The Flood

[tectak]

The walk upstairs to the apartment
is accompanied by the pulse of watery
herded into the complex pool, already filled.
The landlord left the tap on somewhere
to leave residents with the echo of overflow
soaking a border of mulch with chlorine.

It has happened before. The water avoids the front steps,
choosing, instead, to seep into the pebbles
beneath the beige of shredded wood.
No tenant finds a need to phone an idle office,
or worry of damage to their stoop, or peek through blinds
to witness the drying of the flood. To be perfectly honest,

only the sight of ants grabbed my attention,
hand stumbling onto their escape along the rail.
White shells of the young on their backs, they file
away from tunnels once eaten into the earth
the way rain eats into stories of creation and rebirth,
myths of the saved and the plunge of the sacrificed.

Ah phil, you can't fool me! You know and I know that this is not poetry. Apart from the bizarre word use in the first few lines concerning herding water and complex pools ( which is poetic enough to create the required image....but why bother if you are not going to keep it up) there is nothing to wax about.

Overall, it is nothing out of nothing....just a suburban event in a suburban world. You have tired of this one almost as soon as you started and by the time you had drifted towards the possibility of a tasty formic feast of metaphor you had breakfasted and lost your appetite. If anything, you should carry out a rescue of the piece from the ant's perspective.......the human observers just don't seem to give a toss
On a general point, one of the neglected truths of poetic endeavour is this. If the poet doesn't care what he writes, don't expect the reader to care either. This is not the phil I am used to, and I expect you will take my comments with disdain or disbelief.....but in mitigation for this opinion of mine I would only add that I am wholly aware of your efforts to experiment with all forms of poetry.....could this be an experiment which needs a rethink?
Best,
Tectak