Sunday, October 14, 2012

The Jungle

Grime was part of life down here.
Down in the jungle, mildew and rain
was the main part of your life.
It flowed in and out of you,
became all of your pain.
The other was forgotten
like some stale corner of toast.

You lived here on the coast
always on the wet edge.
Holding onto your warm beer.
living through sorrow and strife.
Never anything new,
just rain and rain and more rain
until all was besotten.

On those rare, blessed days
when the Sun did peek through,
when those feeble rays
licked up and down the wet trees,
you sank to your knees
in mud and in rotten
refuse after days of
rain, rain, rain
as you tried to walk
downhill to the train.

The train that coud take you out of the rain,
out of the coastal jungle
into the light.
The blessed light.

You went to light up a stick
but soaked to the core they were.
So, you brought out the whiskey
and guzzled some down.
Then the rain came back
as you got near the town.
So much rain it made you sick.

It rained harder now
as if mad at the Sun.

The rain had soaked even the air,
it ran off your nose into the
river of mud in the street.
The real river had long since
overflowed its muddy banks
and carried the town's
lesser abodes down to the tracks
where they piled up in to each other
and swirled in the flood
and sank in the mud.

The train was delayed
by the rain, rain, rain, rain.
So, you turned back around
and trudged up the mountain of mud,
through the flood and the crud.
To your shack you came back
and sat down in your wet chair
under the leaky roof
in the rain, rain, rain, rain.

It even rained on the body of your daughter,
who drowned last night in all of the water.
She who had done nothing,
always doing what she oughter.
But she'd been no match
for the rain, rain, rain -
the stinking, stifling rain.

And the jungle laughed.
Laughed in the rain,
laughed at your pain.

So, you laughed back,
what else could you do?
In the rain, rain, rain
there was little to do.
Everything was full of water,
there was nothing left dry
even way up high.
Nothing to slaughter
for food as it had all
flowed down the river of mud
in the rain, rain, rain, rain.

Someday the Sun would reign.
Someday after the skies
had finished with rain.

Someday.

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mindbringer, 13 October 2012