sight smile
approach lifts
close tingle
eyes sparkle
yours
fields mesh
ours
hair stands
strands brush
wills fade
lips touch
lost
forms meld
blood flows
tongues search
breath mixed
perspire
wet
we float

There is a secret place you go invisable
vanishing magically without a trace
A place to get what you want
but not what you need

Not knowing when you’re going
isn't like being left behind
It’s a place where only you
know what you’ll find

Sometimes when we’re together
you’re not near me
Sometimes there is a place
without me you’d rather be

Every time I think I've found
your heart’s magical labyrinth
There’s a sparkle in your eyes
that burns from a secret place I can’t see

Your eyes glisten with the depth
of your spirit’s understanding
Trying to unmask the distance
has got me flying blind

Sitting here watching
from limbo's lonely crossroads
the river's ebb and flow
will always reach the sea

Wild eyed hope sparked a candle
with a flame that burnt up the spark
Starving for your spellbinding essence
crash into me blissfully heart to heart...



Harlon Rivers ... © 2013

there was something about her

not quite. . . the same. . .

it wasn't the way her hair parted a little to the side today
it wasn't how she wore shorts instead of jeans
it wasn't that carefree mask she always wore. . .

but there was something about her
that just wasn't right

it was the eyes
or was it the smile?
or maybe both?

there was an eerie look in her eyes

they were no longer shining
they no longer had that sparkle

instead
they were a dull hazel

the gateway
into her

l                 o                      s    
                                                                                                 t

and

b r o

k e n

soul


the soul
which had endured so much

withering with each moment
as day and night merged

and she became

the brainwashed girl

they wanted her to be.

coronating the fluttering sadism
glistening like rainbows shifting beneath
the body of a dead soldier.

we are all fighting
droves of egotistical flag-bearers
as if they are not blossoming from our tongues.

crimes of Calypso, clinging
to the orthodoxy of devotion while
my lungs are closing inward.

who is not to say
remnants of the atomic bonds of
vy canis majoris sparkle like supernovae
triumphantly falling forward as if
the deceased rifle-runner had anything
to whisper.

bending backwards to the icicles of the cubicle
entering my neck as a bullet enters her skull

I fell in love with your eyes.

The sparkle that I see behind them,
The irises coloured a deep chocolate
Made fresh from a cocoa tree.

The smile that goes with it,
Lighting up a million stars.

The tantalizing look they give me,
Every time they catch my gaze.

Today,
I realize.
I fell in love with your eyes.

People the world over suffer
They suffer from:
Hard circumstances, warring institutions,
Famine, lack of education,
Drugs and abuse, poverty, the list is endless.
But they are also addicted...addicted to hope.
Hope that things will improve
Hope that their dreams will one day be realized
Hope that what is so hard will finally be a hurtle passed
Hope is their mind's addiction, the fuel for whatever
It is they are striving for
If the temporary satiation of a drug is finally found,
Then their hope for the drug and their hope for the feeling
And their hope for the escape from reality are fueling them.
If they are struggling to make ends meet, to feed themselves,
clothe their children, escape the debt collector, find a place to sleep
Their hope is to not to have to face these same issues
Every day for as many days as they have living.
If suffering from illness, they hope for healing or death
Hope is their addiction when the young children sit in hot, enclosed spaces
Ill, hungry, malnourished, traumatised
Hope for something better, better than what is before them
Hopelessness is acceptance, it is living in the day to day
Knowing what is is, what can't be changed can't be changed
what can be changed for the better,
Well steps towards that then are slowly taken
And the absolute beauty of life, the wonder of these moments
Begin to sparkle and shine in a way that is subtly impressive
Small is sometimes the most beautiful of all
it is solid, it is simple, it is a sturdy brick upon which one can
Always grasp and stand upon...over and over and over
Refreshing and truly adventurous
To see the nature and artifice of the path one is walking
Realizing that each step is a changing landscape
Of environment, perspective, emotion, situation
When one is down they look up with hope, their addiction solidly in place,
To get to the top of the mountain for a finer view
An accomplishment and relief at having succeeded
but the top is always just the pinnacle
And hope to remain affixed in such a perilous place
Is not in actuality possible
Be it a very violent gust that blows you off,
For we all know the wind vortices are something fierce in mountainous terrain,
Or a misstep, a loss of footing as the ground suddenly whithers away,
Perhaps the grasping hands of others trying to join you,
Their hope addiction now at an all-time high because they
Are. Right. There.
Clawing like animals for the last little handhold to hoist themselves up
And in shouldering themselves into a stand,
They accidentally knock you off, or not accidentally perhaps.
Whatever the case, hope addiction swings back into full force
and if it doesn't motivate, it at least satiates the mind
But hope addiction is also deceptive,
It rallies the wild dreams and ignites the heart with delusions
When hopelessness and acceptance and disconnect are a wiser course
For to live on hope addiction alone is not sustaining
It isn't real.
When alternatives and different paths may be wiser, better
To begin walking upon for now
Hope addiction can be misleading, blinding
He beauty of hopelessness is looking then without the hope addiction
At the possibility that this new path, albeit much different from the other
Is only visible up to a few steps ahead
Does it curve? Does it stop? Does it merge further down
With the original path or perhaps another different one?
Hope addiction...I have been addicted to hope
We all have, it is beautiful and it is scary
I live in hopelessness...content, happy, busy, progressing, adventurous, never knowing what little chocolate from the box of life my day is going to taste like.
I must admit though, one a day is not enough to really enjoy a full day...fully.

She has eyes that sparkle like rain on the sidewalk,
She makes my day when she smiles,
She is more gorgeous than the stars in the sky,
She has the voice of an angel,
She can make the world stand still with her beauty,
She is more beautiful than a waterfall,
She is the one who has stolen my heart,
She is the only one,
She is my world

You told me you loved her.
Her black eyes and chestnut hair,
The way she said you name,
or whispered it in your ear.
How when she held you,
all you could think about was breathing her in and out.
I asked you why you loved her and you answered without hesitation.
She’s perfect, you spoke.
It’s like god took the whole universe and wrapped it up into one girl.
Her eyes are like the night sky,
completely dark but with a sparkle all the same,
Her skin, the sands of Egypt.
Her mind is every great novel ever written
and when she opens her mouth flowers pour out.
She speaks in every language ever heard, at the same time.
A mane like a waterfall, gracefully cascading down her back,
and lips that reminded you of the Grand Canyon.
Every great being that ever was can’t amount to her.
She’s the single most spectacular creature,
like a universe all in its own.
I guess that settled it.
If she was your world, your love, and your everything,
I had never so much as crossed your mind.
But I knew you were telling the truth,
Because that’s how I feel about you.
And now my world’s imploding.

You're a beautiful mystery clad in gorgeous enigma.
You're poetry that looks good in a skirt.

There's an orchestra on your tongue, playing the sound of your voice like a melody I can't forget,
matching the tempo of the drums in my heart
and the broken strings of my violin compliments.

You are a notebook, a yearbook, a sketchbook, a burn book,
every facet of you written in swirling cursive,
rhymes and famous signatures snaking between cinnamon hair and cleverness.

You are a pen running out of ink,
bleeding dry in Barnes and  Noble Moleskin journals,
but that's okay because I have more ink,
and you can borrow whatever you want from me--
store it in the heart you stole if you're bored enough to hunt my words for the pieces.
You have the key already.

You're the first dream of the boy too scared of nightmares to sleep again.

You are the taste of honey and cigarettes on the lips of the first girl that boy ever kissed,
because she was a rebel and he needed a hero
who wore boots instead of Mary-Janes
and band t-shirts instead of blouses.

You are the rose he drew when he was bored,
an outline with potential,
mysterious, entrancing, incomplete,
not yet ablaze with the red of desire
because he was never good at finishing things.
You are a dictionary. Your picture isn't just under "beautiful."
It's under "dangerous" and "witty" and "myth"
because Medusa bowed at your feet next to James Bond and Edgar Allan Poe,
and you're too good to be true anyways.

You are a poem, a telltale heart beating inside a lesson in vengeance,
temporary only because nothing gold can stay.
You've walked past where the sidewalk ends (certainly the road less traveled by)
and come back far more darling than any buds of May.

(You are the paperback novel he read under the covers,
the flashlight only bright enough to show paragraphs,
and every new page unique in shape and form
while the text remains the same.

You are the raw words read aloud by the daring poet,
standing beneath midnight moon,
the power of the throne,
the breath of a whispered promise falling upon the ear,
the warmth of kisses on the cheek,
the passion of all hope there ever was in trust and truth.

You are the fire in lightning,
the sparkle in the snow and the glitter in the rain,
the fierceness of the wind and the gentle, soothing peace,
the blazing chill of winter and the roar of summer's heat.)

But you're still a mystery.
A beautiful,
beautiful
mystery.

I miss that feeling
you used to give me
every time I saw you.
It was like a fire in my chest
that set my bones ablaze
and warmed my world.
It was like the stars aligning
as the Moon kisses the Sun
goodnight.
It was like seeing you again
for the first time and remembering
you loved me too.
But now the fire is gone
like a kindling in the rain.
And the stars seem crooked
against the dark gray sky.
Our love doesn't make me
breathless and excited
for the future.
My heart doesn't leap
when I see you.
Your eyes don't sparkle
when you say my name.
And here I am trying
so desperately to hold it all
together because
I just can't seem to accept
that all we had,
all we used to be,
is fading.