Love Poem: Farewell To Ellen
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Written by: Cherbo Geeplay

Farewell To Ellen

Farewell to Ellen
It rains so much in
Monrovia that a
day is like the
bloated dough
on a grey earthly
May, washing
over October. My
love, the sun, hides
in her bright den
refusing to be seen.
       Life comes to a slow
       twiggy motion; the
forest is breathing
with moisture, like
a hut puffing
smoke as a pipe.
While the creeks
bridged their ledges,
there is a seismic
run-down Waterside!
Enough, no more,
the sewage can take!
She is in my arms,
listening to the music
pounding the roof.
Still, calm, reading
Ebony Dust, though,
with lightning bolts
       yelling to be heard.
       The clatter is like
a rumble---tumbling
falling rockets. The
sorry corrugated zinc
holds her seams,
the bed is dry,
but the room
       is a puddle.
       The city is
cramp and damp,
like a soaked sponge
dripping with water.
The hustling contested
old city in an evening
fog, the Mesurado in
a bulge, taking Fanti
fishermen to and fro,
       to the edge of Westpoint.
       To love in the midst of mists,
of raging thunder under your
ears and an air filled with
blithering vermin, is to
drink a linctus in anger,
cooped in wretched
penury. So when the
wait, cannot wait to
be over, you my love
must endure, waiting
to part with the wrath
the rains imposed,
much needed however,
to calm the California
wildfires, gifted on
these shores, for
free. Now: you
       understand, then,
       the irony of nature!