Glendale Rain

Are poets ever meant for this world?
Of people learning to say what they want,
Of shiny things dropped in laps and then pulled away,
Of survival and luxury inextricably mixed?
I lost my job, home, money, kids and wife
Again, but that's OK. I have a chance to walk
Ocotillo Road—it lands on my soul, my spirit lifts
To the fat, cold rain.
I have no need of a voice, for once
Or a place to go, for perfection
Has no future, but, yet,
Connections need a sound, even utter
Happiness calls forth from brimming eyes
An explanation.

The rains come
Thick chattering on tin eaves, continuous,
Seeming to come from, and go, nowhere,
Existing, it seems, for the dance of sound.
The lights bring implausible brilliance to the blacktop
As the drops merge and funnel away
To a glassy veneer that covers all, but it too
Will have to give way tomorrow—to feed streams
In silent fissures beneath the ground, invisible, waiting
For a mystery to emerge
That overtakes the earth.