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For some people
The rain kisses their skin
For me
The rain deteriorates at my mind
For some people the thunder soothes
For me
It bangs across my head
For some people
The lightning is their spark to keep going
For me
The lightning is the fire burning down everything in my path
Stormy nights
It was reflecting—slowly creeping into the small, cracked part of my window. Running his cold, sweaty palm on my forehead and onto the crevasses of my already fragile soul. It is growing like small plants waiting to sprout in dry concrete, blossoming into a wild forest waiting for the blessing of the sun and being showered by the rain.

It creeps softly, masked by the greenery, sometimes vibrant and with a scent of fresh linen sheets and apple slices or newly painted canvases dried out by the cool breeze of the weather, and everyone is smiling, glorious, and incandescent.

But it was also reflecting—slowly creeping into the small crack of my window. Where my room speaks a foreign language and my pillow beats achingly; where breathing morphs into a shadow—eventually walking by your side, so quietly you couldn’t even notice.
there’s something about being known by the unknown.
Chris Saitta Apr 24
Love is a thousand women who fail to amount to one,
Peasant seductress with bared shoulders of red dun-colored roads and candle smoke,
Who pours down her wet, ungoverned hair, like a fast-fading storm to dry over Aurelian walls,
In that dark sneer of sultriness over the sentry-like stillness of ramparts and stone,
A wasp in water whose sibilance comes from what the sting makes,
Like the upgathered phalanx of spears in the sand,
Or the sisters of fate who have coiled their hair as sunset snakes,
Her fingertips ***** into me like much-traveled and ancient rain.
a gentle patter of rain
tapping politely
at the window
not tempestuously
but imposing enough
in its constancy
a passive aggressive reminder
from the heavens
of our ultimate
lack of control
such a minor obstacle
and yet it tips
the scales of
what was planned
or hoped for
to something perhaps
unforeseen
not yet considered
i thought i had
no intention of
leaving the house
but find myself
rolling my eyes
with huff and sigh
cursing the grey
for ruining
that potential

by lunchtime
windscreens glisten with
newly welcomed sunlight
reflected blindingly
from droplets that linger
despite the fresh warmth
carried in the convective air
it no longer appears
to be "coat weather"
though the ground
is still puddled
to squelch or
splash underfoot
perhaps i could venture
outside after all
with a motivation
fuelled by this
latest change
but for all the blue
stretching the sky
there is still that
darkened mass of cloud
hanging heavy in the distance
unable to tell if it has
been weathered already
or is another downpour
yet to come
Anais Vionet Apr 14
My roommates Leong, Sophie, (Charles) and I were coming from a Yale sporting event. The sky looked like a ***** Swiffer-mop and the wind seemed to be ignoring the posted 20mph speed limit. It was a typical spring day in New Haven, overcast, 65°, with intermittent, drizzling rain. I was thinking it was a good day to be a duck.

We were looking for something to gnaw on and a beverage - of the alcoholic variety. We picked up some Mike’s hard cider (featured in our refrigerator now), which proves college students really do plan for the future.

It was about 4pm and the streets were puddled, slick-looking and empty. The lone passing car sounded like it was riding on a sponge. I was wearing a navy blue, short sleeve Polo dress, a matching Polo bucket hat (for the rain) and a slub knit hoodie that I ‘borrowed’ from Sunny forEVER (seriously, I ordered her a replacement from Amazon) and Roxy boat shoes.

On a side street, a “party-bike” sat parked, sad and abandoned in the rain. A party-bike is a tram fitted up as a bar that slowly drives noisy drunks around. The drunks sit around a “U” shaped bar, on small, backless stools welded onto the tram. Yes, an open-air bar on wheels. I can’t help thinking that a lawyer came up with the idea, because what could go wrong?

The first time I saw a “sightseeing” party-bike was on Beale Street, in Memphis Tennessee. Memphis is the Disneyland of barbeque and the blues. Every storefront for blocks is an open air blues bar, a barbeque place or souvenir shop (or all three at once). Party-bikes make sense there, because intoxication is like oxygen in Memphis. It's a party-bikes native environment. In New Haven, they seem cheap, excessive and opportunistic.

As we were walking, in the distance, we heard the wail of a saxophone and a beat so clear, that the sound seemed to linger and shimmer in the air, like a cartoon neon ‘Jazz’ sign. We instantly turned that way and discovered it was coming from a place called “Three Sheets” which was having open-mic tryouts for the house band.  

It’s a bar that serves food and there’s a ‘beer goddess’ painted on one wall. In Georgia, we’d call it a ‘fern bar.' We found a table in the darker back, out of the way, and settled in. A waitress quickly took our orders and brought us several IPA beers.

Near a platform stage, there were 6 or 8 musicians sitting around (with their instruments) waiting to take a turn forming a trio with the house drummer and bass who were laying down a constant beat. One would step in with a guitar and play for a hot minute, then a guy with the sax, another with a trumpet and yet another with a clarinet, it went on and on. They each had a solo, at some point, and it made me wonder why I don’t listen to more jazz.

Our afternoon of music was something Sophie had wished for. Earlier that morning, as we were leaving the residence, she’d said, “I wish there was a concert or something going on tonight - something musical,” and boom, we get this. Still, I don’t subscribe to the idea of holy intervention.

I hate it when I hear people say, “God never gives us more than we can handle.” I bristle, my head snaps in the direction of the speaker, I want to see who that dumb-*** is. My parents and sister are doctors, and believe me, people are dying every day in situations that are more than they can handle. Heart attacks, staph infections, gunshot wounds, covid, cancer - Uggg, sorry, I got off track and boiled-over there.

Anyway, we had some jazzy music and incredible Vietnamese pulled-pork sandwiches with fries and a smoky ketchup that I could have just drunk.
.
.
**I put (Charles) in brackets because, as our driver and escort, he’s usually there in the background when we’re not in the residence. But his presence is circumscribed, because he’s not there socially. Is it rude not to include him in every narrative? I don’t know - it's a habit.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Circumscribed: something limited by choice.
Dylan Mar 5
Winter rain dissolves the snow
and reveals a hidden green.
Scant lamplight dots the darkness
where homesick phantoms wander
beyond the hemlock screen.

Winter nights put arms around
the shrunken hours of day.
Branches lay cloaked in icy beads
as the moon seldom peers
from the frozen curtain of gray.

Winter birds sleep in mossy grottos
while their cousins make for the sea.
One day I'll be moved by vernal blaze
but until then I'll just let the clouds cry for me.
ChinHooi Ng Feb 24
It was raining
I stood at the intersection
poetry romps in my heart like a little digimon
the world seems outsize
the city disciplined
because of the rain
transparent umbrellas
in the lens of the live cam
misty skyscrapers
extendable streets
picture of the past
withered like a leaf on the bench
the rain falls from somber sky
and visits every part
it is the countless stitches of time
moving densely together
mending the scattered
cold and lonely
little hearts.
snipes Feb 14
dying in the rain
hoping I’ll grow
being born in the sun
hoping I’ll shine
attached with a heart
guaranteed with a chance
an infant handed over
with a time of life
with a stamp of death
but who’s to say a soul
can’t belong to infinity’s
grasp
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