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harlon rivers Sep 2016
The Violin’s azure strings wept softly,
from inside of a mind made cell;
musical echoes lamenting,
a poignant abyss too vast to fill
each and all silenced reverie,
leaving the philosopher’s stone
                                          unthrown

Blue guitar minor chord changes,
bent notes phrasing sharps and flats;
memories ―      gently weeping confirmation
as a repressed flow of soul
pensively leaks out

The spirit's currents eddy
suffused within written verve;
silently purging the soul's fountains ―

                                    musical rivulets swell
                                     quietly overflowing
                              an alchemist’s soul unfurled
...


        © harlon rivers ... all rights reserved
September sojourn ...9/15/2016
... journal entry: an unexpected perfect storm, casting ashes into the ocean
& bluebirds

A musician with a wounded wing ...
trying to find the strength to fly.  
Nothing fills the chasm left behind
when we lose an invisible,
indivisible, irreplaceable thread
that binds the tapestry of our lives...

http://hellopoetry.com/poem/1750888/a-lonely-bird-without-a-song/
...you never know what you've got until it's gone.

https://youtu.be/I5raMzavYgE
Amos Lee - "Violin"
harlon rivers Sep 2016
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
harlon rivers Aug 2016
Come walk with me a mile...
Walk on without our burden’s weighty shoes,
warily trudging over the long rocky pathway
a lifetime in my soul.
A final edifying voyage to freedom.
The winds of change are blowing briskly
as we walk charily over the long and narrowing
rock-strewn passageway.

I shed these boots and skin, no longer fitting
my scared, blistered and callused soles.
As time slowly passes,
this craggy passage has evolved
from a two-way trail,
into one-way jagged forage…

Standing barefooted and naked on rocky ground,
dark sunken sleepless eyes scan
the rolling vista as the wind blows
dust from the halo around the sun,
blurring the delicate wispy cirrus clouds.

The sun’s radiance paints frozen ice crystal azure
into a vivid aura of prisms’ brilliant corona.
Kaleidoscope rainbows adorn the closest of solar stars.
There's something in the ethereal air
that leaves my soul unsettled,
grasping for an evocative stability
trying to understand the silenced voices
crying out within…

The pain and suffering has vanished
as if the body and soul have separated,
numbness from the ache of longing,
severed nerves, callused fears
ruptured on serrated rocky edges,
deadened useless flesh cut to the bone
by misjudged obstacles encountered enduringly.

The barefooted spirit courses on,
suffused in the solar spectrum’s dust;
yearning, longing to saunter
above and beyond the bloated feathery pillows;
cumulus clouds finally resting at peace.
Dipping heart's lesions and these benumbed toes
into a healing balm
from the bowers of bliss..

An unfinished life
an open ended dream,
reluctantly waking to take the last ,
surrendering steps  beyond the threshold...
A long and winding rocky journey’s destiny
draws near

The halo around the moon
illuminates an understanding firmament;
the celestial sphere’s
pending imminent soulful rain awaits
the metamorphosis at the brink of dawn.

A shower of heaven's rain
shall mourn the loss of flesh form
as the spirit of an untamed soul lives on,
barefooted,
naked and free
like the dust in the wind
absorbed eternally...


2011 © harlon rivers
all rights reserved
Hope is like Faith, believing in something you can't see,
but knowing in your heart it’s real.

We all have faith in something...

"Never deprive someone of hope ~
it may be all they have"....Anonymous
.
harlon rivers Aug 2016
Daybreak brushes pink clad
hovering skies
beyond back lit mountains of Cascadia

Sunrise peaks through
the dawning nimbus
a variegated rosy
glowing consonance

The passing marine endowed sky,
framed by pinecone adorned
old growth timber stand,
near and far

Red sky some mornings,
awakens heart on sleeve
without warning


a lone mourning dove calls out --
unanswered
drowning out the drone
a lonely heart's throb

Harbingers of seasons change
cast nebulous shadows
over mountain
greenery meadows

imminent reminders
-- ready or not --
what’s come and gone
a moment passed


Though hearts may shine brightly
carefree summer's lazy days,
prevailing currents portend
the ever-present
winds of change

Someday heaven's healing rain
is going to fall softly
on this restless solitude;

cleansing a weary soul,
renewed once again,

mostly whole


© H.  Rivers ... today
all rights reserved
...it's nature's way of telling you
listen to her ubiquitous psalms...

note: Cascadia --  the Pacific Northwest of North America
http://www.cascadianow.org
harlon rivers Aug 2016
hours drip slowly
onto a taunting empty page
the soul’s depictions brushed simply

a palette of whispered words
dry as if it were thoughts painted
onto a tightly stretched canvas

it's been said so many times before
                   similes,...
     form clots at the tip of the quill
                    words,...
finally surrendering to gravity’s flow
as the ink scribes the paltry ruminations;
flooding the same stifled notions
another way into another moment

metaphorical sleights of hand
incarnate onto the absolving
       sheet of parchment;
traces of past now’s ensconced
       in considered words

        miles of silent reverie,
                     spun,...
        like a spider reprocessing,
        carefully savoring
        each fine silk thread of web,

        spinning the womb of time...

© H.A.  Rivers 2012 … All Rights Reserved
... dedicated to all lonely, wayfaring word whisperers,
lost within the silent confines of a bared soul

— The End —