Medusa Is Mad
The irony of it
(sort of like Medusa getting bit
by a snake)
did not escape her.
She was the one
who ALWAYS had the upper hand,
who never gave an inch,
whose venom was
100 proof.
She could not
for the life of her
pinpoint the moment
when she had
lowered her guard,
exposed her vulnerability.
Betrayal is a slithery thing,
reptilian, if you will.
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poem by Sonny Rainshine
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Dancing in the Wind with Aunt Ana
‘Lectrical storm,
prophesied my aunt Ana,
All fire and precious little water.
Drum-rolls of thunder
bounced about on the western horizon
like pin-balls.
Ribbony fingers of lightning
pointed toward town.
The wind has caught fire,
shrilled my aunt.
Reach up and douse the wind.
I reached up.
I squeezed the wind.
The wind warmed my hand.
My being is all
birdsongs, wind chimes,
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poem by Sonny Rainshine
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Ups 'n Downs
Like white ink on black paper
sometimes life seems turned around.
Like ice in summer, desiccated leaves in spring,
like fish swimming in the Gobi Desert,
like a bell that will not ring,
it’s disconcerting, I've found.
Like black ink on white paper
sometimes things seem straight ahead.
Like iced tea in summer, cherry buds in spring,
like fish catapulting in the thrusting whitewater,
like a bell that rings and rings-
then life’s a dancing thoroughbred.
poem by Sonny Rainshine
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From Beth to Vickie
One summer he read rows
and rows of Elizabethan verse,
from an anthology whose jacket
was illustrated with a red rose.
That was the summer
he was in love with a sophomore
named Elizabeth Forrest,
soft and more precious than a dove.
Lovelier than verse
and theology, Beth was both
the tree and the forest—
she rose above it all.
But summer dwindles
and love loses its petals too—
His Elizabethan period closed that fall
when he met a senior named Victoria.
poem by Sonny Rainshine
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Dreaming of Insomnia
His dream is to dream.
At 3 AM his REM
sleep remains elusive,
fluttering under his eyelids
like caged moths,
not conducive to slumber.
The number of hours spent
changing positions over and under
like tidal waves coming and going,
like a snake coiling and crawling,
comprises the shank of the night.
Like invading goths,
inconsequential thoughts
battle the armies of Morpheus
relentlessly until Apollo arises
and the alarm goes off.
Then sleep ascends,
just as it’s time
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poem by Sonny Rainshine
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One Leaf Minus a Thousand
Why is it so difficult
when looking at, say, a leaf,
without the imprint
of thousands of other leaves
distorting the view?
To be able to observe something
as we did the first time
we set eyes upon it,
when we were
also as fresh and new
as spring buds:
ah, now that would be
a noteworthy event.
If only we had known
back then the gravity,
the urgency of that first glimpse
of a rainbow, or even the reflection
of a rainbow in a still pond,
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poem by Sonny Rainshine
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After the Sonnet Ends
After the sonnet ends it begins.
The final word glistens suspended on a string
like an industrious spider on strands slender as pins,
like a trapeze artist’s precarious swing.
The minstral invites you to take the gift
of vases of words and decanters of wit
and parse them in your mind and shift
the meanings and the mores to fit
the memories of music and rhyme
in the repository of your mind
and perhaps to recall some other time,
and in the recollection find
another starting point where the thought ends,
still another meaning where the line bends.
poem by Sonny Rainshine
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The Bond of Star-gazing
Son, his father says,
why do you stare at the stars?
How can something millions
of miles away be of any use
to us?
Son, of what good is a nest-full
of blue-speckled birds’ eggs?
They won’t feed your children;
nobody will buy them.
Son, why do you plant
marigolds and zinnias
in furrows that could
be used for lettuce
and radishes?
Hummingbirds, butterflies,
wild ducks on the pond
over there: pretty, but we
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poem by Sonny Rainshine
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The City Down There
When I drive home from work,
on the perimeter of the hill where I live,
and will forever,
I look to the right
at the city over there, and then
to the left, toward home;
my thoughts scale the incline
before I do.
Living above the city
seems more important than it did
when pretty girls and the swirls
of crowds aroused me, sustained me.
Urban persuasions undulate down there—
music, cafes, dance—romance. Up there,
only the dahlias are dancing,
the only diva the sparrow,
the day ends at 10 PM not 2.
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poem by Sonny Rainshine
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Playing Golf at Midnight
Playing golf in the moonlight,
at midnight, at night, when light
cannot be trusted, when sight
deceives, it can’t be right.
He drives the sphere with the craters
like the moon, white like the moon,
orbiting like the moon; soon
it will collide with grass or sand, and
the black night will swallow the white
moon and the driving sphere
and no one will know where
went the white and where went the black
and why.
And after the ball has divorced its tee
and after the moon laughs
and retires behind the roofs
of the neighborhood houses,
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poem by Sonny Rainshine
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