Used Rain

I

Into the used rain, not soaking yet,
by the freeway
I go walking wet,
to work out a new
midmorning plan:

a route to keep to me unkilled,
bone-warm but skin-chilled,
hunting for the first fill

I hop a fistulated drain,
a bob and weave to dodge backlogged Japan—
from the hand of the skilled to the land of the build—
accepting the suggestion
of my first selection
as these shoes decide to choose
and I yield…

Entering the open dry,
queueing in the brimming red,
breathing with a steaming sigh,
directed now by beams of men,
cheering on correction of the children
not my own—
heredity does not condone I die
before vicariously fathering
a world that’s passing by—
until the abattoir
gregarious has grown

I eat in
animal sterility,
Alone

And then out-starting-I steps forth,
destination screened, darts north

Rain holds its tongue, I bask
in glorious traffic on forbidden
sidewalks, rumble roads and
borders,
iron horses bark historic orders, Phaedric
explorations, seen and sung,
blow from carbon’d lungs
against the fuzzy hotness of my mumble,
a wooden-masted crossbar screams
monotonous framed attempts
to tumble,
I slow and stow the
heated fabric hatred of my mask,
I kneel and ask it
to belay the slippery crush of
precariously sudden murder,
unruly cones deterring men to wander
or to pass, but
I go
on, mercifully allow my blunder

Perhaps for this reason he who leaves his
father and mother
acquires more power

II

As time progressed, so legs did too,
to mount the hill whereat
they codify Jehosophats
in northern flavor,
remove the syllables that southward waver,
and print them onto bricks of stymied household favor

On touring course, by walls unmoored, uncouth—
my drownèd hair, o’ertaken by oceanic influence—
I gathered these reflections in my drippy eyes, I spied them in the glass:
Eleven times eleven shapes that wooden pegs may
join under a roof
to home a house
it seemed (it proved to seem)
the earth could always store the past

And as I moved, a sign appeared:
two ravens in the breeze
I thought to search for beauty’s gift,
to bring within my reach,
my ease,
my own reminder
each belongs to each
I strolled the aislets in-between
the lowly, printed hills
Among some fighting cubs I passed
and, practicing my skill,
I spoke a ruddy phrase in threes—
investigating stacks of trees—
the call to listen and appease,
though none obeyed my will

You could not hold in hand the birds
These sons don’t hear your words

I watched the wretched voices rise
and wrap the air in casted truth—
a pair of tongues that emphasized;
a pair of clouds that drained my eyes;
a pair of restless, birdless cries

Whoever wants forever in their youth, their house is filled
But nowhere heaven finds a nest, and so we build

The exomotive emptiness addressed,
a pair of lonely elements, expressed,
now split and float and spill into the drain, confused
This rain is used