We Are Broken Rain

Broken rain falls independently
without potential for perichoresis
they do not forming puddles
as they should.
Every separate ambition
is at odds with all the other
little ambitions, trapped

in a snow-globe world

of self-significance and

matchstick babel towers

of our own sordid achievements.

Cheep philosophies rebound

from the walls of this snow-globe,

self-fashioning limitless echoes

which guess the content

of any counter argument.

They chew off their own ears

in the self-importance

of being a teacher,

like a faustian imbecile

who has littered the floor

with pages of children's books

but thought himself above

their pictures.

Who punctuates his life

with commas of conversation:

All opportunities to shout white noise

at bored and tired ornaments of ego,

and thus banish listening

to the caverns of past lessons,

that are remembered and repeat

but in fact, never learned!

Even in the nursery

we piled high our matchstick babel towers

we dreamt of bathing in heaving coins and paper bills

convinced our own plastic chair shone,

whilst others faced the floor.

The only way to break

from this snow-globe world

is to remove concentric circles

from our eyes.

The only way to continue breathing

is to tell a more interesting story

than our own moment of respiration,

to tell a more truthful fact

than our own subjective opinions

that fall apart when the glass of our worldview

begins to crack and splinter.

Oh these concerns are never ending

and it's all narcissism

and it is all exhausting.

Try to breathe

in our bath of heavy coins,

and copper poison will

dull our skin until

the wisdom of years

labels us foolish,

as wrinkles crack our reflection

and mortality paints nothing

over our paper bills

that once made us smile.

Written Dec 27th 2010 with the title 'The Bigger Picture'. Re-editted between 2013 and 2016 for 'An Array of Vapour', my as-yet-unread and unpublished collection of Poetry.