It’s raining stair-rods and chairlegs,
it’s raining candelabra and microwaves…
It’s raining jellyfish,
it’s raining nuts, bolts and pineal glands,
it’s raining a legion of fly noyades,
it’s raining marsupials and echnidae,
it’s raining anoraks in profusion.
It’s siling, it’s spittering, it’s stotting, it’s teeming,
it’s pouring, it’s snoring, it’s plaining, it’s Spaining.
from the poem, “The Black Wet” by W N Herbert
And this is the poem just getting started. I was reminded of it when I looked and listened to the relentless rain, today, bouncing off paving slabs and fluttering in the guttering.
I was introduced to this wonderful crazy list poem by an anthology of modern poetry, Anthony Wilson‘s book “Lifesaving Poems” which I have very much enjoyed. Too soon after I got it into my happy paws, I lent it to a friend and she, mistakenly, took it for a gift (a reasonable assumption as she had recently given me a generous gift of a poetry book). But I missed Anthony Wilson’s book “Lifesaving Poems” so much, that it became top of my list for next book to buy.
To follow the poem through its entire trail of description, I would obviously totally recommend buying the poetry book – but if you are impatient or, like myself, suffering from carrying the weight of an already hefty wishlist of books – then you can pop over to Anthony Wilson’s blogpost and read it there:
Comma And 