Hangings of water beads,
Rain dunks the city in gouache,
Pasty, like wet taffeta
Leeching after a deep-water bath.
The arrogant skyline turns a blunt edge
Buildings undress their concealed ugliness.
Trees and leaves with a break from dust
Retire to brood on their rootless roots
Like sages expectantly waiting for grace.
Streets slush into spluttering pulps:
rickshaws, pushcarts, cars, vans and humans
Scurry and slither in a water-tight rush.
Streets are a complex of conveyor belts
Delivering their merchandise at their appointed place.
At a cross-roads
The stampeding traffic under knockabout parasols
Mobs it and runs into each other's angry throats
Like inevitable fish bones swallowed in haste.
The solitary crow on the cornice a dampened voice,
On his own today in his drooping dress,
Abandoned by his flock with nothing near to scavenge
Sits musing and prospecting a distant grubby business
A hearty meal garnished with sewage and seepage.
The sky is a porous amorph, a huge spider hanging low
Swelling and teeming
To swoop down on the city below
And crunch all in a consuming hold.
