The Empathy of Rain is a lyrical collection of poems that uses rain, in all its moods and forms, as a mirror for human feeling. What inspired you to write this particular collection of poems?

When I finished my first book, Turbulent Waves, which explores the human condition under conditions of emotional turbulence (think of the global pandemic and the change in American politics), I wanted to move away from turbulent conditions to one more in step with nature, so I picked the various forms of rain as a conduit for the empathy that surrounds us.

How did you decide on the themes that run throughout your poetry book?

This was actually the easy part; as I used all of the various types of rain as the overall themes, and once I had my content, I matched each poem to the specific form of rain, including “coronal rain,” which is rain that falls onto the photosphere of the sun.

Do you have a favorite poem in the book, and if so, why does it hold special meaning for you?

“Melancholy’s Ghost”

January’s angel touched me with an afternoon kiss

As she spied Melancholy’s ghosts dining on my mind

Like lost desert rain that never finds the ground here

She weeps as they huddle together waiting in the sky.

We met one day as a lover’s glance bid me farewell

You will learn to sleep with me as my dreams are yours

And as the days fall in love with years, I will never leave

Let me fill the rooms of your mind with my children.

Her eyes implored, why do you love everyone, darling?

Desert sand covered a blue sky as lips prayed to answer

Yet only the sun could taste my desolate reply to her

Like the rain, my words stolen away by her sweet breath.

Most of my poetry is essentially enigmatic, melancholic, and romantic renderings. If there’s a common denominator that courses through our minds, it’s our emotional dialogue regarding love: lost and found. This poem considers such musings as a ghost of our electricity, which never quite fades away.

How has this poetry book changed you as a writer, or what did you learn about yourself through writing it?

I began writing poetry six years ago when the global pandemic began. It would take me over an hour to write a poem that would work in a Twitter “tweet” back then. Prior to that, I had written software technical documentation for thirty-five years, so I was completely comfortable using language as a tool to express difficult conditions or situations. Since then, I have written 2500 poems, self-published my first book, published #2 & #3 via two publishing houses, and I am well into finishing #4. As I look back over the evolution of my poetry, I can easily see how my thoughts have matured and deepened regarding how to express the enigmatic melancholy that comes to mind when my muse, Calliope, shares a thought. I write listening to music via vinyl records, and it’s the vibe rather than the lyrics that creates the river for my poetic meanderings, and now the entire process takes half the time to complete compared to my initial poems.

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