Saturday 21 April 2007

African Shower

The sky is the colour of bruised fruit,
Like pears, dropped,
Too too many times.
It bellows.
A beast from some childhood nightmare
That has escaped from under the bed,
Wounded.
Now everywhere and nowhere at once.
At once
The rain hungrily falls upon the window,
Clawing its way through the air,
Shredding the acacia and the slick black street,
Tearing up the world beyond the windowpane
To a frantic and irregular
Beat.
I hear it scrabbling,
Scratching through the leaves with
The static hiss of untuned T.V.s –
That post-apocalypse sound.

Now I look out of other windows
At the lint-grey sky
And drizzle as fine as breath
That clings
To everything like disease.

My roots remember the rain,
And rejoice.



© GB 2007

8 comments:

Regina said...

This so beautiful... the rain seems to have perosnality here...

paris parfait said...

A beautiful, evocative poem. Really well done!

Crafty Green Poet said...

This reminds me of my years in Malawi. I love the first line

Rob Kistner said...

Gino -

Yes! Very dark and delicious.

--and so it goes--
...Rob

nonizamboni said...

Wonderful images and I loved the last line.

Beaman said...

I like this poem. You've managed to stir up some wonderful imagery.

Wendell Dryden said...

The repeat of "at once" was a nice touch. Whence this poem? A thought, a memory, a photo? How much memory and how much craft? I guess I'm asking because the crafting of the piece is appealing. I found myself re-reading, looking at the joints, as if it were hand-built furniture. A nicely hand-built poem. :)

Gino Brignoli said...

Hi Crafty Green and Wendell - I grew up in South Africa and this poem is written from my memory of the summer thunderstorms we used to experience. The violence and aggression of them has stayed with me. Gino