The onslaught knocked everything flat -

shock-waves trashed houses, cars, trees
and people in the streets 
hanging on to what they could -
nailed-down seats, lamp-posts, TVs -
slunk away from
all the debris littering
or dancing or twirling itself
down the empty boulevards.

Trees uprooted, spun-out across town,
big brown boomerangs barging the buildings
and the sea burst its barriers, spat
trucks and cars into the next banlieue
and the people cowered before
nature's terror
as their homes juddered
and the wind ransacked 
cupboards, drawers and china
and the floorboards overhead
danced a vigorous jig.

Advertising fell flat on its face,
roofs sprouted wings
and the air was alive with
buzzings and bangings and shriekings
but all the praying was silent
and lost something
in translation.

But when the devastation
reached its climax - the town a piled
cairn of heaped-high-junk precarious
comprised strange contorting metals
and things unrecognisable 
like a giant modern sculpture 
of bits and pieces, arms and legs,
keyboards, bricks and teddy bears,
representing  .D..E. The Death of Civilisation .D..E.  -
the maelstrom subsided
out of puff
and the tossing lessened
and all went quiet.

The people's eyes were wide
when they crawled out
like rats from cellars
then began to organise -
wreckage was bulldozed
Relief Committees were appointed
and as the days went by
the sea-wall was repaired,
the sea went quietly back to being blue,
and the town was razed
flat as a car park.

There was calm and much
deep-breathing in the community
as people congregated,
buried their dead decently
and started again.

And it wasn't long before
the porn shops were open
and traffic was blaring
and hot offices were full of 
cantankerous clerks
and banks were foreclosing
and Gaia figured
they hadn't learned their lesson the first time round.

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