Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Tempest

 
Tempest

As I hung up the phone I could feel the storm building
up in Westchester north of the city. Her words dank like
the afternoon air of New York in August. Those days
when the city begs for the relief only found in an angry
summer tempest.

Remember that day in Colorado? You asked me if I still
loved you as we drove to Aspen in alternating rounds
of rumble and silence.  And the clouds poured down
from the mountain peaks like cotton balls spilled from
their bag. The soft edges melting into the green slopes
as they rolled down to the valley. In the distance sky,
the gods of air, fire and water clashed unseen, save for
the flash and report. Thunder rattled with a sound
best described as titans tossing trash cans in the
alleyways of heaven. And then came the rains, first
with fury, finally with a sporadic gentleness and a glimpse
of reassuring sun.

Do I still love you? I smiled and thought it a silly question.
Weather, unlike climate, is a transient condition. On my
way out the door, I grabbed an umbrella just in case
the distant squall turned southward and sun was again
overwhelmed by a passing storm.

SMG   


10 comments:

Brian Miller said...

ah that storm can turn at any moment...especially depending on how you answer that question, just saying...ha...and i would wait til you got off the road before answering...or were going below interstate speeds....

brudberg said...

I love the description of weather in Colorado. I was there a couple of years ago and the afternoon thunderstorms are so impressive,

Love how you mingle the nature with the mood in the relationship.

and " titans tossing trash cans in the
alleyways of heaven" is such a cool description

Anonymous said...

Oh, this is glorious! I can feel the cooling off and the raindrops on my skin. And I do love the weather/climate metaphor.

Anonymous said...

What a lovely prose poem. Nicely done especially the denouement at the end.>KB

Anonymous said...

"Thunder rattled with a sound
best described as titans tossing trash cans in the
alleyways of heaven."
This was my favorite line !!
Everything bigger in big sky country, been to Colorado a few times myself and natural beauty is its #1 asset !!
P.S.had a real difficult time proving i was not a robot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Audrey Howitt aka Divalounger said...

This is just so lovely! I loved everything aabout it!

Warcommander said...

she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
piece of shit?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me. . .
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles. . .
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had
a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,
centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and
sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.

By -CB

Mystic_Mom said...

The freshness of Colorado and the swelter of New York in August - can be the condition of the heart as well. Very good.

Claudia said...

love the images, conversation and mood you create...ha..better to have that umbrella ready, you never know...smiles...titans tossing trash cans in the
alleyways of heaven...so cool....

mrs mediocrity said...

I love the way you ended this, a brilliant use of metaphor.