This poem, my 19th hybridanelle, is inspired by a series of storms that passed through Southern California when I was in my early teens, probably ten or eleven years old. There were a series hurricanes blowing over Hawaii at the time, and they were so big that they spun off storm after storm into Southern California—And I remember them as waves of storms.
Rain
Come, lend your rolling cover; shade this dry cracked ground,
conceal the tragedy of broken years,
and dim the raging colors that siege a weary mind;
ease the pressure from the pressing blue,
dull the stainless cobalt’s razor hues
which vivisect perception like a blade.
Subdue the cubist concrete, the painted slats of wood,
the swaying glass and steel that mock the day;
come lend your rolling cover; shade this dry cracked ground
with a half-light suited best for ravaged hopes
and gray the glaring cruelty of the sun;
dull the stainless cobalt’s razor hues.
Gather up your mass and spill your shadows down
across the crawl of long distempered hours
and dim the raging colors that siege a weary mind,
dissevered from the rush of tragic signs;
raise from out the waves your phasing layers
and gray the glaring cruelty of the sun.
Immerse this arid air in contemplative mood
until the asphalt mirrors every minute;
come lend your rolling cover; shade this dry cracked ground
where seeds have rarely sprouted into life;
grant a brief reprieve from endless drought;
raise from out the waves your phasing layers.
Fill the world with stillness; play that quiet sound
which puddles every lane with rippled moments
and dim the raging colors that siege a weary mind,
electric bright beneath cerulean drapes,
the overwhelming crush of open skies;
grant a brief reprieve from endless drought.
Break this barren view with drifts of coiled wind,
and let your blistered vapors calm each instant;
come lend your rolling cover; shade this dry cracked ground
and dim the raging colors that siege a weary mind,
trapped within a frozen summer-scape;
ease the pressure from the pressing blue,
the overwhelming crush of open skies
which vivisect perception like a blade.
My childhood was dry and barren in many ways. Barren of education. Dry of hope and potential. I watched it slip away for lack of resources. And then my brain cracked from all the drugs I was forced to take since I was eight, and I ended up institutionalized as a ward of the court from twelve until I ran away at fifteen.
They don’t prepare you for life in these places. What they prepare you for is a life of utter dependency upon the system. If you break free from this in any small way, then this is a degree of freedom, escape, success. I pretty much had to chew off a leg to escape the steel-jawed bear trap of the system—so in a sense I’ve been twice crippled during the process of getting free. Needless to say, as a result, it’s not so easy for me to fit in and be a good little cog in the societal machine. But I’m told this is part of what makes me “unique”, as if this were a good thing.
Rain was my balm during these years, even as a runaway. Knowing full well my sleeping bag wasn’t waterproof, I’d welcome the rain when it came, with something like a sense of joy, or perhaps it was a kind of serenity. I usually found a way to shield myself enough to stay relatively dry, and thereby warm. Sometimes I didn’t and I became a shivering wet sponge by morning. Yet it was my balm, always my balm. Everything seemed so stark and rigid in the full light of day, overbearingly clear. So clear it scrambled my thoughts into confusion. In the half-light of the rain I’d find myself, even as an eleven year old, just at peace.
