Landscapes of the Mind - Poems

The Storm

Today, I sit and look out

the same window as yesterday.

Four hours, thinking,

gazing out upon the street –

cars parked in a row. They simmer,

scintillating in the summer sun before

the razor edge of a grey cloud

slices it out of view,

and all goes dim.

A shadow finds its way, 

on this eerily quiet afternoon; the birds

do not sing in the trees, the leaves

don't flutter for any weak

breeze now; the air is tight

and humid, like a sealed up room,

so much that my open window makes

no difference; where I sit, transfixed

with what I witness;

houses around ours

that aren't crumbling inside.

Serenity. My nose pricks at

the sweet ozone scent of

distant lightning that approaches

on the breeze that runs its fingers through

my hair; matted by sweat to my forehead;

and the pounding in my chest is far too loud.

My blood jackhammers in my ears.

I'm waiting for a break in this

weather, for a storm to blow up from

the west, with clouds like anvils, to

push and threaten to burst

the film of artificial calm this hazy

day has lulled us into; like a baby

the moment before it wakes

with a terrible screech. The night will be

a series of raised voices and flung ashtrays,

streetlights on by five in the evening,

and tornadoes will track the state to damage,

somehow, everywhere but where we are.