Icarus In The Rain Poem by Glenn Latal

I
Trickling smudges against the sky,
The city is heating water to stimulate its spirit and rinse its soul.
This day has arrived wearing a dirty white overcoat
Smeared with greasy streaks of gray,
Ever the guarantor of a raw and chilling spatter.
This is the bluff that hides me.
After four years of that rat scuttle through the bowels of purgatory,
I thought I’d try raptor’s wings.
But now as the storm approaches, there is no longer a burrow to shelter me.
I shift my weight and brace in anticipation of a pelting.

My hand rests lightly on the casement latch.
The walls are peeling and moist up here
In the penthouse of this crummy hotel atop this ridge.
From my vantage, I look out over half the world.
Life swarms through the streets and buildings below.
A murmur, the merest of rumors wafts up to me,
No distinguishable words, no distinct individuals.
I assume they and I are of the same species, or were once.
But those whom the gods would destroy, they first make gods.

We were given such a magnificent opportunity,
A work of great righteousness and therefore worthy of us.
The sacred adventure vouchsafed to only those lucky few,
Certainly no more than once a generation.
None could take a second.
So, novices, we spun salving scenarios of bravado
To hide the telltale shiver from the tickle of the white feather.
Just as had all our proud predecessors.
Leaving us with: a long drag and a bloodstained bandage round the shoulder,
Humble and stoic. ‘No, really, it’s nothing.’
It’s always to be you heroically carrying your wounded comrade on your back,
Never you rotting on the wire.

II
The sergeant touches my arm.
I squint just to the side of where he points.
We lie there and swallow opened-mouthed,
Unplugging our ears, cupping our hands to them.
Faintly deeper black and soft rustle,
Intuition rather than sight or sound.
The air is chafed and the void is inhabited.
Lie, wait, let them pass.

You are under no obligation to participate.
Let it flow into its own path.
This insensible emptiness we haunt
Admits of no encumbering specificities,
Absolving you of responsibility for the scene,
Draining away that scream in your head.
It is all infinitely, eternally potential,
Perpetually becoming and never quite being,
As thin as wind and ephemeral as hope.
As solid as mud and constant as fear.

The they over there on the other side, are they a they or an it?
If we could reach out to this other,
Could we touch it?
Is anything there for us to touch or any we here to do it?
That presence we sense,
Is there really corporeality here?
Or is it the nothingness
Rubbing and curling onto itself?
Souls making a last inspection before they head to…somewhere.
Or maybe, still trying to reach that objective
On the way to which they were lost.
We could always hail them and ask.

III
My anticipation is no longer tinged with glory.
I will stand and smoke and watch the shower come in sheets, glossing my city.
The ragged volley against the window is actually rather soothing,
Like the familiar wave of an often passed and no longer spoken to ex-lover.
What is that arrhythmic hiss that tightens my throat?
Swallow, breathe: drizzle on the metal roof.
The clouds are mustard in color only.
Now that I think of it, yes, the shoulder is a little stiff.
Bit of an ache now and then, especially when the weather turns.

Ah, luck.
Have you one hand or two? A face? A mind?
I can light a cigarette.
Walk down a street. During the day.
There may be the odd stare or it could be in my head.
Either way, I prefer my sordid fastness,
To see beyond, to gaze down upon,
To have nothing that can descend onto me.
I could open the window to the rain and walk into the air,
To be the inescapable uninvited guest, accelerating toward you.
I have played the involuntary host,
When the world suddenly goes red, then black and heavy and quiet,
Reduce all of God’s creation to your own body and then crush it.
A shriek of defiance seeping away to a nearly silent “No.”

Another drag and the faintest of tremors.
Do I see the horizon clearing?
It’s rather late.
The nothingness will soon be rubbing and curling onto itself.
In the remains of my day, I make a last inspection before I head to…somewhere.
Maybe I’m still trying to reach that objective
On the way to which I was lost.
You could always hail me and ask
As I open the window to the rain.