ode to rain

The rapid crash of rain on the 30-year roof mocks my isolation

It’s a whole ocean dripping from above and I’m the snowflake

Well I’ve got two children in their bedrooms sleeping at 5 a.m.

And they’re like Schrodinger’s cat, half alive in their father’s heart

half in their mother’s, so I’m 50% alone? The fractions grown

by ice crystals on the arms of a white dinner plate sized precipitant

make it unique enough that on its way down to melt on windshields

conveyed through Wyoming from North Dakota to sunny Arizona

you can say that dude didn’t need to fight, he was special

In middle age he burst into multiple personalities one of which is me

The lonely poet? Divorcee? A man’s man, a mama’s boy, an intellect

towering above the anthill of parochial school conformity

mumbling Our Fathers in the six foot stone shrines on the Jesus Walk

as if that magic could connect great Sky Lord with the wet Mother Earth

Childhood draws up from grass root lawns kitty corner from my house

waiting for the school bus, trying to exist, striving to connect, at eight

to the man I am now, a projection I could not contemplate, the lost opportunities

bashed into mush against my will, look son it’s for your own good this loss

nothing stays immune to the fire forever and you’re not so unique after all

there are seventeen hundred other people with the same name as you

and so, poor last born litter runt, if you want to be loved, you must be special to someone

and that someone must be isolated from success because you my boy

exemplify loser: not even try, quit, you’re a quitter, can’t compete

doesn’t play well with others, you’re not a team player, you’re an introvert

a wanker, the boils of a serial killer bubbling under your surface, restrained

as if by a plastic wrap that we may justly dub the veneer of morality

And God isn’t that the game? that every woman who seems to have the opportunity

to take advantage of these arms can sense the split, a goat smell

a rotten cheese effect, between the stubble-faced hero, solver of mystic equations

and the queer acquiescence of one accustomed to avoid competition by preemptory loss

Is this then the most I can ask of any dating app or gorgeous companion

that some illusion appear instead of me, projected out of me like Star Platinum

tangible to spectators, smiling, persuasive, confident, a salesman’s sincere wink

somehow drawing Miss X under the covers of this creaking bed beside me?

Because the real me is still a child beat up less by Tyler and his band of bullies

than by the discordant commands the past laid upon me: wealth and success

follow your spirit, trust your talent, be the red balloon, go to college

treat others well, happiness; and when none of these ingredients, combined, cooked

turn out to make cake, well to hell with this life, you can start over

This composition’s not a game, damn the pity, it’s a refuge from the morning

and the wind’s blowing through the open door

I have zero idea what will happen tomorrow or next week

whether the static fabric of life will hold, the pile of unopened envelopes

the papers from three years detritus kept or swept from my desk by a stern heart

or a sudden dedication to finishing every halted project

How can I guess? In less than an hour love can blossom into passion

a camellia open its petals to the sun, the bee, the pollen, her hair

that glistens in nature’s light, in less than an hour life can shrivel

from depressed father of two to grieved father of none because

the faceless goop invades your life and reduces and digests

to ooze the two people you held as your only contribution to life

from its muck-making intestine, good old evil Mother Death

The world’s set up by people who for their convenience

make other people into objects and commodities

and ninety-nine percent of consumers agree

that life ain’t fair nor should it be, don’t be a loser

just fit in and mouth the double speak

when society needs for you to be a thing, be that thing

say “Yes, and” to every idiotic idea the morons improvise

until the self (which you were admonished was a bad thing to begin with)

subsides and high society has a party in which everyone is masked

You can go back to your box in the ground now, ego

I’m done walking you around the block, dog

But I still have one more message

It comes from the fact no matter what you say

I am a high priest of Love

No amount of failure can pry that badge from my sternum

where it has been nailed, bolted, welded, fused

There is room in this family for more

There is an empty room in the house

Come on, show up, knock on the door

I’m home