I don’t know what the flood
is up to today
I didn’t read the morning paper
or hear the radio tell the news about
stealers, rapers, and hurt lonesome people
I didn’t see the T.V. yet so I didn’t see the
latest about the muggers and killers
and the hurt, lonesome ones.
I didn’t want to listen to the flood today.
I wanted to rest from the flood today.
I didn’t want to get lead blind by
the sex jag or pushed around by the war game.
So I sat in a chair today in Ward’s kitchen
and wrote about the flood and the
waters rose up and moved over me.
And then someone turned the radio on
and underneath a blanket the T.V. yawned
and blinked and burped up facts and
I remembered the wind on the road
and I knew that I should be gone.

Ian David Arlett

I tried to write about the sex jag
but the flood just got me down
I tried to write about the war game
but the flood just got me down.
I was about to begin to write “Freedom”
when the flood came around and
took me down the solid gold staircase
again.
There were lots of things I wanted to do
but the flood got in the way
I watched the wind shake people apart
I watched them break and fall apart
Beautiful people broke and fell apart
and then the flood just got me down.
and I went down and drowned again.

Ian David Arlett

When the flood gets me down
I go down and drown
cigarette ashes on the tabletop
one whiskey bottle, half emptied
one more night and
one more song to sing
On my New Year’s Diversion I
snuck out of the flood and
came to the snow maker instead
hidden deep in the earth, inside
some hills, Peterborough, the snow maker
and it was in Peterborough I rested
from the flood: And I rested for four days
from the flood and then
I went back to the flood and
floated around on my pigskin belly.

Ian David Arlett