Rain storywhen it’s very still very quiet like this morning i am in my bed with no cigarettes the light enters sideways. makes small shadows nothing else is like this moment. rain, the rain i wanted, is raining for me almost perfect and this is for your birthday so i remember you seriously. and the colour i think about now, about you, is pale lemon i don’t know if you like it pale lemon hoping you do i open the window wide and everything alters because of that. we talk a lot but i wouldn’t dare to say ‘cheer up’ ever again once though i said ‘your eyes are like my dog’s’ i lose fountain pens and gloves never see them again but it doesn’t really matter anyway that’s what i say it doesn’t matter. always. and clocks. dumb clocks. dumb exquisite clocks. dumb violins. dumb pianos they make me feel like singing, today anyway, in my bed. a small morning. ever stupid. ever happy. and it’s all terrific, really especially driving through a million near-misses it’s like that, isn’t it. really though, you deserve more than this, on this occasion. a tommy leonetti record. an answering service. a ticket south, west, north, east ? bed socks ? but this is the gift, it is for you. it can’t be helped. it’s coming from happiness, not from fun. not even from show business. simply happiness for you that’s the gift i guess, but sometimes your hand passes through your hair and surely you wonder ?
(a poem on the occasion of a friend’s birthday) 1982
from New & Selected Poems, Wild & Woolley, Sydney 1990
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