that great strange city is drowned, the folk are scattered by landslide and flood. Like frog and fish in well, that great crowd of people lived as at the bottom of a drain never seeing sun.