A THUNDERSTORM IN THE GARDEN OF LOVE
A Rainy Weather Prayer:
Don't let me tread on any snails.
snails are dried up, shells curled together, in sad little piles along the barred drain, the trails of silver are up the brick & concrete, the setting sun moves down them like water down a running stream, late into the rainy autumn evening, the crunch beneath the shoe, the broken shell crushed into blubber, bubbling circling the buffalo grass strands, everything is breaking down, the house i lived in, the cloudy night is broken down with wind, the home of the heart is broken, i'm digging up the syringes out of the garden of love & broken glass caked in mud, how many decades to grind it down or to smooth it out?, i noticed the stench of a dead body, a short time removed from the backyard, i said to the agent, 'someone has died there,' she said, 'do you want it or not?,' 'i'll take it at $140.00 a week,' i'll take the inner city dive, the stink of saturated carpet & mould creeping up the old walls in cancerous bumps, i'll take the musty smell, the smoked blackened kitchen & ant plagues rampaging the sugar, ants that swallowed droplets of dishwater, that threw back their heads & died like dogs, rainy weather has occurred, now everything has changed, nothing can go back to what it was, changes in my garden are gradual, seasonal, predictable, but you blew in quickly like a cold front, there is a thunderstorm in my garden of love & i can only fight back with a watering can, i most well just give up & be rained upon, or run in that gentle saturating rain, or stand coldly beneath a weak green climber, tense, wet & trembling, hating you for coming into my life, but we all love the excitement of the big storms, we hate storms & we love them, we fear them but cannot live without them, we complain about them, but how we would miss the big storms rolling in, our sad unused umbrellas stuck in the laundry behind the washing machine, think about it, wouldn't you be shocked?, perhaps even mildly irritated?, here you are happily watering your garden with an old tin can, which you found quiet manageable, an adequate system, then along comes this big thunderstorm, you look up & fall in love with it, soon you are drenched, alone & responsible for your own shivering, by the way, since this downpour has occurred your garden is thriving
Before S/he was Ready:
Haven't you been taught to touch a wildflower
without crushing it?
& that you can't squeeze rain from a drought?
but there is a thunderstorm in my garden of love, i am waving like a tree, that bends so far sideways as if to touch the spill of land with the side of its branches, that side that only the sun has touched, the birds have flown away from the wild tree, it is too wild with its own silly clichés, why must all poets, write about dancing trees, leaves fluttering to earth & roses?, why must poets write about these images without thought?, do they feel for them?, let them break open like the sky, into something more worthwhile, let their thundery weather inside take them away on its cool wash, they are like australia, an old brown interior with a few round stones, i want to bring my thundery days to them, to get a response, but there is a thunderstorm in my garden of love, & it's all been said before, these old sad lines, i never wanted to be a failure, now i fear i am a born loser, how about you loved me like a squashed spider in the dirt, with its black fang sticking up, i was bitten to living death by your strange dead heart
The Born Loser:
Gets bitten by a squashed spider.
he loves you in his own way, but he's too dysfunctional, to give you the love you really need, he's like one of those big black funnel web spiders sitting down there in his nest, now if a funnel web spider said, 'i love you,' well perhaps he does in his own way, but would you stick you finger down in there?, he has bitten before, in the same way that he has said, 'i love you,' before, to save yourself from pain, go by actions, not by words, listen, but don't believe or you'll get bitten, i am not ready to leave him, i chop off his legs one by one, always hoping i won't have to chop until the last, of this three legged spider charging me down the garden path, but so long as he keeps biting, i'll keep chopping, it may be me who is slightly wounded, full of venom, but it's him who is crippled, the spider with the five legs missing, but still he bites & bites, so i have to destroy him, it's happening painfully, bit by bit, because i keep giving him chances, that he won't take, this is not a particularly pleasant experience, i have been using the spider as a metaphor for a man, i wouldn't really do this to a spider, because spiders have done nothing to me, but i have been thinking alot & have a will to survive this situation, but fear that i will be left alone in my garden of love, which has grown so lush & rained upon, which has been nurtured & is growing with my own passion, i command the garden of my childhood, to grow up & out of over the red brick fence & to consume the street, to green the grey rooves of houses, to claim the council wrought iron gates, to grow into the mouths & calendars of neighbours, it is painful longing for nothing, like my childhood, it was like trying to climb a ladder with no rungs, this disease of love, it is quiet severe, but it can go away in a few days, it will gradually wear away of its own accord, it has created a soft wound in my heart, warmed in its own garden mulch, you say time heals all wounds, so i am now at your mercy or the mercy of time & you are not even doing anything, no advantage is taken by you, you will now find me hugging myself on the outskirts of all my daily activities, in my garden of love & storms, you will find me bewildered, the dead weight of love for you around my neck, i have lost perspective on my role as ethical participant, as knowing what is the right & proper things to do, i am being emotionally high jacked & all sense is flying out the window, in these dark rolling clouds filled by tossed up birds, i was only meant to rescue, nurture & release the injured wild animal, that i had found wandering into my yard, but i seem to have failed, now i want to keep it locked up inside with me, until it becomes smothered, until it begins to outgrow me & to claw my eyes out, i have lost all perspective of who you are, injured wing, i am in love |
