Whose Rain

Whose Rain? Poem to Jim Morrison and John P. Riley

Posted on October 1, 2009

 photocredit: The Doors  The Complete Lyrics

Whose Rain?
For John P. Riley and Jim Morrison

Sometimes now when it rains
I look out the window and
think of my departed friend, John P. Riley
who used to gaze at the droplets then say,
“that could be the same water that baptized Christ.”

I always listened respectfully seeing he was ever so wise
and so much older �"
but I wondered �"
could it be the same water?

How about water emptied from Hitler’s tub?
Or perhaps Gandhi in the Ganges?
Am I being pelted by droplets from sages and misfits?
John was an atheist
why did he think about Christ for Crissakes?

Maybe those drops that clung to me yesterday
were from some ancient mastodons diluted piss or
possibly some left over sweat off the brow
of a very drunken Jim Morrison singing
in those tight, black leather pants clinging
like wanton beggars to each thigh �"
now that makes me feel like standing outside
and getting
“free fall flow river, flow” drenched
umm �"
perhaps I should rethink the orthodoxy of John’s words
under the clouds of a dark and brooding sky
I could learn to love a stormy saturation
certainly it was my dismissal of reason
that made me doubt his logic
or maybe it’s really because
both our analogies
are all wet…