Patter Merchant…

Rain
I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;
one big thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame
before the lens pulls through the frame
to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass
and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,
so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play
I think to when we opened cold
on a starlit gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign
and I’d read into its blazing line
forget the ink, the milk, the blood
— all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters
and none of this, none of this matters
Like Morgan and Leonard his work is accessible, wears its intelligence lightly, and can be amusing and deeply moving. I often feel like I don’t allow enough poetry into my life. If you have a similar inkling then try some Don Paterson, either his poetry, or his collections of aphorisms
The Book of Shadows, The Blind Eye and Best Thought, Worst Thought which also come with high recommendation. Below is a clip of the man reading at Book Slam:
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