Bisbee Rain Collage

(a monsoon inspired poker poem)

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 their wings,

bards once sheltered ontop soapbox scaffolds

casting insignificant shadows

onto cigar ash floorboards.

now, window barbarous downpour,

a constant waterwash up from Agua Prieta

sinks 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

fingering another trick bounce,

while the clueless players cast their desperate lots

hoping to extract diamonds from iron,

turquoise from copper matrix dumps.

and all the while our hipster turquoise-toothed jester

catches the sing song shuffling of doormats,

as the upstairs remaining tenants

feverishly haul out buckets of water,

survivors armed only with heishi trinkets

and malachite spiderweb chips.

today 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 Billy fakes a series of yawns,

folds his winning hand

solemnly cedes to the deluge outside,

singularly aware it is way too late now

to hop aboard the busride back to the St. Elmo’s museum,

and take that nostalgic half turn

through its inevitably drenched

swinging green doors.