I dress like her and listen to music I think she might like just so i don’t feel completely alone.
She wasn’t even that kind. Or thoughtful. She was just hurt. And I like to think she would understand me. So I keep her in my pocket, like some kind of sacred amulet. Or maybe one of those little woven worry dolls that are supposed to ease your troubles. I hold her close to my face and I whisper my heartbreaks and sorrows and trivial inconveniences to her.
Sitting in a parked car in the Walgreens parking lot I cry silently and clutch at her nothingness and watch the as old homeless woman pushes her cart across the dark pavement.
And then I start the car, and drive home without turning on my headlights. I have work tomorrow. I do need my beauty sleep, you know.
Pigeon streets,
Meander through
An ancient town,
The summer heat
Brings them down.
Pay attention,
Watch them thrive,
Enough for all
To go around,
Addict town,
They rarely sing
Or spread their wings.
Oh Camille, soft and real,
who are you, what do you feel?
She will let you have it
The truth that is
She will do it with humor
When necessary
But do not get it twisted
Truth is her game
She does not mince words
She’ll say what needs to be said
So before you run for cover,
Listen to what she has to say
She will hit you over the head
Until you figure it out
She has no need to shout
She will let loose with a bevy of truth
You have no choice but listen
She will do it with zeal
For she has that Camille Appeal
She was out there
out there in the dark
A brooding monster
deciding where to attack
Her fuel and her ammo:
Waters, warm Gulf waters
She attacked...
Howling, shrieking winds
Thirty feet of churning sea
A thirty foot tidal wave
A thirty foot Tsunami
swallowing the land...
Sent to purge?
Sent to cleanse?
Sent to teach?
God only knows
God and the Daughter
Mighty Mother Nature...
but she was horrible
horrible and beautiful...
Hurricane Camille
Biloxi/Gulfport/Bay St. Louis, MS
August 17-18, 1969
Deaths: 259
Tidal Surge: 28 ft.
Est. Wind speed: 225+MPH (The wind instruments were destroyed at 200 mph) Imagine an F-5 tornado reaching across the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast...Add a 28 ft. storm surge to that and you can imagine the destructive force of Camille. Those who witnessed the aftermath of the storm said it looked like an atomic bomb had been dropped.
Of the 259 deaths, 113 were caused in the state of Virginia due to catastrophic flooding...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBsHreetAe4
Her diminished and
shading features
As if shrouded
within a cocoon or
now masked
Graduations of
colour that death
was successively
imposing on her
motionless features
Dimming her bouquet
of red flowers that
seem to float away
from her
She was out there in the dark
A brooding, angry monster
She attacked, screaming in fury
Wind gauges flattened and futile
She came to purge, to cleanse...
*Wind speed estimated at 230 MPH
Sumitted for: Black Eyed Susan's contest
Howling, shrieking winds
thirty foot tsunami
swallowing the land...
Hurricane Camille
Biloxi/Gulfport/Bay St. Louis, MS
August 17-18, 1969
Deaths: 259
Tidal Surge: 28 ft.
Est. Wind speed: 225+MPH (The wind instruments were destroyed at 200 mph) Imagine an F-5 tornado reaching across most of the Mississippi Gulf Coast...Add a 28 ft. tidal wave to that and you can imagine the destructive force of Camille. Those who witnessed the aftermath of this storm said it looked like an atomic bomb had been dropped
Recommended reading: Accounts of the hurricane party at Richelieu Apartments in Pass Christian, MS
Jealous of the land,
howling and screaming with rage
She came in the night...
***Mississippi Gulf Coast - August, 1969
Estimated wind speed: 200 MPH
Wake up to find its not just a dream,
the morning rips a new wound of reality.
Forever gone, Forever missing,
All the regrets building up inside of me.
I could have been better,
cause you were the best,
I love you with everything
now you took your last breath.
You went, happily
and chased the birds over that rainbow bridge,
I hope your watching from above c
ause when you left you took a part of my heart
...RIP My Beautiful Puppy. I Love You Camille Baby?
A girl so lovely
She never knew my adoration and desire
Circumstance and shyness did deny me more
My young heart
Her diminished and shading features
As if shrouded within a cocoon or now masked
Graduations of colour that death was successively imposing on her motionless features
Dimming her bouquet of red flowers that seem to float away from her
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.