God's Chaos/1. Poem by beresford mitchell

She held on as tightly as possible.
Nothing would ever take her child away.
Nothing.

A feudal lord would never come between them.
Nor a drunken husband.
Or a difficult health system.
No drought.
Not even the prospect of another child could wedge between them.
She held it's little hand as tightly as possible, defying the certain odds, that weren't really odds, if you know what I mean.

-

He sat convinced this was the day to die.
Slowly reality came calling him back.
Where was he?
Here amongst all of this wreckage?
Destruction.
Floating where?
In the middle of hell.
Was this his roof?
Why was he here amongst all of this ugliness and grotesqueness.
He was a Painter.
Painted flowers and captured the beauty of our world.

His hand could hardly hold what once held brushes.
The sun turned his skin its own flaming red and a brilliant yellow.
What he wouldn't do for water.
Drinkable, not sinkable, dirty water,
infiltrated by man's man made nonsense and god's wrath.
god in spite of him,
shifting plates, re-organizing things, changing the balance of thing sup and sending a greater warning to the greatest fools.
perhaps?

by why the innocent?
why them, why here, why now?

-
.
I will die.
I have lived a good life.
I am an honorable man.
I was a good father, a better teacher, a faithful husband.
I give myself to honor.
I will go as I am chosen to go.
I fought the good fight.
lived the good life, the moral life. the hard life.
And now here as the cloud in my head lifts I am ready.
i am out of here like a ghost.

-

The chaos was ruthless.
Bleakness was the only thing clear amongst the monumental rubble.
Where we once smelt the coming of spring we now smelt the expiration of life.
By the thousands.
A stench rising, almost as quickly as the wave came.
But the wave passed.
This stench lingered and took on a life of its own.
A life that told us we are stupid.
Stupid for still being here.
Did we not know what was inevitable.

I wondered if it was me what 5 things would I grab.
I thought.
My paintings, my clothes.
My money, my jewelry..
My photos of my family.

Death occupys everything, everywhere.
Dead.
People, once smiling, now
Sitting peacefully in their cars.
Their faces told us how they went,
Spoke of their last thoughts.
Frozen, deathly silent, stoically under vans and buses and houses.
Faces locked forever in screams, mouths sealed shut, gritted teeth, eyes wide open,
Numb.
Stupified.
Horrorified.
Shocked.
Angry.
Suspicious.
Acknowledging.
Accepting.
Welcoming.
One asleep forever with a false smile on his face.
His ipod still playing.
Once his earphones were removed, we enjoyed a few moments of chopin before with guilt shutting it off forever.
Another blared kitaro.
Many has their phones in their hands.
We read the last messages, discretly.
Here
Once activists,
Now haunting us with their spirits, their end and their once promising futures.
We look on with a greater silence, a greater despair, a greater quiet horror.
I know now chaos.
the tragedy of life.
And I read its last love stories.
I held onto my tears.
There would be ample time for those, but not now.
I need to be strong and brave.
I need to show the others restraint.
I need to let someone greater than me know, I can stand up to it.
this devastation. this omen.

I heard a story of one who walked right towards it.
His arms open in welcoming embrace.
His wife and child were washed away before him.
This was chaos not described in any dictionary or in any language.
It was neither political or social.
It was without judgement.

It was a chaos unlike any human nihilism or social anarchy.
This is gods' chaos.
Greater than Mao's or Lenin's or Hitler's.
Greater than Kaddaffi's or Bush's.
Greater than the planets' reigning and ruling power.

-

He puts the key in the lock.
Opens the door.
Relief.
He is home.
His head pounds.
He almost lost his vision.
He felt his blood pressure drop.
Felt confusion.
Weak.
Unstable.
He was hunched over.
Leaning forward to relieve the pain in his lower back and behind his knees.
His stomach had bloated.
Was it gas?
Was that pain between his shoulder blades real?
Was it related to his heart?
Not again.

'I need to sit down.'
He hears the beeper on his phone go off.

Thinks it might be his wife responding to his sms asking for forgiveness.
She surely could see he was in trouble, couldn't she.
But she had seen this all before.
In fact countless times.
The first time was in Rome and that was almost 13 year ago.
He had sat down and taken a coca-cola to recover.

This time, he didn't.
Last he saw her she was heading off to the appointment without him,
Left him behind in a trail of anger and disappointment.
He went home.

And was now reading his message.

BBC NEWSFLASH.
Japan government confirms radiation leak at Fukushima nuclear plants.
Asian countries should take necessary precautions.
If rain comes remain indoors for first 24 hours.
Close doors and windows.
Swab neck skin with betadine where thyroid area is, radiation attacks the thyroid first.
Take extra precautions.
Radiation may hit the Phillipinnes at 4 p.m. today.
Please send to your loved ones.

And he does only to find an apathetic reaction.
Responses of fake come back.
How callously jaded are we.

At least,
there is some truth in it,
to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

He sits and slumbers and turns to the net,
His head in his hands and his heart in his mouth.

-

The house, still looking perfectly formed sits strangely alone in the middle of the sea waiting to be reclaimed.
2000 bodies wash ashore.
It puts a strain on the blue bags.
We make our way through the rubble on impromptu streets.
More like lanes.
On man stand son top of a bus, only the bus is ten feet below the wreckage.

-

It is a frightening time and people are concerned.
People in Tokyo do not need to be concerned.
The bbc is telling the truth.
Avoid non essential travel to japan.
Avoid traveling to the region affected.
This comes from the british ambassador to japan.

She has never imagined a strength, a force greater than her love could ever separate them.
But something could and did.
Her nails still hold her daughters skin left there as her body was wretched from her loving clutch.
Striped and removed, quickly, almost cleanly, but certainly surgically..
Her daughter swept away after a quick but powerful battle between wills.
Hers and the seas.

And the sea would win today.
Her daughter gone.
Swept away in the black almighty swell.
No doubt she perished quickly, hopefully.
The mother lost forever now in her living.
By living she dies.
And dies a million times.
She cannot think.
Sit.
Be calm.
The chaos of her emotions has rendered her near imbecilic.
Come back tomorrow..
I suspect she will be there.

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