Rainy Autumnal Vibes Squeeze the Life Out of Me.
Tetractys — Heart Pleads to Beat
Clouds
hang low,
rain smashes
sturdy rooftops,
heart pleads to beat behind a high dam wall.
It’s proper rainy day in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Low smudged charcoal clouds, heavy-heavy pressure, almost all the colour stripped, left monochrome, smiles wiped from the ever-bright faces.
Memories seep, of a crushed depressed childhood, swallowed shrieks of laughter, stiffled joy beating in my chest. Limbs tied to a chair with the rage of a performing tiger caged in a circus. Oh to be a leaping tiger, to the crack of my own whip.
There’s a 1970’s Sunday, autumnal vibe and it’s squeezing the life out of me. Like many days in my childhood influenced on such a deep level by the black cloud of the Yorkshire Ripper serial killer on the loose that haunted me. It sucked the life out, drained the flush from my pre-pubescent cheeks as he took the vibrancy and colour from his victims leaving them beige; stripped, broken and lifeless.
A childhood with regular monochrome days like today and monsters around every corner took its toll on a fairy-geek-freak child like me. It seems I became a mirror, a reflection of all the shiny brightness that had been bled-out of a whole generation and needed me for a unicorn-scapegoat. Let’s kill the ‘coloured’ kid.
He’s still on the loose in my psyche, the ‘Ripper,’ he hangs with the rest of the ‘lack of self-worth’ crowd but now I’m the grown up and he’s a man-child and rarely makes an appearance.
He only ever feels brave enough to show himself on a washed-out day like today, ashen, sallow and like the walking dead, he’s too ashamed to reveal himself in the brightness of a blue sky or beneath a fragrant Frangipani, he withers and dies in their glory.
Heavy rainy days are few in number in my life now, as are his visits.
This is the first tetractys poem I’ve written in a while, the extra syllables and a few more lines gave me a little more space to share my feelings. I noticed there is a violent edge to the poem, words like ‘hang’ and ‘smashing’ and the desperation of the word ‘pleads’ in the last line. I’ve given an alternative ending below based on my thoughts above. Hmmm.
Clouds
hang low,
rain smashes
sturdy rooftops,
a heart pleads to beat — hands squeeze out colour.
Oh to be a leaping tiger, to the crack of my own whip.
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