Asia’s Rain

Surprised the night
Didn’t last very long
And her song
Kept playing in my dreams
I awoke before she did
Got ready for my day
Smiled
Then returned to bed
And woke my lover
Like a cleansing rain

When the wrapping paper flares
in freakish red and blue flames
and its ash rises on its own heat
up the blackened chimney flue;

When the ornaments and lights
seem tired and longing for the attic
or basement where they can rest
until someone feels excited about them again;

When the gingerbread houses
have been stripped of all the good stuff
their icing is rock-hard and
they are left as offerings to the squirrels;

When tannenbaums poke out pathetic branches
half buried in the snowplow’s berm
half torn by the snowplow’s blade
waiting for Removal Day, whenever that is;

When you are tired of the metaphors
of red and green and music of bells
and your poetic mind can’t bring itself
to write twelve stanzas for contrast;

Christmas is over.

Christmas is over.

Don’t run up Cheese Factory Road
on the second Sunday in January
if the wind has already beaten you
as you came up Palmer Hill.
You can sit in your warm office
in the late afternoon and search
the Internet for the word “cornice”
then browse through awesome pictures
of silver crystals whipping from the top
of a curled, white ridge, while dramatic
blue-sky backgrounds let you imagine
how fucking cold the photographer was.
At least you won’t be the one plucking
ice from your eyebrows and wondering
what frost-bitten earlobes look like.
You can Google that later too.
Don’t pretend that coming down
is easier than going up,
such thoughts are fools thoughts
when your mantra should be:
Wind-chill saps the body’s strength.
Let someone else berate themselves
for forgetting their face mask.
Let someone else drink Gatorade slush
in their last few miles.
Then call me and tell me how you
drove past some poor bastard struggling
up Cheese Factory Road.
I’ll be soaking in a hot bath,
but I’ll still pick up the phone.

My face was warm as I sat and thought
About the money, and the money, and the money.
My feet were as cold as a slice of January wind.
And somehow I just sat there
Feeling everything within my warm face
And cold feet,
Wondering if you were coming to find me,
Or coming to despise me,
While I thought about the money.
I wondered if you would ever come
Or call.
My cheeks felt like a hand slap,
My freezing feet.
I kept looking through the dingy glass
To see if you were following
Or up ahead,
Wondering if you were far behind,
If you were cold or warm,
If you thought about the money.
I sat and despised my sitting.
I thought and despised my thinking.
And the money–How I despised the money.

The wind ripped down my roof tonight.
It yelled and screamed until
the windows exploded
and I cried.

I cried like I was shaken by the wind,
like god withdrew;
the devil killed my sons.
And though I am not Job, I am not
left alone to tell you
anything except . . .

I am not going to make it.
The bricks falling through the chimney hole
make that clear in the clouds of ash
they raise.
I am
not going
to make it.

The only sanctuary now
is to walk into the open
darkness,
far from splintered roofs
and falling bricks.

If I am chaff,
I bid you all
goodbye.

I want to hear the songs you hear
As if the music was the same
I want to feel each time you fear
As if the fear had called my name

I want to be inside your eyes
To see the darkness when they close
And when your breath is only sighs
To be the warmth that comes and goes

Patron saint of peaceful passion,
graceful colors of gifted flight,
take her prayers of bliss and fashion
wings to journey through dreams tonight.

Cannons of clouds fire rain straight down
from their boiling black muzzles
each day in December
from exactly 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
to explode the cheap tin roofs
in the townships, detached from the cities
and the servant’s shacks, detached from the white houses,
but there is no apartheid of heat and noise.
It’s like a bomb blast that lasts
for the long summer hour,
contained by flimsy construction,
absorbed by the oil-dark bodies
sitting and waiting within.
When the noise stops, the people emerge
into the breathable air
and feel the cool, moist earth
beneath bare feet.

It’s winter and I can no longer uncouple the roots from the soil,
so I work at untangling the branches from the sky.
My fingers become numb as dusk silently closes the bar
with no “Last Call.”  Drunk mermaids have emerged
from Prufrock’s final stanzas to giggle, each to each.

Adept at retrieving their sotted souls
from the basin of their ignorance,
I single out a blonde
and whisper something bluer than her eyes
as she holds onto my arm like
a lost saint.

Carlos takes the polished leather shoe
from his left foot
dangling over the bridge
and watches past his foot
as it strikes the water
with a slap.
Before it disappears below
the rich, black surface
he has already forgotten it
and removes the right one,
spins it from his palm
into the air
above his rich, black curls
and wonders where Julia is now.

Slap.

He pulls the belt from his waist,
the belt she gave him
as a gift
and simply lets it slide
from out his fingers
free now to unbutton
his tailored shirt,
one hundred dollars in the making.
Not a second thought
to the gold-plated links
left dangling from his cuffs
which pull the fabric
downward to the river.

Now he stands
to empty out his pockets:
a wallet filled
with one full month’s salary
an identification card
a picture of Julia’s daughter–
he throws it at the water.

Coins are dropped without wishes
Keys to his office
his home, his car
The jangling metal tokens
of his status
his security, his freedom
Such symbolic waste
they slide into the mud below

Carlos stands half-naked
at a crucial point in his life
He turns and calls her name
above the roaring of the falls
But she belongs to another
and all he can do
is weep.