Summer Storm, Brooklyn

 

There is something visceral

In the sound of distant thunder

From the roiling underbelly

Of a pregnant summer sky.

 

At first, a gentle knocking,

A cautious testing, tapping

On the roof and on the windows

As the trees begin to sigh.

 

Suddenly there’s silence,

A still anticipation,

A waiting and a watching

With an apprehensive eye.

 

Now flash! A whip of lightning

With its bang-snap-crack of thunder

Stampedes the herds across the roof.

The streets all start to fry.

 

The trees are writhing now

In waves of throbbing rain

That mist and bend the twisting shapes.

All solids liquefy.

 

The sky is firing salvos

Of stroboscopic glare

While an avalanche of monsters

Reverberates the sky.

 

The cavalcade of noise and blaze

Subsides to glows and grumbles.

Downpour inundates the streets.

It’s Venice in July.

 

Barefoot kids race gutter boats

To seas of clogged up drains.

Their matchstick ships do flops and flips

And spin and sink awry.

 

The thick damp smell of hot concrete

Yields its wet in steam

Which rises up like streaming ghosts

Who flee back to the sky.