Poem: Hydrology

This poem was inspired by the rubbish weather we've had in the last 18 months. Here's hoping this summer is a bit better. (It can start improving this weekend if it wants!)

It started with a trickle
a gurgling murky drain
growing to a puddle
as it gathered day-fresh rain

But muckle's born of mickle
and it grew in strength a while
recruiting Neptune’s army
in every sodden mile.

and with every drip incessant
dam walls grow ever cracked
with a blockage in the system
probing water has a knack
of finding other ways –
in drips and drabs and drams:
Hydra's subtle gain
in this land of silent dams.

Lochs brimming on the blockage
and a landslide in Argyll
dams cracked fit to bursting
tides flooding up the kyle

amongst damp grass and stonework
of the headrace, concrete stained
gravity shouts “join me!”
to the waters just contained

and from rivers gorged with silt
and the sky burst into rain
from sink holes to sink estates
the deluge comes again!

weeds are growing
trouble sowing
wind a’blowing
dams o’er flowing

rivers rumbling
drains a'mumbling
culverts crumbling
rain keeps tumbling

Raise the gates!
Flood the valley!
Save the rich!
On hillside tarry!

Innundation!
Saturation!
Enroaching sea!
Sunken nation!

And now Westminster's flooded
the gunpowder unblown
our streets and fields are flooded
the barrier overthrown

high water walled with sandbags
comes welling out the drain
and all around the North Sea
one phrase remains the same
"I have a boat! I have a boat!"

oh rain!
Forty days ago I saw
beyond the Brixton riot
a fish-bone sky.
But, ere we see the sun
Avon be Avalon again.