Use Your Rains

The raindrops, are quietly gathered in the stails now, thundering hooves, pawing the ground, anxious for the start, at the 7.45 from Sundown. The gun goes off like lightning,
And they’re off, leaping the first fence in a bunch, they land in the mud with a splash; the crowd of crows go wild, as Bit-Of-A-Drip surges into the lead. Close behind is Storm-Sausage, who is on sizzling good form. But, but, I don’t believe it! Cats’n’Dogs comes bucketing down, Their owner, Lobelia Completely-Barking is jumping up and down, cheering her horse on. It’s neck and neck, the wind is screaming in their ears, at the last hurdle, the dreadful umbrella jump, impossible, incredible, Cloud-Cuckoo-Land drifts into the lead, and Rain-In-The-Neck is down and it’s Bit-Of-A-Drip, with Home-Sleet-Home, but in at the finish by the seat of his pants, at a hundred- to-sun, it’s
Soaking-Wetbum!

Copyright: from Poems Out Loud (Hodder, 2005), copyright © Andrew Fusek Peters 2005, used by permission of the author

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His readings have a musical quality and are also very varied in style. Listen to the lilting rhythms of ‘Leaf’s Lament’ and then the ...

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