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 Jul 2017 Mary Winslow
L B
Heron
 Jul 2017 Mary Winslow
L B
(repost)

Perched motionless
Gleaming among the catkins of the oak—
with toy accordions for leaves

And a heron—watching
Neck pleated
Head resting in feathery shoulders
Sharp-eyed, beak brutal

Watching—
where below
that beer can, squashed and stabbed

...And did he see her?
by the naked window
Did he see the lace that bloomed?
No—fell
like spring’s full flakes
to coat the hills in white
for an hour at best in its cool damp?

Did he see?
the way her hair lapped
the spine and blade of back?
Bent the night—so darkly
red from black
as she pulled her blouse above her head?

And did he want!
the flesh of warm yellow lamplight
the smeared press of spit and sweat!

YES!

Squash and **** that beer can!
Sculpt your loneliness!
and stick it through
with any hard implement handy!
Grind your teeth on dumb regret

and **** yourself!

You know you don’t—love her?

Be jealous of her sheets, her springs, her sunsets!  
on their ways to frost and moonlit sleep
turning forsythia of day
to fuzzy falls of glitter-gray
spilling down thick hips
of the river’s dungeon banks
so steeped in heat
to the dizzy roar that follows....

Be jealous of the River!
who always goes to her
when you will not...

And if—you really loved
I mean—loved!
who you saw...
you would have seen
the tired tears—roll than linger—Years
forsake their bones
defy the need for sleep
Defy everything!

Except—
the moon’s cloister...an owl’s call

And if you had loved her
you would have made the distance!
crossed the lawn!
skipped stairs!
Fought the Night of Time!
taken her porch like a champion!
Heart pounding near—the door down!

And if you had really loved
who you had seen

I MEAN—LOVED HER!

You would have—
You would have done—

ANYTHING!
Because I feel like it....
written 1988
... a lamentable natural disaster ―
no one really ever understood
the uncomfortable loneliness they read,
left unsaid,  in the silence between the lines

Gathered words often revealed
an awkward vulnerability
a life tethering by a frayed thread
unable to shed the skin that enfolds
the dauntingly misunderstood laments

Suspended at friendless crossroads
melancholy days of malignant indifference
stifle the whispered thoughts,
"accepting an unfinished life"
evanescent as the faltering light,
musing many a sleepless night

It’s as if there was always some wordless reason
to never feel "good enough" to just be,
unworthy to discover elusive love,
cleave a labyrinth out of the darkness,
okay to just let go

It’s not a weakness to be human
"Tears are the heart’s traces" … he once wrote
"only eyes cleansed by teardrops see clearly"
heaven's rain unconditionally enlightened
by love and light.

Someone said a poet died
trying to make sense
out of all he thought he'd given
a word at a time was left behind
only abandoned words remain
                             orphaned in the drowning silence


                                      harlon rivers ©
JULY, 2017 : for every beginning there is an end...proverb
Sad,
but even surrounded
by my kids,
wonder what century this is.
where did my world go
all the values I once knew,
I'm sure I instilled them.
I'm out of touch I'm told,
I guess I am since women
now-a-days don't
work, cook, clean, Iron, *** I iron,
I'm patriotic, and I pray,
believe in meals on the table.
Yep I cook from scratch
not something boxed
that gets delivered daily.
Dayummmmmm
I am out of touch.
But it sure feels good
being able to
fend for myself,
able to cope,
with what the hell
ever is thrown at me.
Yep, I'm out of touch
with some of the
crap they watch on tv
Their reality is
not my reality.
passing the tissues.  
hugs
Patty m

•<>•

we wince inside,
more than smile,
when we venture outside,
outside being anywhere
our eyes take us

the simple notion we carried,
the simple notion given us,
see me, watch me, learn from me,
be like me, for my model is
a not-so-bad one, even if the
styling is so retro,
with its yes ma'am, no ma'am,
can I help you with that sir,
and with a wave and a smile,
let them go in front, cut in,
even though our time is far not, closer shorter,
and hurry is not in the
top ten list of our commandments

be not wistful,
or
unforgiving,
from your window
you can see a green land, well endowed,
where speech freedom yet lives,
not a half bad achievement

perhaps we did not suckle them perfect,
for they are and err in contented
perfect surety
intolerance of anything but newer ways,
that too oft are the discards
of older ideas born of a
disproved arrogant new math
of selfie-righteousness


but let us no croak too much
like old people croaked about us

for we both fear for them,
far more than we silent chide,
the days to come seem so fraught
with excesses we tolerated

wonder if
they will be forced to buy their manufactured water in masticated plastic,
drinking tap water a dangerous high, or food of any kind be plenty after
seven decades of famine

wonder if
they will work for the robots,
those labor saving devices that will
steal the honor of labor, the dignity of a paycheck's message, the honor of rising early to work

wonder if
the madmen we tolerated,
that we chose to ignore,
will return to them
a racked and ruined world

wonder if
they will recall, renember
the kindness of soft spokeness,
the tolerance for a well reasoned argument
and be open to the bounty of
thoughtful persuasion
and the relief in and of
hope

wonder if I despair?
do not!
for daily they come here,
where good word's rule,
tender their fears,
leaving behind the arrogance
perhaps reading these,
even these words
and realize that the good we have the good we struggled to bequeath,
was born from
good struggle,
in more struggle,
is the only way to be
less afraid

nattyman
July 6th
4:55 am
Patty srnds me a message which inspires, as much poem as message.
I take it abd write a counterpoint, contrapunto, or a contrepoint

She never knows when I am hatching this "duo"
till it is public and ergo, the oooh's, ahhh's and dayuuums of her genuine surprise.
In death, perhaps we are like water
making our way ever deeper from sand and sky.
Maybe we fly, linger and hover awhile
and the dream of becoming a bird is real.
Maybe we are stars, floating oceans of night skies
moving toward divine light in swooping waves
pushing upwards through embryonic waters
spilling over the soul
again and again.
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