{"id":1594,"date":"2020-11-19T07:59:05","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T07:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersrebel.com\/?p=1594"},"modified":"2020-11-17T13:40:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T13:40:35","slug":"read-weather-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/read-weather-gods\/","title":{"rendered":"Read: Weather Gods<\/span>David Butler<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Weather Gods<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tired of burnings, bulldozers, charred lungs,<\/span><\/p>\n

Chaac the Rain God decamps from Mayan<\/span><\/p>\n

rainforests, rides the bloated trade winds,<\/span><\/p>\n

comes to reign over the Old World.<\/span><\/p>\n

Days on end the swollen earth has\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

swallowed till it\u2019s soft as blotting-paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sun is an aspirin dissolving<\/span><\/p>\n

in a gauze of soaked cotton.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Storm-drains clog, rivers turn reptilian,<\/span><\/p>\n

shed their alluvial taint in basements,<\/span><\/p>\n

swell to bursting, silver-plate the floodplains.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chaac moves over the face of the waters,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

looks on desolation wrought by man,<\/span><\/p>\n

calls up the brother elements.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The drunken wind which last night<\/span><\/p>\n

stomped through the playground,<\/span><\/p>\n

drove the park into a frenzy<\/span><\/p>\n

of soughing boughs, buffeted\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the houses, sputtered\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

down the throats of chimneys,<\/span><\/p>\n

chased cascades of startled<\/span><\/p>\n

leaves against the windows, has,<\/span><\/p>\n

this morning, taken a breather.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The ground is littered with all<\/span><\/p>\n

the detritus of late Autumn,<\/span><\/p>\n

as if a carnival has decamped;<\/span><\/p>\n

and the trees, stripped bare<\/span><\/p>\n

as parents when grief tears through them,<\/span><\/p>\n

are suddenly old.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span> III<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a moment, between drought and downpour,<\/span><\/p>\n

when the winds hold their breath;<\/span><\/p>\n

the boughs stop moving; the cloud,<\/span><\/p>\n

backlit, is photograph-still;<\/span><\/p>\n

the sea\u2019s meniscus reverent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A moment in suspense.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An instant, when future imperfect<\/span><\/p>\n

appears to hang in the balance;<\/span><\/p>\n

when the dice have yet to fall,<\/span><\/p>\n

the first fat drops to explode<\/span><\/p>\n

in the dust-tormented earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

IV<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Weeks on, the scorched stench persists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the cowering heather,<\/span><\/p>\n

the rusted fern and bracken\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

burnt sienna, a blackened heath.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Something else subsists\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

beneath the ocean sibilance<\/span><\/p>\n

and gulls\u2019 psychotic squabbles –<\/span><\/p>\n

the absolute silence of Death.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bitterness of ash – the whitened cans,<\/span><\/p>\n

the charred bones of gorse imploring<\/span><\/p>\n

like something from <\/span>Purgatorio,\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

an image out of Aleppo,<\/span> or<\/span><\/p>\n

a lesson from our own past –\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the whole Head pitch-capped.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

David Butler<\/strong>‘s second poetry collection, All the Barbaric Glass<\/em>, was published by Doire Press in 2017. Doire are to bring out his third collection, Liffey Sequence<\/em>, next year. His novel City of Dis (New Island)<\/em> was shortlisted for the Irish Novel of the Year, 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Act now:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Weather Gods   I   Tired of burnings, bulldozers, charred lungs, Chaac the Rain God decamps from Mayan rainforests, rides the bloated trade winds, comes to reign over the Old World. Days on end the swollen earth has\u00a0 swallowed till it\u2019s soft as blotting-paper. The sun is an aspirin dissolving in a gauze of […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from Read: Weather Gods<\/span>David Butler<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[204,206,205],"yoast_head":"\nRead: Weather Gods - Writers Rebel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/writersrebel.com\/read-weather-gods\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Read: Weather Gods - Writers Rebel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  Weather Gods   I   Tired of burnings, bulldozers, charred lungs, Chaac the Rain God decamps from Mayan rainforests, rides the bloated trade winds, comes to reign over the Old World. 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