Woodruff in Anger – Poem

Seven in the evening

I stood up in the rain

13 minutes passed

Since I left my early poems, muted,

In the rain

As I was

Leave-taking my London train

*****

In Brighton Station

I stood up trying to do a Mary Poppins

With my golden gadget umbrella-in blue

Floating up to the highest height

I was going through a terrible eye pain

Gripping a hot starbucks coffee

My goblet dropped down

In the last flush of the shore light

*****

My muses went betimes elated

By a wonderfully glimpsing star light

It enlightened me,

Set off some strangely surreal delight

Upon my telltale sky

And that made my eyes' day

*****

My eyes were contented

I bought a Blue Trench Coat

Before,

From churchill square

*****

My new umbrella couldn’t withstand the heavy rain

*****

I stood up in the rain

Waiting for 27 Westdene,

Inside the bus

My Ferragano glasses fell into my gypsy bag

At arm's length from me

There I met a man who

Looked hefty and stout

But the truth, a human vigor

Comes not from body muscles

But from his long journey of soul pain

*****

By Tongdean Road

Each of us chose to drop off

He was much in pain

His face looked young and pale

He’s stifling in agony

Did he know his pain

Drove me enough insane

*****

At Meadow Close

Something I saw in his twinge

Something weird and insane

I said that's no fair,

You die in solo dance

It’s no fair, You who dies in pain

You die in solo human pace

*****

So your fever

To convalesce,

******

Have you seen

The last scene of

Love in Andalus?

*****

Have you planted

Your hands to serve

A darvish who is madly whirling in love?

Have you not withdrawn

A soft swan song

Near Woodruff Avenue or

In Valley Goldstone?

*****

Have you drunk from the river of

Fever

And dried your pain

With embroidered towels

Tearing in the wind?

*****

A swift pang I have received

In my heart

A too shelling pain

Into Meadow Close

***** Something I saw in his twinge

Something weird and insane

I said that's no fair,

You die in solo pain

In the rain

*****

I stood up trying to do a Mary Poppins

With my golden gadget umbrella

Floating up to the highest height

I was going through a terrible eye pain

Photo by Yassine Abouyaalah