Lightning cracks and thunder shrieks with great fright
The rains pour down with penetrating pain
Type o' storm that keeps Noah up at night
Tides flood streets like an angry berserk train
Still the albatross is yet to take flight
Outside thunder, lightning, and floods in vain
For in my heart lurks deserts, lonely drought
Will these rains quench my thirst? My heart has doubt

I offer no defense of my hidden sin,
Not when it wastes a fragment of eternity
In frivolous expenditure, stretched so thin
Across another vast, sprawling century.
And if I would - if I were - where to begin
This tour of a macabre private gallery?
All things, even this one, have their beginnings:
Thus, my humble collection's underpinnings.

Called to this divine vocation, I set out
Each time I encountered one who, crafting art,
Demanded my attentions. Please: never doubt
The truth of my intentions; my swelling heart
Adores them, falls in love as they sing or spout
Their lifeblood inspiration. Stepping apart
From all of this, don't stare so miserably!
Can I be blamed for working literally?

I love them, one and all, and here I curate -
Safe from all the ravagings of time, if not
Precisely speaking safe from my own mandate -
The workings and workers who inspired such thought,
Such incisive action. I lay them in state
With tender care, never sold and never bought.
Perhaps a glance at my favorite pieces
Might reassure you? My latest releases?

Observe the cuts into copper, engraving
Her fury, her passion into the cold plates!
How torturous, yes? She recalled it, raving,
Having sought me out to deny the ingrates
Assailing her solitude, as a craving.
I preserved her passion. Here, her works’ mates:
The roses she treasured etched into the hard bone
Of her shoulder-blades and skull, instead of stone.

But so few beloveds grace my humble home
Despite my voracious eye surveying scores
Of likely lovers - artful, otherwise - some
Lacking, left uninvited. Those I adore,
I long to beckon close - close as you now come.
Join me? There's more to show you, so much more,
And I hope you'll linger tonight, to dine.
I've just the thing for an artist who loves wine…

So instinctively
A working class classicist
That his shopping lists,
Though composed as ottava
Rima's, always contained slang

I found a bud,
among nothing but grass
in my garden mud,
which has not been tended as
it should.
But to pass
and awe in this flower’s beauty
is the sentient’s only duty:

to stop and to admire
as we do
with a house on fire;
and you
who bring my being to a place higher
than anywhere a thought can to –
but still you are a notion,
a sight with which my mind is in motion:

a controlled
chaos, that causes
speech slowed,
implausibly placed words, and losses
of thought. I mowed
the grasses
where I found the budding flower,
and no longer think of beauty’s deep power.

A boy lived atop a hill
pleading for a way out
that did not require skill,
experience, or clout.
He decided to drill
for oil -- with doubt.
In spite of these doubts he grew to be rich,
but was turned to a mule when he married a witch.

Clouds close off the sky as droplets fall from high
Traffic doesn't slow down as my foot falls pound
Wind lifts dried dead leaves, trees wave goodbye
Timing is right as raindrops stop before the ground
Roadway is still wet, spots cover my "four eyes"  
No pain in the knees easy pace arms move up and down
Sadness has caught me, running even at my shoulder
Sweating from the exertion the warmth is turning colder

My love, the day you came into my life
Was when I hate to feel the rain so much
Each drop to me was like a sharpened knife
That made deep cuts and wounds I couldn’t touch
But there you came along to mend the strife
When I was falling down you’re there to catch
You guided me and helped me ease the pain
My dear, you taught me how to love the rain.