Poetry Friday: The Word is RAIN

It’s the rainy season in the Midwest...if we have “seasons”, which I’m strongly beginning to doubt, as day to day we experience a myriad of seasonal changes that can’t be correlated into what the calendar says. The other morning it was not quite 40 degrees when I left the house, and near 90 degrees when I left work for the day. You can’t tell me that’s Spring. Hell, not even Summer. It’s some strange confluence of seasonal affects that combine into one confusing day for wearing clothing.

What I do know is this…between March and November, the humidity in Michigan makes my hair go nuts. N-V-T-S. And in the rain? Fuggedaboudit. It's a sloppy mess.

Feel free to use the word RAIN in your blog post today, in whatever drizzly pattern trickles down your window…poem, story, photo, song styling, secret to winning the lottery….

I have a couple things, mostly memories. Rain reminds me of things.

Have a good weekend, y’all!


Jules
Years ago, MTv started their “Unplugged” series, and in the beginning, it was hosted by musician Jules Shear. Who I’d always loved. (He has those big sad eyes and plaintive voice that tickle my cooter.) On one show, I don’t remember who the guests were (they had several on at one time), Jules sang the Beatles song “Rain” in duet form with someone I don’t recall. I have the episode taped somewhere, and back then, I watched it dozens of times, to capture the nuances of his voice and sleep on them like a big soft pillow. Unfortunately, I can’t find hide nor hair of it anywhere in Teh Internets. Drat. What I can find is the Beatles video version...and even though I'll always have a soft spot for the Fab Four, my heart beats faster thinking of Jules' less-psychedelic version, all acoustic and smiley.




Nightcrawlers

It was night now. Daddy drove us in his big red car back from the funeral parlour, where the grownups cried and us kids sat on wooden chairs in the hallway, fidgeting with Little Golden Books and plastic yoyos, trying to make sense of it, wondering why it happened. And why not us.

It was night now, and the car drove slowly through the rain, the windshield washers whoomp-whoomping a rhythm that set my baby sister to sleep on Mama's lap, and all of us wishing we were in bed. The pavement was shiny, and the mercury lights from the farms along the road twinkled like stars in the downpour.

It was night now, and I was tired, but I could swear we were hitting something...something little on the road, constantly...bumpbumpbump...bump...bumpbump...bumpbumpbumpbump.

"What's that?", I asked Daddy, and pointed to the little lumps that appeared in our headlights on the road.

"Them's nightcrawlers," he said. "Them big ol' worms come outta the ground when it rains, so they don't drown. Trouble is, they gets where they shouldn't, like the road, and we run over 'em."

"Well, at least they don't drown," I yawned.

It was night now, and I fell asleep, hoping the nightcrawlers would see our headlights, and part like the sea in God's bible.

What I’ve Never Done in the Rain

Stomped in puddles
Kissed a boy under a tree
Tried to cook burgers on the grill
Played Freeze Tag
Washed a car
Run stark naked in the backyard
....my arms outstretched
....the rain running in rivers down the
....slopes of my body
....my hair a terrific soggy mess
....me laughing and finally free
....and
....sexy
....as
....hell