THE RAIN HITS THE CITY

Way up

High,

Spiralling,

It is waiting

And watching;

The Rain is gathering its forces,

Wild and whirling and whiling time

In its swarming, darkling orbit;

But wheeling

Without warning,

Down

It comes.

The Rain

Hits

The City

Hard,

Its hailish teeth mechanical as sharks’,

Hammer and rivet sky to street in a swooping lock,

Fast and cold,

And then the rain rains upwards,

Bouncing ravenously back at itself,

Insatiable,

Invincible,

The Rain roves

And threatens the fat banks stuffed with money,

Dins above the throb of the night-shift machinery

And the pulse of traffic is drowned by its drumming,

Making of its desperate wipers, a locust mockery.

With no abatement

The rain keeps on;

Dives off ledges and bridges:

Never dies

As it pocks the costive canal,

The Rain defies;

Stabbing the dark and lonely parks,

It batters blossom out of aching trees

And floods all routes of the shallow pipes and gutters.

Dust is thus turned into streaming scum

And holy gargoyles choke;

Drains spume,

Spate:

The Rain is swilling out the City’s mouth

East and west,

North and south,

Whilst behind blurring windows

Men cannot rest

As they shiver through these early hours,

Until suddenly the Rain

Stops.

The City is thrown into sodden black relief,

Left like some colossal Ark,

Awaiting some undeserved deliverance.

Daybreak

Over the towers and spires,

And a dark bird now flies out,

Bearing litter in its beak.

There is no rainbow.

(1983)

 

 

Even with 'free verse', almost always, some kind of form emerges as I write, though not necessarily or even usually, a traditional form. Most of the shaping of metre and rhyme in my work is of my own device. Even in a poem like this one, where the lines begin and end is vitally important, although there is no overall regularity beyond the typographical trick of making the print resemble a storm-cloud structure.