The Rain Song Poem by Peter Black

I

The boy grows—
It is law despite Ponce.
A fruit rots,
It is called the Fall.

But Lord, how is the dripping,
Drooling, viscid; slippery,
Salutations which I never knew,
Bygones, gone by a time I never knew.

Oh, I Know what it is, and respect,
Because I see its remnants
In two gray stones of marble
Dulled from an azure.

I Swim in the film:
Drips, drips, drips.
It trickles
Across a conversation.

It is the liquid
Drunk from life's breast.
More acerbic than dead breath—
Sugar should be sweet!

Occurrences and chance meets with little to say,
But a desire to dry the mouth and lips,
As one spitting on a wet noon.
Blue has never seemed so pale.

It could explain strength;
Why lovers bathe in each other's eyes;
How a pall becomes a blind
When age has the butt end of the rope length.


'There is hope, yes, Oh, there is hope! '
And then, before, in short:
'There was a time, there was a time! '
When he was in the dumps.
'Man often finds himself in the trash dumps.'

I say, I make my home in the trash dump.
And have known nothing more or less,
Except dreams
And the passer byes, with regret.

In respect, myself, I linger,
Who flees the Old Bear,
When he runs his craw
And directs you in a glossed stare?

If it means at you to bite,
Because it has suffered
In the woodland-city traps—
The old creature has that right.


II

I am locked in the claws,
And will watch the level rise
With my repose to foe and friend,
And the gray dim.

In the mucous, muck
Of turning water—
Once so bright gleam
And now—oh no matter...

'My daughter has been married six-teen years.'
Reciting quickly after:
'My son in law, he is a man of means.
They have wintered in—it is no matter! '