In the Rain

[dr_con]

In the Rain

 

In the rain

grace dominates, vision is blurred

voices are muffled and junkies and drunks

reveal their god forms. Sisyphus pushes a cart

wrapped in plastic garbage bags, a burden eternal

and long. Tony offers me a caramel, in my condition

wet with kundalini neck pains, I politely refuse

distrustful of his toothless grin. We talk, old

friends, or newborn strangers, beneath bus

shelter, waiting for a way out-

 

He's HIV positive, sharing needles with a friend

knowing the risks, but too high to be brought low

by future possibilities, and I agree with his picture

only six years ago before the roots rotted, 210 lbs

a body builder, no matter how I squint I can't see

his past, standing over his stooped tooth free-

 

frame. On his 56 birthday they removed them all

now, three weeks later, he gets his dentures

he wishes he had stayed with heroin-

I should have payed more attention

trying to write this poem the first

time, cynical and cold, making

as much sense as your night

mumbles, squirrels & robots

beneath our dripping eaves

 

I tell the story of an old Hell's Angel

confessing that if he had known

he would live to 40, he would

not have done those things

in his 20s, and we laugh

 

shake hands, and get on different buses

his obligatory "God Bless," my smile

watching the lumbering angels

in the rain.

[tonyv]

This one's remarkably vivid, Dr. Con, and it kind of gets me down. I prefer an up-town blue-sky high-pressure dome to downtown drizzle.

 

The beginning has a perfect introductory image --

In the rain

grace dominates, vision is blurred

voices are muffled and junkies and drunks

reveal their god forms

-- which you follow up with the gritty details of a certain seedy side of life. The narrator's incidental observations, coupled with his prior knowledge of this one and that one, serve like a reality check.

 

It's unusual that the narrator and "Tony" even interact -- they are clearly from different walks of life. The reader infers this plain truth from the body of the poem, but it becomes as lucid as that moment when the doctor gives one his test results when the two board "different buses."

 

Very well done.

 

Tony

[Lake]

Very vivid depiction, Dr. Con. I love the short phrases used here, which really make good pace. And the phrase "in the rain" echoes the beginning and ending well.

 

Rainy days usually make people feel gloomy, bring unhappy memories. This one left me a heavy feel, even from the laugh and smile.

 

Very well written.

 

Lake

[Aleksandra]

Interesting write dr.con.

It's a poem with a voice. This poem talks a lot.

 

Thanks for sharing

 

Aleksandra

[dr_con]

Thanks All! Well, it was a bit of a downbeat day here in SF ;-) But, I hope to reach Full Spectrum Illumination, in my body of work

 

;-)

 

Much Grace!~

 

DC

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

excellent poem DC full of candid, vivid, wonderful imagery. dspite the ongoing sadness your words tell a tale of what couldof instead of the old hard brutalitity of the real world. as or your poem you desribed ,e perfectly.

 

much enjoyed the read,

 

victor