No Time for Old Men

“Old Tramp” by Laszlo Mednyanszky

 

it arrived in a downpour

this too-modern morning

my black and blue flesh

unprepared still not finished

with yesterday’s mayhem

and misery no time to bind

broken bones of the night

now the dawn cracks with

onslaught new gunfire rain

melting all my resolve into

rivers of abject surrender

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Evaporation

“Evaporation 41” by Stephanie Menard

odd times are upon me
when the air wants me
more than I still want myself
it draws out my liquids
the essence that moistens
makes supple my surface
this skin I have worn for so long
dried out clutches of atoms
are lifted away caught
like smoke in a vortex
organic invisible uprise
disrobing me taking my
skin-felt touch memories
feelings familiar estranged
given up one by one
to a volume of vapor
that age and fatigue
have resigned to empower
accruing a transfer of will
as I dissipate ever so slowly
identity forfeited unto
transformative winds
where the bits and the pieces
of what had been me
find free-radical futures
transported by conjugal skies
forming bonds with the residues
shed by old souls whom
I never had met in whole flesh
but will nonetheless join
mingling molecules
bellying clouds till the weight
of us grows to the birthing point
heavy release in the form
of fresh torrents of rain
falling falling fat globules
that diminish reform and refine
with each league of descent
till we light oh so gently
distilled cleansed and pure
to repopulate earth

 

 

From my book Ephemera

Storm Damage

“Long Time” by Emil Nolde

 

rain scours intaglio sorrows

wind speaks nameless fears

lightning burns bereft hearts

thunder cracks open doom

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Song of Dusk

“The Sea at Dusk” by Emil Nolde

 

evening rain whispers
diminuendo of day
gives voice to the moon
a melancholy music
in tempo of transition

Aztec Weather

 

Tlaloc – Aztec Deity

 

 

rain is mine
to command
to call down with
benevolent flourish
or halt with a
brandish of temper

either way
I am Tlaloc
the giver of glory
through abundance
of prosperous yields
or through famine
of punishing drought

either way
will your story
be written
forever on stones
of the pyramids
praised upon altars
or damned in the runnels

either way
it is you whose
behavior will choose
from my gifts
but as son of the war gods
I may nonetheless
move to destroy you

 

 

(originally posted November 2013)

Antediluvian

“Day One” by Yoram Raanan

rain washes dirt
from feet of our conscience
it rinses off paths
paved with transgressions
rain gives us a moment
apparently clean
or sometimes an hour
to reckon a deeper set stain
but rain’s not enough
to clean slates
it requires a flood
to destroy our destructions

Remembered by the Rain

 

“Gardens in the Rain” by Kazuya Akimoto

 

supple days
juvenescent
arrived in a
downpour
of decades
a livening rain
lush of nourish
for an era of
handsome set
muscle and bone
bearing fearless
ambitions the
strength of an ox
all the heady
enchantments
of youth
burst to blooms
in the splashes
of formative
raindrops
a storm made
for making a man
for compelling his
journey through
lightning and
thunder-filled
years of his prime

till that day
the rains stop
and the rivers
climb down
from their time
in regress of their
rise and their
whitewater rush
between flesh
of embankments
exposing erratics
and sentient stones
of a masterful age
settled now in
the flow of a
hoary maturity
memories dwindling
escaping like
disbelieved thoughts
in a personal
petrichor vapor
the scent of a life
disappearing
forgotten by most
yet forever
remembered
by the rain

Drought

 

“Winter Drought” by Michael Ayrton

 

 

dry eyes to the skies
reservoirs itchy with weeds
rain a memory

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Broadway

 

“Night Broadway” by Leonid Afremov

 

 

competing marquees
glare and kick at the rain
dripping titles on tourists
as puddles of playwrights
collect in the cracks
of sly sidewalks
conspiring to end-around
critics with colors
refracted and sheened
at disposable incomes
and bourgeoisie tastes

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

A Mugging

 

“City Rain” by Gloria Blatt

 

 

on a walk in the weather
I bumped into yesterday
looked just like me
stuck a gun in my ribs
and stole all my youth
as I fell like the rain
pouring out of myself
slipping into the gutter
my wrinkled bones
riding a river of rubbish
right into the yawning
black drain of tomorrow

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)