The Rain Men
written by: Clive La Pensée
Rain clouds make rain colours,
spectra from litmus red dust bowl fumed by cyclic hydrocarbons
to oily films – diesel pink for SUV and blue kerosine bred under Milk Wood,
taking life’s last root from towns still dreaming of a future.
Rain on Milk Wood, milk the metaphor of our failing.
A pint of water for a gram of fat but
milk in your tea – as sacred as the right
to stand your personal car in its personal rain.
Now, we only talk selfish. Possession has erased sharing
from the dictionary with a deft flick of Big Brother’s stealth stick.
As rain bombs flow our folly into swollen rivers and intemperate lakes,
the water rises around flatulent cows in flooding fields chewing at the front,
methane at the rear and responsibility as cold as charity.
Rain clouds make rain music, Brahms Rain-dripped a sonata
and Chopin thumped on Mallorca roofs to thwart Tuberculosis depression.
Gene sang in it, Johnnie whistled then walked in it,
the Brothers did their crying in it, Julie demanded a river
then had it covered by Justin,
all with eyes stinging from acid excess.
Rain clouds on rain art put dots into impressionist catalogues
of wet streets making the parapluie/puddle test of an artist’s skill.
Gainsborough’s ivory damp skins let English beauties live forever in galleries
where rain can only enter, in a cup of protesters’ soup.
Rain clouds on rain literature, Woolf’s suffragette felt the cold lash
of misogyny on her delicate skin and took the stripes
for working women who weren’t into fripperies,
just wanted to get out of it and ask if the ballot box
would take their working week a shorter way, and said,
‘We won’t vote if it’s raining that day.’
It fell on deaf ears – heroines have more important work to do than listen.
Rain clouds make for evocative light, and fashion statements,
hats to hold hairdoos, umbrellas for shoulders
and for leaving on buses and trains,
handy to speed a departure from the puddles lapping at the curbstones
over blocked drains that took sunshine for granted.
Rain clouds scud by in Beaufort numbers
trying to remember if you can get a beer at an isobar.
Depression deepening so ask Chopin,
who knows its no and chops his drops into ordered slots
leaving the flow of pummeling water cascading along gutters,
spinning through down-pipes, or filling buckets with drips
that had the peace of mind to avoid the torrent.
Rain isn’t music as it lashes lakes, but the fury of a world undone.
Let the lilies laugh, fish frolic in the Sahara, the Pope pray for salvation,
the politician whine, ‘if you’d just done it my way,’
But he dredged the Tees anyway
releasing pyridine and dead crabs
on beaches from Berwick to Bridlington
and every study greenwashed the crusty deaths.
The rain now comes with adept perspicacity,
washing away the evidence and with it the sins,
leaving the sinners without a house and car
but a conscience clean as a life-jacket whistle.
Mediterranean surface temperatures
were up an octave this awesome autumn so
evaporation and cooling condensation,
released the accumulated warmth
and water in biblical swathes across the Balkans,
to be contained by rivers sweeping through houses
then houses sweeping down rivers
until a bridge arrests the progress – but the heat stays on
to accumulate its power
and do its worst at a later hour.
‘But this is progress – we mustn’t slow the economy!
Unshackle capitalism,’ the CEO screams, ‘It’s necessary, because I told you so,
shareholders must live, so spare a thought.
It’s not called venture capitalism for safety’s sake.
Gotta turn a buck, then turn the blame whence the rain men came.
Just keep saying, it wasn’t me it wasn’t me.’
- The Rain Men - March 25, 2025
- Santa’s Chase - December 20, 2024
- Open All Night - July 14, 2024
