Rain: A Poem by Sean O’Brien

A poem in the mock-heroic tradition that shows how absurd people can become in the face of mild adversity

“Rain” is a 1995 poem by Sean O’Brien (born 1952), a British poet who is known for combining political and social comment with humour, lyricism and interesting uses of rhythm. He is also well known for being inspired by rain, which features in a number of his poems, and he blames this obsession on having been brought up in Hull, where it was impossible to dig a hole in the garden without it slowly filling up with water.

The Poem

At ten pm it starts. We can hear from the bar
As if somebody humourless fills in the dots,
All the dots on the window, the gaps in between.
It is raining. It rained and always has been raining.
If there were conditionals they would rain too.
The future tense is partly underwater. We must leave.
There’s a road where the bus stop is too far away
In the dark between streetlights. The shelter’s stove in
And a swill of old tickets awaits us.
Transitional, that’s what we’re saying,
But we’re metaphysical animals:
We know a watery grave when we see it
And how the bald facts of brute nature
Are always entailed by mere human opinion,
So this is a metaphor. Someone’s to blame
If your coat is dissolving, if the rain is all around us
And feels like…