winter is glooming now dripwater sliding down windowpanes my mind hoared with frost, slicing clocks and stale breakfasts, muddied plans and senseless perseverence there was a time when rain would dribble me mad pounding, pounding on the eaves [like the old story by the old dead man where it rains and rains and rains [and no one ever gets to see the sun [and the rain always dripping, sliding slipping into face [between eyebrows, down ears, past neck [and trickling into partially opened mouth] not now: I've girded myself with walls, bitter fortifications and disembodied trenches. it is raining when I open my eyes in the dark to the sound of music or clamoring or rustling in the night I think I am still asleep my nightbrain conjuring dream-murmurs to strangle me but I feel the burn inside my eyes I know I have never been asleep: still waiting to ride that wyrdness into dream. darkness raining a nightmare haunted my chair demurely weeping softly in the night and I was swarmed by a thousand thousand hungry toothsome ducks, all wanting my bread though I had none...