Storm / There Are Wonderful Nights by John Tustin

Storm

Is it odd
That the noises of heavy rain in the night
Comfort me and help me sleep?
Is it odder still
That their tinkling and rasping
Comes to my ears like murmured prayers?
Like a whispering choir
They repeat themselves
As a mantra:
“We have fallen from God’s grace
And He has cast us down to earth
But we are happy to be farther
From his anger and relentlessness.
Now the anger and relentlessness
Is his residue but is our own.”
They say this over and over,
Insinuating their drops into my dreams
Where I greet them without remembering
By the near morning time when
The rain relents,
The sounds vaporize in the purple less-than-darkness,
Taking my memories and even my shadow with them
When they go as I awaken.

This poem is a puddle –
It reminds me that something happened.




There Are Wonderful Nights

There are nights, wonderful nights
When something, anything
Appears on your horizon like the shore
To the traveler on a boat made of popsicle sticks
With tissue paper sails.
The kind of night when one discovers a song
Or a poem
Or better yet a songwriter, singer or poet
Who jumps your pulse and shatters
All expectations.

You sit alone at night before your day off
And you drink and listen to music and read poetry,
Hoping for that moment where the sun parts the clouds:
For only a moment
And you see something
Or at least believe you see something.
You type a series of poems
While eating fistfuls of almonds
Waiting for such a night.
This is the other kind of night.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.