Cloudburst

I sit by the window, decide
to find the path to peace through rain.

It falls clear to clear against the glass
like an erosion of ideas, its rhythms
roll like long brush strokes down the spine
of a mud eyed hound. Beside

a fire place the weather's dreamy impotence promises
a level of acceptance that we've hungered
though never really touched.

But peace from rain is hard,
like the men who try to understand....

attempting honesty
(with little success).
Read a book about
the end of the world
mass murder &
new age carpentry.

	***
	
The rain in Sydney
is a violation.
We expect anything else.

Papers promise men are changing -
La Niña gusting over our feeble branched preconceptions -
we know it as we sit around sharing wine/
talk testicle checkups, safe sex & DV.

Learnt issues
like painted clothes on an ape we
dissolve in the first shower/
a cloudburst to wash away our training

& fear torrents whipped up
by southerly pasts remove even
the minute pigments that remain.

Arab music next door, muffled insinuation
to the swirling blood/
veils drop in a rain soaked mind.
Then it's men against the weather again -
pumps & levy banks
plumber v leak.

A hand flashed
through clouds & fogged up glass.

Les Wicks