(when it’s over)

Night after night this week I’ve lain in bed listening to the downpour, night after night the downspouts shake and the aluminum chimney sings and the roof holds up delightfully under the battering. By day my intestines are uneasy, I’m lonely in a shivering kind of way, and I worry about everything, more or less, that anyone in the world has ever worried about, but by night I have the rain to think about and the rain is always enough and always has been. I dreamed one night that I went out for a walk in it and got wet and cold, but when I woke up I was warm and dry, which is a normal way to feel in the morning but it felt extraordinary. The thing about rain is that no matter how many times it happens it seems like a miraculous phenomenon, or maybe that’s just me. I’m easily surprised and thrilled. I’m easily distressed and alarmed. In the middle is not a place I often am. Here I am in my forty-seventh year and I can’t locate the middle, though possibly I’m getting closer and just can’t tell because it’s a labyrinth and I can’t see over the walls and it’s raining so hard that I can’t hear the minotaur roaring.

---

 spring rain it will probably be poetry when it’s over

More Things Fall Out of the Sky and Disturb My Hair

and the snow (crystalline) makes it shine
and the rain makes it smell more like hair
and the wind proves that everything we do can be undone
and the sun burns light into it (the operative word being

burns)

and the leaves that have died
and been reborn as memento mori entangle themselves in it
and crumble into dust as I take out my comb

— teeth and all —

and stare at it, wondering how
the clouds get so close to earth that they’re fog
and my hair and I walk sideways

into it

 

I’d offer you everything but the barometer’s falling

spring water

.
spring dream the shape of an egg-shaped rock

.

spring light we argue about underwater

.

in my next life something smaller spring rain

.

between

salutary

.

oh, he’s poorly–his
eyes starting out of his
eyes starting out

of a cloud, convulsing
(down in the depths)
of a dream, convening

names and numbers,
nodding off
overandover he

finishes before he starts,
thaws before he freezes,
wakes before he sleeps,

all his minds left
behind right
before afterwards

in spring, shorting
the cord, the bed,
indefinite and un

defined non
non non monsieur amour
rain falls,

rain will fell you,
good morning,
poorly one

.

(rain ahead)

.
rain ahead
I burn the house down
in advance
.

.

123/7

.

forty

days and nights
of rain

the stereoscope
leaks
dimensions

.

tidepool

a dissected
starfish

the color
of my inner
eye

.

appointed

to a cabinet
position

I bet everything
on a passing
cloud
.
.

a day in the life

.

morning rain
the tapping
of my spoon
against the cereal bowl

.

all the people
in the other cars
not me

.

slate sky restoring a previous version

.

noon haze
between office buildings
I repeat my password

.

…leaving
the parking
………garage
……………the fog
…..through
..the automatic
…….gate

.

(they say)

magnetic

(careless)

.

how careless of me
to lose it, November rain

.

first of November, pushing up the sky with the ribs of my umbrella

.

the way it enters
without knocking—
November sky

.

.

.

(morning rain)

.

morning
rain
I
descend
in
the
elevator
with

zero

.

(rain on wet leaves)

.

rain on wet leaves
the way the lawyer
pronounces “divorce”

.

Kokako 16, April 2012

.

rain, rain (rain, rain)

.

spring rain backwards until the beginning

.

summer rain
some of you in
some of me

.

autumn rain preparing the palimpsest

.

forgot water could be so heavy winter rain

.

_____________________________________________________________________

credits: spring rain, Modern Haiku 42.3; summer rain, Frogpond 35.1; autumn rain, Modern Haiku 43.1; winter rain, bottle rockets 26

..

after life

.

winter
rain
afterlife

.

dragonfly

afterlife

airplane

.

afterlife
this time

I’ll look

at the moon
for real

.

(that last one is also over at the March Moon Viewing Party at Haiku Bandit Society)

NaHaiWriMo: the end

.

first date
nacho stains
on her blue dress

.

(Feb. 14: nachos. Also: Valentine’s Day.)

.

sun setting
one foot
on a rocky slope

.

(Feb. 20: talus)

.

shaking off
all the rain
that didn’t touch me

.

(Feb. 21: umbrella)

.

________________________________________________________________________________

.

I knew you would all be curious about how I handled “nachos” and “talus.” There is no point in pretending that I have an easier time writing haiku (or senryu) about nachos than anyone else, or that I had the faintest idea what “talus” was before this prompt was set. Also, who else thinks that Michael Dylan Welch opened the dictionary at random to find that prompt? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

It was an interesting month. (Okay, technically it’s not over yet. Can we just pretend it is? In a normal year it would be.) I never felt especially inspired. (Well, I came up with a couple of interesting things about apples, I think. That was then, this is now.) I didn’t like most of what I wrote at all. But there is value in writing things that you don’t like at all. Generally, you have to write a whole lot of things that you don’t like at all in order to write a few things that you like a lot. It’s hard to figure out what you like until you figure out what you don’t.

But I can’t say I’m sorry February is over. Forward, March!

.

(west wind)

Photo: www.martin-liebermann.de

.

west wind
the rain arrives
without you

.

Tinywords, 11/23/2011

.

(scattered showers)

scattered showers
you try to talk
and I try to listen
.

(the iris)

Photo by jo-h

.

spring rain
the lips and throat
of the iris

.

DailyHaiku 8/23/11

.

(night rain)

Artwork by Rick Daddario, 19 Planets

.

night rain
the fainter sound
of the ocean

.

DailyHaiku, 7/12/11

.