When the levee breaks

Zerstörung der Pilzfabrik - Destruction of the Mushroom Factory 20 x 30 cm

SAN ANDREAS FAULT*

A great turbulence runs up and down the body,

fakes right, turns left, then skips past the exit.

We are told by white-coated lab rats

that all this fuss and uproar and poetry is nothing more  

than a carnival of biological fact. Still, music is more

poignant now, metaphors spring up like mushrooms,

a warm wind, rising to the occasion, is like

a hot damp whisper in my ear

conveying all kinds of interesting information.

It’s Botticelli time. The lawn scattered with new flowers.   

I step outside in order to see what the trees are up to, extract

from their arbitrary free-style maneuvers some sense of structure

as if the dry foothills, platinum-colored, rolling down to the Pacific,

as if the heat-thickened odors of crushed sage and eucalyptus leaf

were following a script, a cosmic blue-print, which I don’t buy for a second.

                                                                                               Sweat drying on my back  

and shoulders feels like a second skin, one size too small, too tight:

                                                                                                                   there’s a clamor

of bird song, a rustle in the undergrowth: then the animals stop breathing.

*When the “Fault”(an underground trench that runs the length of California) goes into its ultimate full-tilt boogey mode, anyone who finds himself near that particular epicenter is in for an exciting time indeed. It’s not exactly like falling in love, but it will rock your world.   

Led Zeppelin - When the levee breaks