Today the Flood

[cidermaid]

Hi Leanne, I loved this.
Like Billy I started off thinking that this was a poem about the forces of nature and (because of your previous poems with strong links to Aus) i had images of red soil boiling under a flood after the first two lines...but I should have know better than to just expect the obvious from one of your poems.
My apoligies if my crit reads more like a spoiler (of sorts)...it is just my ideas and thoughts from reading. When i really like a poem but find little to nit pick over I try to offer the writer what the poem made me think of and the journey i took instead. Not sure if it's any help but it's all I have to offer somedays.

Where the clouds become the earth, the ground Good opening. first clause made me think of a mirage, so for me this has a slightly mystical, unfocused and hallucinogenic state to it. Upon second reading, this then become wistful in tone.
swells and expels its savage regrets. Think this line (+ inc the ref to ground) is excellent and for me was key to understanding the poem. I read it as a doorway from the metaphor of nature into a landslide of brokeness. I liked the raw (almost volcanic) sense of rising up of the emotions - Kudos to make the switch from nature to emotions so subtle - brilliant.
Windows, shades and summers are trapped I get such a lot of information in this line from such a few words...(well in my version of what this is all about anyway )...Windows - I'm thinking of eyes into the soul so a life, Shades and and summers - negative and positive memories of a life.
beneath the tempest, waiting Nice link back to the volcanic swell of emotions
to be born. Ah...but these emotions are repressed and frustrated. Not yet come to full term.

I feel that this was a near perfect stanza. You could have finished the poem there and it would stand well on it's own.
But there is more...!

You encourage exploration – I get a sense of the swelling and pent up frustration. I really like the placement of You. It has an accusational tone to it in my reading.
endless questions placing culverts I'm thinking of an unequal partneship. One who is more articulate and quick witted using this ability to crush and confound the other.
for forgotten debris to block, And again the link back to the ground swell of historic pressure that is ever mounting

and how can I keep looking inside Agree with Billy on these two lines
when there’s nothing to see but the light from your eyes
reflecting on yesterday’s mockingbird mime
and a crystal decanter of sky? Love the second two lines though. particularly like the mocking bird image..for me it underlines what I got from the previous stanza

I
sip again the nectar that
glistens at the corner of the hour. I might be missing something here but I'm struggling to connect this into the poem. I want to make it a sort of self martyrdom concerning the deep well of frustration and mounting anger...but not sure this is what it is. On the tip of my understanding but right now a miss...I need something more here

Behind the curtains, tomorrow’s promise Nice image (curtain) - for me speaks of a hidden quality, thinking of eyes again so = masking emotions.
melts feebly into soda, lime and
a slag of sorrow. Someone, somewhere,
forgets to press rewind. Really like this last stanza. Nice link between previous stanzas throughout. Tomorrows promise makes me think the rotten scumbag is always contrite and full of wind about change..that never comes. And then if the picture i wanted to find in the previous "nectar" lines fits, the swelling surge of frustration and anger never breaks the surface of the facarde of the face. (It stays behind the eyes). Not strong enough to break out...where it becomes a pile of sorrow and a easy pushover into self pity (nice double meaning in slag).
finally I thought the last line was a nice link back to the first line / stanza with a wistful and out of body element of disconnect in the experiance and life lived.

As ever just my somewhat blond thoughts and ramblings. Even if i'm totally wrong. I loved this poem and the journey it took me on.
Thanks for sharing AJ.