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harlon rivers Oct 2018
.
The Womb of Time
by harlon rivers

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
gathered 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 a womb of time...
The first read came the day it was published and the second 8 days later  Thank you to those who have read my humble musings over these past years... and to those who have shared so much of themselves for all our reading interests.

I'll always wonder, how one day out of nowhere,  I stumbled upon HP and joined.  I mean "why that  one moment 5 & 1/2 years ago ?"...I confess, fate is not often understood in its nebulous irony, yet everything is not meant to be understood.  Live, let go and don’t worry about the uncertain crossroads as seasons change, there comes a time when we aren't looking for anything and we find a passing moment ...

© 2013, May 15th ... Harlon Rivers

one thing for certain in life is change ...
harlon rivers Sep 2018
words drift away unfettered
from whence they came,
passing like undreamed clouds
– pragmatic eyes to the sky
   in a searching stare –
unsought thoughts disappearing hence
a fog bow fading into sunlight

there are days when
   it comes out in my silence
there are days when
   it falls down in my tears:

muse – muted in poet's pause,
heart and soul whispers
  laid bare unwritten
  behind parsing eyes
disregarded words let loose,
        ungarnered
the way low hanging fruit
falls benign — unharvested —

   shortsighted  insight
   from a bird's eye view
silently fermenting traces
and unfiltered memories
come and go unheeded words,
discarded like the passing
   time of our lives

at times  it's  ludicrous
   to follow down
lingering footprints
left behind callous:
when the shoe won't fit;
slogging across eroding
time-worn stepping stones
scattered on this twisted line
these feet have been walking down,
trying to make a getaway
   from myself

walking away from the memories
like so many indelible footprints to escape
– while dreaming stardust into stars
   in nameless constellations –
reaching out from the inside,
   site unseen,
   trying to experience
   the empirical shape
   of  stifling  silence
   in a theatre made by chance

distilling the gifts and burdens
of trying to live a worthy life
   only I'll see...


harlon rivers ... September 27, 2018
pondering reticence, my recent hesitation makes me wonder — do you ever just not write down the poetry that is right in front of the eyes of your soul? This is the last piece i've written and feels as if it could be... but any poet knows — you can't steer a river

"One Man's Wilderness" by Richard Proenneke, is the title of a book I read twice this summer "Alone in the Wilderness"

"poet's pause" a truism/expression coined by Pagan Paul

Thanks for reading.
harlon rivers Aug 2018
.
The waves spilled the rising tide
back into the scattered footprints  in the sand
deeply entrenched in life’s mystery,
receding into every breaking wave


A stiff sea breeze put back every grain of sand,
elements of a larger object gathers,
gravity firmed, into the silent shoreline chasms—
a beheld essence washed out to sea
by the fugitive tides and retreating sea-foam


Soon all trodden traces visibly vanish;
unmarked mileposts on a metaphysical pathway
slip away back to a windswept shoreline
and elapsing summer tide


Seabirds glide in slow-motion,
held sway into the shapeless gusts —
as if feathered puppets hovering,
hanging from the rafters
of the burgeoning orange sky


There's an uncommon peace in the renaissance;
effervescent crisp ocean air filling
the indefinable emptiness
marooned within each heartbeat’s echo


Each new breath inhaled,  disappearing within
the unhealed hollow of every thing once believed;
fully aware this life is unholdable as time,
yet feeling many things deeply retained
    in each passing moment—
slipping away like a handful of sand
sifting through all these hands once held


Presence becoming wreathed in a miasma of stillness,
space that levitates like an unpredictable fog
that seeps into the gnawing voids
of an unsated hunger



harlon rivers  ...  August 1st,  2018
a piece from the TRAVELOGUE collection:
https://hellopoetry.com/collection/27104/travelogue/

Getting away from my ordinary life maze seems to be changing perspective; moments still unfold as they are intended, but there is less peripheral distraction, more focus on the simple things that enrich life in the moment.

I did not plan on posting anything else until back to daily Internet access
in Fall ... plus, much I've scribbled these days, seems derivative of the last  pieces i've published: that said, this is of the present moment and as close to peace as I've tread in eons:  Thank you for taking the time to check out something newly written at a time when my web access and participation @ HePo is sporadic at best.   :)  rivers
harlon rivers Jun 2018
a ****** of Crows
gather Carpe Diem;
fluffing their throat feathers,
commiserating
the dead-weight
each unshod foot
bending the world below

the horde of cleft feet align
      leaving no footprint behind ―
bowing the antique
frayed telephone wire
party-line swaying with the wind
over the washed out road;

at any moment
the land-line
might break
     from the overload ―  
downcast,
abandoned,
level with the ground ―
but no one
on  earth
    even cares ...

they've  got
the whole world
in their palm
      beneath the sky ―
and the crows
have wings
    to fly away ...


harlon rivers
June   2018
The intelligence of crows vs. humans starring into a "smart phone"
— HANG UP!!! LOOK UP!!!! Go build a garden —

Carpe Diem:    Used as an admonition to seize the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future.
harlon rivers Jun 2018
An innocent glance at photo’s still waters
feeling a revenant song heard calling in the wind
as the tears come streaming
with the loving and the hurting

The heaviness … Oh the sweet heaviness
a fading heartbeat settles in palm of hand
with the accepting tears of merciful surrender

The weight of a fallen mountain
upon the footprints that held up an unseen world
Helpless to stand back up tall as a sky so far away

The substance of the unshouldered weight to bear;
evermore gazing unto the sunset to understand
the beauty of the light,.. and a hopeful sweetness
at the dimming of a longest day

An unknowable ache and suffering of the leaving ―
an orphaned love with a faith in contrary hopefulness;
a joy at the dawning, going home
toward the guiding light


harlon rivers  ...   June 2018
written after finding some pictures in an old suitcase stored up in the rafters ― musing a moment out of the blue, i was not prepared for
harlon rivers Jun 2018
(a travelogue cont...)

Waiting for summer
just outside the tallest
mountain’s door

Where the emerald vale
streams spring glacial-grey
river waters,
west into the setting
midnight sun

Another resplendent day’s
paling whisper set free
in an unseen blink
and an unheard sigh

In these unwonted moments  
eyes rise up to touch
the beckoning sky
like a bug drawn
to the light

Upward over
highest mountain's skies
abides everything
worth rising for

It's so rare
in this fleeting life,
when a dream
for a moment
comes true ―
 
you come to understand
how deep is silence

and ...
it doesn’t really matter
when there’re no words


harlon rivers

June 9th. 2018
11:55 pm Denali sunset ...
"don't dream it's over"
Notes: typed live on a laptop as i clumsily trip on my own fingers trying to look into the western horizon after midnight.  A big step away from a spiral and pen in hand, not to mention my abacus education and a 20,300 foot mountain peak (6200 m) ... it's got rough edges without edit but so do i...thanks for taking a look through the words
harlon rivers Jun 2018
.
There’s an ancient duct tape patched
roller suitcase still up in the attic,
scarred by sky miles and undiscerning
indifference;  it came to rest like a final breath
exhaled at the end of the long road ―

In the dusty rafters of silent repose  
the death of an alter-ego comes to life
and jars and jogs the  sleeping dogs 
that lay benign as a pothole riddled road

Holding onto memories buried alive,
hidden away remembered ― 
      sans wings to fly away
laid bare unweighed with the weight
of everything else garnered and saved
      subsisting in a shallow grave;
hoarded and hidden away breathing
locked up with the other baggage borne
       behind tired eyes

Feeling the ache of blood stained knees
falling down sullied at the side of the road
Hindsight and a roll of duct taped memories
linger;   stuck to the  grey bandage scars,
second guessing should have thrown out
with the permanently temporary
fading plasticized luggage name-tags
back when I was still close enough to care;
too many miles to reconsider  ago

Some say: "it's the journey not the destination"                                    .
Some day when its too late we'll know
Some day it will be too late to make amends
        for everything i could not be ...


           harlon rivers ... 07  06  2018
apologies for the inconsistent reading, posts and replies.  Internet access comes and goes up here off the grid

To anyone interested, this is a piece from a collection from the summer called TRAVELOGUE:   https://hellopoetry.com/collection/27104/travelogue/
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