These poems are from a series inspired by reading Atlas Obscura stories while listening to a music genre randomly selected from my list. The poems were written immediately after reading, still while listening to the randomly chosen music. Please share and/ or click the “clap” button at the bottom if you enjoyed this.

Come for the Controlled Flooding
90’s alt rock

Step right up and see water diverted : this is how PT Barnum
may have pitched Jesus, had PT Barnum been a humble man.
I can’t even say that with a straight face. What I want to show you
is a bald eagle nest and a slushie machine. Every year I spent
in high school was another anniversary of Easy Rider
and that movie made me fall asleep. I blamed it on the 70’s filters.
I dozed off to The Graduate. I liked music videos
where blue-eyed legacy rockers looked intense about vague things,
and I liked my life before more and more spillways opened,
but the fact of the matter is that having to move 200 head of cattle
will always be a metaphor to me. Always. And the combination
of sunshine and fear will always remind me of driving the causeway bridge
with the windows down, singing about guitars and thinking of you.
Truth be told, you’re in the background of this story. You’re the drummer
in our band. I’m not the one who started picking on drummers and bassists.
I’m just the one who falls in love with how algae blooms
the size of a New England state could make a dead zone
and choke out so much life, all because a flood is the ultimate breakup song and the spillway makes people come for the homefries and stay
for the dead dolphins. Come for the names of the stars engraved
on the plaque where a café used to be. Stay for all the local names
you never knew you forgot.

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You can find me at http://www.erinlyndalmartin.com or throw me a dollar for coffee. Twitter=@erinlyndal.