ONE NIGHT IN THE RAIN

it was warm inside the pub                                                     

a girl was making a fire

people were stamping their feet                                                                                      

all I could see was a swirling grey mist

we can't walk home
she said
the storm is still raging
a sort of gypsy looking woman
who always wore the same puke-green pea coat
she was adamant 

almost aggressive
she expected me to make a decision
but you can't sleep with things like that


she left alone that night
so I didn't get to her before she died
but it set me to thinking
after she'd gone
that no one I'd ever made love to
had croaked yet
far as I knew
still living their lives
with some nameless face
                             

or faceless name

still
 they're dead to me


i stepped into the misty haze


i turned to see Noah's Ark
standing in my path...
extending me safe harbor?


it is a crime to take your own life
and sometimes a tragedy not to 
bad manners to joke about a thing like that


i turned away from the vision
i lifted my face to the sky
blue lights flickered from overhead wires
i knew that it was dangerous
i closed my eyes
the best kind of oblivion
i saw the sunrise and the sea
i tasted the rain
i saw the passage of all my empty days
i almost forgot that i was running




Author Note: One Night In The Rain is not derived from any actual incident. The narrator is a character. But as every writer knows, there is a little of ourselves in each of our characters. . 


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MATERIAL WITNESS

For One Shot Wednesday

I saw you again

at the last red light

the girl on the billboard

flagging a ride

to catch a flight

But all wings

to the City Of Angels

were grounded by fog

so we taxied around

until we found

a cheap room

There were clean sheets

but no Bible

You kissed me awake

with your haunted eyes

ran your hands

down my worn Levis

We poured the wine

and talked about how it feels

to

be

frozen

in

time

You said: How is it effected

this transformation

from image to cell?

I said: I learned it once

in a madhouse

just a place we called hell

and you're a material witness

With the dawn

a woman's voice

singing an ancient tune

Your picture in the paper

an apparent suicide

from the east side

of the river

The girl on the billboard

at the last red light

the fog had lifted

at last she made her flight