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harlon rivers Nov 2018
Listening rain plashes
upon crystal spring waters
It hears the trailing distance
disguised in the silent gravity
chasing it down the sky;
refreshingly sprinkling
          stillness
where spotless fawns
drink from mirror pond
green and peacefulness

     A man falls from
a distance he knows by heart;
dropping like a wind broke tree ...
Breaking all the silence hidden
within the deepest places
          of his soul
Hitting the ground hard
to see if he still feels —
laying there broken
feeling the raindrops
     soothe the hurt

Certain when he’s able
     to get back up,
hearing a distant calling
to the fountains of his soul —
he may fall down again
     bearing the weight
     of broken dreams
     But he’s seen it all
for long enough to know:
he’s no candle in the wind

Awakening in an unfinished life,
coming back from the dead,
     still feeling each
     feral breath enough —
     to keep on trying
to chase down the wind ...


     harlon rivers                                                           ­                          .
November 4th, 2018

Rumi said:   'Whoever brought me here
                     Will have to take me home'
harlon rivers Nov 2018
Remains of the summer
sunlight drip out,
entomb'd in raindrops
from the prevailing
gray beclouded skies
Memories of joy
bathed in sunlight
unravel like a wind
frayed kite dancing
above a day at the beach

Soaring seagulls ponder
all thousand feet of kite string
tied to a hidden bliss below —
hurtling through
the shapeless heavens
tethered to refreshed
dreams still lingering
within an untamed
child of the wind

Morning falls
from  the  trees
in whispers
of golden sorrow
The damp chilled air
smells fresh as the traces
of heaven's cleansing rain —
befallen drop  by  drop,
each plash counted
from an angel weeping,
splattering the broken silence
all  through the night.

An inflamed montage
of leaves surrender
all this unholdable lifeline
we  ever  know;
blanketing the fields
of  autumn's tawny  grass —
Sowing a mosaic colored
reclamation  reposed
atop a nascent green,
soon enrobed by impending
winter’s pallid slumbering hues

The darkening hush
imbues a shadowing
fugitive peacefulness
bathed in wind river eddies
of autumn’s blessing rains

harlon rivers
November 3, 2018

"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not;
and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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.
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