The hollow wind funneled the voice
of the distant night-train crossings,
awakening  a  familiar  silence
hanging from the vast wilderness sky
A restless heart hearkening the echoes,
imagining  a  runaway  Pullman
flew away off the rails,    airborne
on the winged wind headed north

Winter  pausing  for a moment
in  the  shadows  of  familiarity,
as if parsing the unspoken breathings
in an  echoless  surrendered sigh;
uncertain if tacit words set free
could ever allow a heart broken
        to feel whole again

There  is  no  absolving  voice
that whispers in a solemner tone :
        Death  has  no  mercy  ―  
love remains marooned in the wake ,..
and it feels like the world’s gone mad
letting time be the arbiter of perpetuity

The fading dream of a motherless child;
a wish to be held maternally
fell to the ground with a thud,
        breaking the silence,
dissipating formless as the shape of water

Muted cold lips so full of questions
morphing into fugitive sighs
come the unsettled night;
when shadows disappear like frail memories
that  passed  too  soon  to  grasp,
thickly palpable as the warm breath
a winter bird alone on frosty branch

There’s no fear in braving the darkness
in the  winter wilderness of life borne alone
There’s no way of knowing what you’ll find
down that long empty road back home
Life just flashes by silently before your eyes
        through the windshield
    of countless miles and miles

And there’s nothing you can do about it ―
It’s like hearing the moment of truth in a lie
when all I was looking for
was  how I got here in this now,.. yesterday

only finding a hopeless poet
scribbling  slightly stained pages,
spilling  a  bitter  sweet  dream ...


        harlon rivers ... February 2018


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I had finally broke through on a small scale the words were selling .
I found less and less reason to find outside jobs to support myself anymore I drank as I pleased and slept in late .

I was amongst a few but we seldom if ever crossed paths .
We knew we existed but when you step from the playground to the battlefield there is a change that comes over you I cannot explain unless you are there .

People became less and less a concern of mine .
Those I gave a **** about had either died or left long ago.
To gain anything you must be willing to lose everything .

The person you once were must die .
Maybe some found it easy .
They scribbled some words down found a fool to publish it and struck gold .

But fairy tales weren't my style and I had reached the finish line empty and broken .
But I had reached the ******* ! , And that is  all that truly matters .

I thought of those that doubted me .
I thought of the women with whom had shared my bed .
Most thought I was insane and for some that is what drew them to me .

That drive was always there .

I remember sitting in the dark with one such woman .

"Even when your happy you seem so deeply sad inside ".
She said to me her head on the pillow .
As we looked into one another's eyes.

"I'm always thinking sweetheart it's just my nature'.

"Please just be happy baby everything is going to work out I promise ".

We kissed she laid her head on my chest and drifted off to sleep as I counted the demons of my past in the shadows .
They lingered like smoke rings in the air.

I knew are paths were destined to part .

Promises are for fool hearted children not bitter old men as I.

She found another and I found my place amongst those who grasped what few ever could .

We were guarded to others .
Insane to many for we chased a illusion and turned it into our existence .

It was a scene of emptiness and regrets we erased from the simple readers view .
And as for me I bleed the truths of my past upon every page making it seem like art fooling everyone but myself.

It was a fight to remain afloat yet I swam with the sharks and thrived amongst the few .  

I gave up everything that ever mattered to me.
And was a stranger now to even my oldest friends .

We were are killers for we had stepped on anyone who dared get in the way .
Never believe me to be the victim for I made my choices and now
I sit at the table eager to reap its rewards .

It's never a gift it's work plain and simple .
You clock in bleed your soul and bust your *** .
learn to smile at rejections and keep moving no matter how many times they try to break you.

What was once a child's escape is now a fulltime hell.
And I paid my dues in blood and heartache followed by vices that continue to consume me daily .

When you find yourself here, If this is truly for you remember as you ache from the pains of a life lived and a heart shattered not to mention a mind just a shock treatment away from the asylum .

You wanted this.

The view is never the same from murders row  .

This book is full
of my father's eye lashes
He treated the pages
rough like his sons
pinching the daylights
out of them, I remember
mud and grease
on calloused thumbs
and you can still smell
Four Roses bourbon
in the morning
through the onionskin
He would not weep
he knew most folks
never kept their word
Anyway, his death
came through
like a hitchhiker
You could see it coming
like the slow light
of a faraway dead star.

Fear waits upon its prey
where the light is a shamefaced girl

wind is a fragmented guest
where silence fools the unwary

to chirp the birds forget
where the baiter might be the bait

the hush is not all white
as in that ever ruling night
blood is spilled without sound.

Forlorn as the lovers' lost track
meanders the creek
in moans for the lost
shedding its sighs to the tides.