Two Rivers

There's something about a summer rain that's angry, stolen, spoken.
Though I carry treasure in words like a wallet tucked loosely
in no-iron, dress pants, I always return to storms.

Still, I take part of tomorrow with me wherever I go. 
I do not fear losing money, only the embarrassment and
violation of being unable to pay time’s next instalment.

The tempest’s humidity rises beyond any voices heard,
remaining or hanging under an afternoon sky; at first hazy,
then secretly annoyed by cut corners across busy streets.

On the water I am most free, sails tacking
wilfully, against running winds, skipping
familiar lines remembered before storms. 

I know this moment, waves of raging thoughts
different, winds slightly changed in directions
I now move, never returning.

I look across the river at this moment; my life
becomes waves pounding a wrinkled shore,
faces revealed in declining currents.

The waves toss rising and subsiding pasts along the shore;
only the water brings these waves without hesitation.  Here,
the depths of the sea are colored by ribbons of blues, greens,

thinner near the sand, disappearing at night.  I addressed anger
long ago before this storm turned the sky gray.  There is a river
within the river.

They Shoot Ghosts Don't They?

Thieves left family pictures and a decanter of wild feathers
untouched on a shelf of a corner hutch. Sometimes, death
comes before living: what father always warned before
I snapped his picture against a green and white pickup.

I now listen for slender tires repeating on whining roads
outside my home, never hearing footsteps, or
what dies in a quiet room without me. The hutch,
like dying, holds pictures of what cannot change.

Dying remains foremost in any house the first few days.
The dead drop hints with lines dripping inside
misted windows, inside hands rhyming
with the Chevy, Ford and Dodge in my veins.

They say ghosts live in feathered houses, sometimes
long before passing on, but I know different. Spirits
of fathers or mothers; maybe moisture breathed out,
collects on glassy nights when it's warm, darkest.

What's irreplaceable, that can't be stolen? Dry, outside panes
wait again for their faces, answers; rain condensing
through tepid windows where there're no clouds. Something
inside edges towards another morning, as if forming again.

 

Contact Patrick Flynnn