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 Sep 2016
John Niederbuhl
Crickets that chirp all day and all night
Looking for love in their season
Fields of goldenrod that stretch in all directions
The way they did when we were children
Earlier sunsets we notice at mid-month
That make us wonder where the summer went
Cool mornings with fog that burns off
And still air, infused with familiar scents
Bats that come from behind the shutters
To pursue their flights at dusk
(If only we could fly with them)
Apples falling from trees with soft, little thuds,
Reminding us of summer's end and of gravity
Migrating birds that eat the honeysuckle berries
While a monarch lights and spreads his wings
On the white phlox...

That's August up north
 Sep 2016
Ma Cherie
Church bells ring of voices silenced
a darkened Moon is hanging low
crickets stop to hear the empty
as loving waters overflow

As angels call in voices singing
notify my heart goodbye
as deafened ears are opened up
no more tears are left to cry

Dying leaves, a crimson carpet
indigo ink at levied banks
waters flood my aching heartbeat
raising hands to you in thanks

Cloaking eyes, I'm in the shadows
petitioning  you another dance
whispering the coming reaper
if only I could have a chance

Softly come draped in darkness
ebony casts a ghostly glow
lovely bones in alabaster
putting on a secret show

Taking off the heavy waiting
holding down my paper heart
a poets voice cannot be silenced
by ticking hands you pushed apart

Silver tears they fall in quiet
in rivers taken right or wrong
releasing me & painful weighting
and sing me as I come along

Violins they speak so mellow
calling me as I go home
morning comes a glowing ember
left for you an Earthly loam

As the leaves outside are falling
and thickened air bids me farewell
whispering of my departure
& secrets I may never tell
although in this...
you mustn't dwell

Waving you off
in slow motion
blinking lashes bid adieu
darkened cloakroom,
veiling... hiding
memories of loving you

the only love
I  really wanted
the one I never... really knew.

Cherie Nolan © 2016
Just about love, loss and Fall, truly inspired by many things including the attack in New York.
 Sep 2016
K Balachandran
1.
Show me your inky night
and dreaming darkness,
the passing clouds, moonlit,
wind driven, impassioned,
that never would know where
they wound culminate,
or what transformations
will take place between the
nebulous begining and the end
as they speed through as if
they are programmed to perform
feats that move the wheels forward.
2.
Show me the constellations magnificent,
that baffle me every time I stare,
countless stars in your milky way
like a  progression, dying or being born,
some glittering, some death pale,
red, blue or any hue one could imagine,
and the endless mystery that envelops,
all the wondrous things, making' being'
as a part of 'nothingness' eternal,
one in which "Maya"*unfolds as apparitions.
3.
Show me,how you drown me in  your
boundless love that makes
every moment born, transcend
beyond black holes of deaths
and cycles of births connected
like tunnel of wormholes.Make me listen
the subtle music being conducted within
every tiny spec, that takes part in this
eternal ecstatic dance of the sublime.
4.
Show me your magical might,
that would make me both,
Schrodinger's cat alive, in it's playful self,
and simultaneously in a sleep like death,
existing while it is non existent,
and one with everything in this multiverse
dead , dying, alive or emerging from gloom,
all at once, while, reposing  
within a consciousness, limitless.
"The essence is covered with golden leaves  thus rendering it invisible...remove the golden cover and let me see the truth"
"Isavasya Upanishad, 15 th Mantra
Maya*-- an illusory presence where things appear to be present, but is not there.(Which is same as what physicists say that the universe/multiverse  could be a holographic projection)
 Sep 2016
Ovi-Odiete
there are some poets who you read and they give you a rushing inspiration to write more, better than muses from nature..... But when such a poet leaves, it's harder to write again
For my Friend Sydrivers who left this beautiful HP
I hope I get to read his works again
 Sep 2016
CA Guilfoyle
Tree, I have come to shelter and with the rain to weep
I am soaked, barefoot with mud running through.
Soft the moss, cool and cold
to soothe my heart that bleeds.
Our waxing nights of love and moons
now fallow, a field that burns.
****** our hollow bed
of haunting, silent screams
too soon the fiery devil
too far my lover
the spring.
Dear beautiful people thank you for reading my poem, and thank you too, for your kind words.

Cyd
 Sep 2016
Ma Cherie
Autumn comes in like a thief
loitering 'till the
Last Summer Wind
comes
Fall has begun
loading a full metal jacket
encased, guilded
in cupronickel & lead

eager to break the will of lively
verdant vistas down
returning their beautiful souls
and gentle spirits
back to hallowed ground
drifting, floating...
quoting, noting
poetic words
unheard
trying to veer, deviate for  
shared moments...
off without a sound.

Landing over paths
blowing into heaps
swept by wild winds
from  angelic wings
drying, dying
I hear them sighing

Hoping children
will jump in them
smelling the bittersweet of yesterday
raked and burned
they are returned

Sitting in gutters and streams
even in death they dream
in molting piles
all the while
these fading embers...
come September
again remember
they stay within us  
burning beauty
until ...
valuable things are given
life again...
come springtime.

Cherie Nolan © 2016
For my kitty Spanky, who is dying...
So today seems to have some of that last wind.
 Sep 2016
Nishu Mathur
A garden of marigolds....orange, yellow and rust,
Bright, soft and rich, touched with golden dust.

Quiet and regal, sun kissed and fair,
Basil -citrus fragrance that mellows the moist air.

A thousand smiling marigolds, a thousand smiling suns,
Sweet nectar, ambrosia, for natures gentle ones.

Woven into garlands, yellow with tips  of red,
Woven into memories with many a words unsaid.

Love's hopes of an Indian  bride, clad in marigold,
With dreams wrought,  promises that two hearts dearly hold.

Tearful farewell to soldiers who traverse through destiny's doors,
A garland weaved with love for  those from across the seven shores.

And when the being is but a thought, as life grays and  olds,
Wrapped in a hearse of love, their love, with weeping marigolds.

An offering so humble yet flowers that Gods wear,
An offering with love,  with a souls quiet prayers.

Orange, yellow, rust..to love, to pray, to mourn,
Golden, sun kissed, blessed.. marigolds that life adorn.
 Sep 2016
harlon rivers
He squeezed his voice out of the throat  
an old Dreadnought guitar
He bared his soul to anyone
who would listen to his psalms;
purging the torn an anxious silence within,
surrendering an unspoken heart in a song

Some days you feel
like you live too long
Watching the recurrent tides
recede and grow low
This life, such an unplanned journey,
given to lose what’s been lost once more

How many times
must a heart be broken?
To realize a heart heavy
won’t stop beating strong
Steal away the broken inside
these flesh forsaken walls;
breathe one’s last bated breath
in the peace of a song

Sometimes life falls
w a a a y y y y short of expectations
Though passing time
may assuage evanescent dreams,
there is a stillness that floods the moment
awakening a motherless child in a soul

Fate befallen a wordless silence
in the aftermath of finally letting go
Fingertips no longer calloused
Dreadnought wood dusty gone cold
Melancholy madness echoes unrequited

A lonely bird without a song ...


* September 2016 © H.  Rivers*
              all rights reserved
Peace
Rivers
 Sep 2016
L B
Route 84 would not lend me
the light of a star last night
Radio blazing at 75 mph
nonsense noise to chew gum by
Crackling political commentary
Static of distance and thick clouds
Invisible mountains blocking
Memories seeping through the cracks
coating the music in a film
I rub my eyes
watch myself punch alert buttons
But it’s the angels’ jukebox tonight

Roll down the window
Watch the heat escape

Summer again

I am building a castle of ancient stones
pulverized by relentless tides
Dragged across maps by mastodons
and mammoth glaciers
The scouring hiss
the ocean sighs
Time has lulled these smoothly
rolling them in the softest hands of sand
and gels of life’s comings and goings
tenderly tumbling
in the millionth moonrise—
Time deposits them here
wet and glistening

For the girl with the plaid two-piece to gather
Shoulders sun-burnt barely say
one week only,
one week of the fifty two
“It’s the time of the season…”
and daddies on the beach are watching….

She has chosen yet another stone
And the castle continues—
in oblivion to all but her legend…

     The queen will be safe here
     from the rabble
     The disgraced Tristan will surely seek her
     Among these lofty cliffs
     Between the raging circuit of the tide
     Here winds forbid the vengeful mob
     Here lovers learn
     the debt of love’s bad timing
     “Drink ye all of it!”
     --the potion that assigns our sorrow….
     She will not sleep—
     while I chew this gum--  GUM?

Roll down the window!

Angels escape with the heat
Waking me with the brush of their wings

As that eighteen-wheeler hugs my flank
And leans on the horn
Lights flashing
Rude rumbling under right tires
Tantrum of snow
In the draft of mass and velocity

…and the angels?
They’ve chosen another good one!
They must’ve liked the 80’s
Their wings slapping the windshield madly  
Their hands steady the wheel
As a fourteen-year old, I picked up a book to read at the beach about the legend of the lovers, Tristan and Iseult.  I was so captivated by their story that it ruled my imagination that summer.  

Anyway, I still think of it when I think of the ocean-- as I did on this cold dark occasion when I should have pulled off somewhere for a coffee, but I was trying to beat the snow storm home.
Route 84, also known as Dead Bambi Highway, has a desolate, treacherous section going over the mountains between NY and Pennsylvania.  Didn't have much option for music at the time, so I leaned heavily on the radio pushing the search button to find anything bearable-- not too much static.
Song reference in this: "Time of the Season" by the Zombies-- all time favorite beach song that happened to be on the radio that night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBxK3CcOQD8
 Sep 2016
Michael Blonski
The taste of summer
is the smell of fresh
cut grass

The joy of heat
seeping deep
within
your surfaces exposed

When the sun goes
and says its farewells
to skyscrapers and mountains
It sets to greet the other
side

While I try not to
fall in summer love
with the passer by
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