Drumming syncopated on the tiles
The grey rain tumbles and stumbles on down
To pour away. The day accepts a crown
Of wet authority. For all the miles
Water rules the people for a while
Washing them away. It’s like a ghost town,
Empty streets and the life has now been drowned
The song of rain keeps me so beguiled.
I’ve been missing you. I don’t know how long
I will hear beneath the rain the silence
Of your absence. Everything has gone wrong
Sky crying no substitute for your song
Now gone. The rain falling fills my eyeless
Gaze. Perhaps the water will help me be strong.
Neil Willcox has family from Stratford-Upon-Avon, home of Shakespeare, so writing a Petrachian sonnet seems almost disgraceful. His poetry has previously appeared in voidspace, Pink Plastic House, Mookychick and Twist In Time and is forthcoming in Corvid Queen. He can be found online at nightofthehats.blogspot.com, on twitter as @neil_will and on bluesky as @neilwillcox.bsky.social