rain collage

drip drip ontop scattered books

unseen, invisible

buckets surrendering their rusted holes

to that familiar July damp

drifting up through the floor

certain poets have returned underground

confounding fixed thinking,

alleycats outback fluttering our wings,

once sheltered ontop soapbox scaffolds

casting insignificant shadows

onto cigar ash floorboards

now, window barbarous downpour,

constant waterwash up from Agua Prieta

sinking the ground deeper beneath this forsaken red pit,

where Copper Queen dragon miners hang out

selling lost petrified rocks

to gambling stonecutters celebrating on holiday,

as if it were fiesta time

when holy monsoons seize back their garden

meanwhile, thirty or so miles to the north,

Bisbee Billy leans over the dealer,

scoping his royal picture cards

figuring another trick bounce,

while the clueless players cast their desperate lots,

hoping to extract diamonds from iron,

turquoise from copper matrix

then at once our underground jester

catches the sing song shuffle of doormats,

as the remaining tenants begin hauling out buckets of water,

unaware survivors armed with heishi trinkets

and malachite spiderweb chips

here in this red hat age of pentagrams, nooses,

and sycophant doubletalk fakers

submerged

in allnightcardgames

lasting till no one’s left to admit defeat,

our joker folds his winning hand

ceding to the deluge outside,

aware it’s too late to hop aboard the busride

back to St. Elmo’s museum,

half turn through its drenched swinging green doors