New Poetry by Brian Rihlmann

Owen's Water Chimes

The rain spatters against the window
and I am taken back to his dingy room
in that old flophouse on the north coast,

where we sat 20 years ago 
chatting about books and drinking whiskey
during a winter rainstorm,

and he occasionally held up a finger,
interrupting me,
and saying, "Listen!"

He called them his "water chimes,"
the beer cans and bottles
he tossed out the window into the alley,

and heard melodies
in the plinking and plopping sounds
of raindrops on their hollow shells.

I was 25 then, he was 50 years older,
and I thought he was drunk,
or just a crazy old bastard.

Now I sit, listening to the rain,
windblown against the glass
drumming like tiny insistent fingers,

like someone waiting for me
when I'm running late,
but I'm not sure just what for.


- Brian Rihlmann 2019

Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse. Folk poetry...for folks. He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review, Cajun Mutt Press, The Rye Whiskey Review and has an upcoming piece in The American Journal Of Poetry.