old maid marge never loses a single drop of rain
leaking thru the roof
none will stain the wood grain floor
she spins a million puddlebowls
each drop will plop plang and pling with planned percussion
she likes to sing along
old maid marge keeps tidal waves in jars
angry stormspells, unrelenting and fermenting
old maid marge turns water into whiskey
old men drowning in parked cars paralyzed and lost in old freddie king songs
old wind blows thru broken windowpanes, old books blown open
flipping random pages, old voices singing: armageddon!
armageddon!
god himself screaming:
marge!
we need more jars!
rain for the cities and the plains
rain for the little desert warbler
rain like razor blades in cascades of raging blue future
rain to tame fire, rain to wash the burnscars down dark dangy drains
rain for the thane and rain for the rogue
rain for getting naked
old maid marge plants watermelon in her weathered garden
she likes to watch water grow, sells them by the barrel
old maid marge sits like marble sculpture dreaming
placebo memorial gazebo
a birdbath in a grove
the water in the bowl seems somehow blessed
is the same rain that falls everywhere
cup your hands to catch some
and exist
posted for the sunday muse and poets and storytellers united and earthweal
i’ll be back tonight or tomorrow to read everyone’s poems
jalopy dreams 
It is raining where I am as we speak. Where is Marge when you need her? I absolutely love this poem Phillip!
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yes, wouldn’t it be great to catch all this rain, any other time of year, but right now it’s a bit much =) thank you carrie, glad you enjoyed this.
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This is absolutely great! I love it too. Except – sorry to go all p.c. on you – why ‘old maid’? Such an out-dated term, and does not appear to have any direct relationship to her wonderful activities as described. (If you’re trying to reclaim the term with a more positive interpretation, I think it’s too late – it’s already pretty much obsolete.) Otherwise, as I say, fantastic piece.
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I think it’s a play on words, exalting a maid doing chores and menial tasks to a goddess of music. It very much has a jazz feel to it—turning the moment into an impromptu performance that gets everybody dancing—in the rain, as it were. It’s a snapshot of how we should live—turning work and demands and servitude into a contagious song.
This reminds me of my favorite scene in the new Elvis movie.
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Oh yes, maybe I missed that nuance!
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(We don’t really use the term ‘maid’ much in Australia, even for a domestic worker.)
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I cannot recommend highly enough a book called Elegance of the Hedgehog.
“Domestic worker” is a lovely term!
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elegance of the hedgehog, ok, i will look for that, thank you shawna!
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ok, don’t give anything away about that movie, i haven’t seen it yet, just tell me this, was it good? did you like it? no spoilers please
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You will flipping go bonkers over it. It is so good.
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ok, good to know =)
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Well, ‘domestic worker’ is just an overall description, which would be understood immediately, but not much in everyday use either . What we really say here is cleaner or cook or gardener, naming them for whatever kind of domestic work they do. I am guessing ‘cleaner’ would most approximate to your ‘maid’.
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thank you rosemary, nothing wrong with “old maid”, i’m not changing it, but thank you for the interesting conversation
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well i don’t really keep up on american pc as it is, and australian pc is completely alien to me. sorry if this offended you
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Good for old maid Marge capturing the rain, plip plop and plop plip. We need more like her. I like to think I’m kinda like her.
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thank you, glad you enjoyed this
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I LOVE the music of the puddlebowls so much! And the wonderful rain lines, especially rain for the small warbler. LOVE god screaming for more jars! LOL. Old Maid reminds me of playing that card game with my grandma. She always won which is perhaps why I have been an old maid. I so enjoyed this poem. So original, unexpected and entertaining.
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thank you sherry. i too played a lot of old maid as a kid, waiting for the rain to stop so i could go out and play. glad this struck a cord for you
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Must remember not to cross Marge. Even God needs her help. 🙂
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thank you, glad you liked
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“You’re soaking in it!” Oh wait, that was Madge, not Marge. Catching the drops as they fall is a weirdly dry (!) pastime. I suggest Marge start living large.
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heh, well i don’t think marge is marge at all, i think she’s some kind of god trying to play us (shhh, don’t let her see us talking like this)
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Keep Marge away from OZ …we have la Nina here already. Send her over to the UK….they could use her jars and bowls of water. Plink plonk pitter patter go the the raindrops singing could catch on !
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noted, we don’t need her here in colorado much either, we’ve had too much rain and have a lot of flash flooding. thank you rall =)
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Totally agree with Sherry – unexpected, original and entertaining indeed!
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thank you, i’m glad you enjoyed this
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this was a wonderful poem – I read it several times and love the change of tempo from the outset to the litany of water needs and especially these lines “she spins a million puddlebowls”
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thank you laura!
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You have … amazing talent! Enjoyed this immensely. A smile on my face thru two reads!
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thank you helen, it means a lot to me that you like this =)
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Oh! I adore Old Maid Marge!! Turning water into whiskey so much riskier than wine.
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well, i’ve always imagined god to be more of a whiskey drinker, so perhaps less risky than we think =) thank you yvonne, glad you liked it
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Good lord man, the poems you’ve been writing lately are all just amazing. You had me at “old men drowning in parked cars paralyzed and lost in old freddie king songs”, but then the stormclouds opened with rain… rain… rain… rain.. and I was all the way there.
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thank you sir. i’ve been waiting to see new poems from you, i’m boiling over with consumer demand… and i demand new poems… now! go! =)
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I read this like the blues or maybe with a bit of jazzy beat. There is something about all those bowls and your words catching each drop of rain. This is creative and your mind wandered into places of deeper thought. All that blessed water can it save us and the earth? Rain is needed here everything is brown and dying.
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yes, i was listening to some old freddie king albums, as well as one of my favorite kerouac spoken word albums… you have a good ear
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I love the music in this poem!
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thank you!
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Brand-new, full-blown myth bursting right from the image. Enjoyed every line of this.
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“Brand-new, full-blown myth bursting right from the image.” that’s exactly what i was going for, thank you!
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Looks like our house when the mrs. is on strike.
I would tell you, “Old is always better, but it just might not last too much longer” (I’m older).
..
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thank you jim
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I adore this whole crazy poem, Phillip, it’s just inspiration meets bananas. I’d quote the whole thing but these lines scream filmic elegance:
“each drop will plop plang and pling with planned percussion”
“old maid marge keeps tidal waves in jars
angry stormspells, unrelenting and fermenting
old maid marge turns water into whiskey”
“rain like razor blades in cascades of raging blue future” – this line is my absolute favourite, just genius and beautiful.
The whole thing is sonic bliss. So good. Well done.
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thank you sunra!
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So inventive, so entertaining. It flashed through my mind like watching a music video. I LOVED it!
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thank you margaret, glad you liked
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Ah, indeed. Watch this space.
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I really could copy and paste the whole poem. So much delight in it. I will share a bit that really caught me and made me wish I had written it. “old maid marge keeps tidal waves in jars
angry stormspells, unrelenting and fermenting old maid marge turns water into whiskey “
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Phillip, I enjoyed this poem so much that I literally read it four times, and each time I picked up on another detail. Excellent!
All best,
David
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thanks ben, i’m glad you enjoyed this… sorry for the late reply, i had to take my mandatory 6 month lunch break =) thanks again sir.
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Philip, you’re welcome!
BTW, please feel free to call me ‘David’ ~ that is my first name, you see. The word ‘ben’ simply means ‘son of’ in Hebrew, and my father’s name was ‘Alexander’ ~ I created my blog in his memory, you see.
It’s confusing because ‘Ben’ is also a popular name in English – I’m sorry about that!
Much love,
David
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well thank you david, and i learned something new today, so thank you for that as well, and if i don’t speak with you again before the holidays, happy honukkah!
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thanks so much! and… Merry Christmas to you? I have no idea what you celebrate! 😀
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