Flood Pushed Mud Rush Poem by C Richard Miles

Yesterday the fill-well, drain-fill rainfall fell all day, with fat drops
That bullied full gullies at the roadside, as the road sighed, to run deep
And rough-pummelled the runnels to funnel the washed trash
From storm-swill swept sundry muck, stones and mixed grit
As dull grey as scud-clouds and as crud-brown as dun cows,
To run down in glum abundance, a turd-tide, on the kerbside
To shutter sludge past gutters and blocked drainholes with silt filth
As the mud rush slopped dollop over dollop, grudged its flood gunge
To the bottom of the steep slope by the mill-bridge till it could plunge,
A deep tea-tinted slop-fall of a waterfall through the chopped gap
In the grey gritstone bridge-bones to the hectic running wet beck
That fleck-foamed with the mad rush of soft moorland marsh mud
Mixed with grey mush which slush-gushed where sharp showers flushed dust.
But today, today, scowling foul clouds loured moodily subdued sad grey
Since they were not the matt black that yesterday sapped the soul’s joy
And today, today the drizzle snivelled for a while then slunk away silenced
Abashed it could not match that full-on fall-down flood-town, gone now,
Rain of yesterday, that pounded with summer thunderstorms our drowned town.