Thunderstorm Over Hampstead

Ferris wheel, standing in a shadow
of dusk now here
a dark cloud over the carnival
closing its gun tents
gives peace to the vomiting teens
to women in wheelchairs
who’ve come from Applebee’s. 

Overrun with country folk I know--
old Confederates on motorcycles
nasty football coaches
the sons of farmers and golf pros
quiet exurban boys
living for killers and torture videos

rich old egg magnates who got time for conspiracy
dead-eyed mechanics trending toward Asshole
slow-eyed children-from-exurban-mall
and the woman shouting for Pooorrrrk! 
inside the food stall.
Hatred was rising in me
as field hockey girls
smiled approvingly
upon demography.

If I dropped my eyeball in a public restroom
I’d be no more filthy than the man beside my Ferris wheel
informed of breaking news
that may be fake because you-make-him-think- it-isn’t-real-but-really-it-is-and-that’s that.

Whichever of these men
will pass judgment on me
before time does the essential work itself?
Damn.
--------------------------------------------------------

Worried wishing
the reason will come around  like clockwork, for now
contempt and violence season homecoming. Alas
when Town Hall rings 8 PM
a sneer deforms me—
and electrical theology takes night by the steeple
with a rainbow over the strip-mall monsoon

and dark clouds above the exodus
complete with texting friend
lecturing me  about my White Consciousness
til I roll my fucking eyes
watch the people get tired and wild--
and wings of jagged light light up the brain
with clarity under the late-forming nimbus 

accumulating what will rain the night away
in a summer marked by rain
and firemen saying Good night, ladies, good night--

a thunderstorm to wash us far away
a thunderstorm--the sort of thing
you come to love
when as a misplaced child
in search of meaning amid loneliness
lifechanging chemistry and this unscrupulous mob
you write about and feel
inside your tender fucked-up bones.

That child cannot evade this carnival
as quickly as a man. I know that child--
this town this existence yes
this existence? And I feel myself drowning
in the flood to come just like I was seventeen again.

All I have to do to remember
is go home. 
 Tonight it rained  wild rain.