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

There she stood
Hidden in the shadow of head banging bodies
Fist up to the gods of metallic brilliance
Moving to the twang of the guitar string

*The girl in the pink dress always had a taste for metal

VERSE 1

We are paper lamps
We're unlit candle stands

Waiting for your hands
To set our fires alight

And guide our way through darkest nights


We all stand in need
We're sand castles by the sea

And without your reach
It would surely be our demise

We'd wash away in highest tides



CHORUS

But,
Whenever we call you you are there
Whenever we're drowning you're our air
Wherever we look, you are there

Whenever we whisper silent prayers
You always listen you never fail
Whenever we need you you are there

BRIDGE

We are loved
We are loved
We are children of the God of love

11 | 31 Poems for August 2016

I keep hearing the echoes of piano keys and guitar strings.
I’m intrigued by the joy Luyanda brings every time she sings.
It’s amazing how every single note becomes an unforgettable poem.
Sometimes silence echoes through the urban streets of ghettos.
The world’s love and light tries to illuminate in all our broken halos.
My creativity was trapped in broken dreams until I heard her sing.
People give her their absolute attention as she strokes each string.
The sun came out just to impersonate the warmth of her aura.
Even if things don’t always go our way, I know that we will all be okay.
I hear echoes of a million heartbeats between abandoned buildings and crowded streets.
A million heartbeats keep echoing between Hammanskraal and Atteridgeville.
I hear millions of echoes within the silence of busy ghetto and urban streets.
I hear echoes of piano keys and guitar strings every time Luyanda speaks.

Lita's ice blue eyes peer into my soul
as my fingers strum along an acoustic guitar.
Cautiously, I match its rhythm with the beat of
her heart -- swiftly then slowly, until the harmonious
chords filling the atmosphere still the rapid
vibrations of my own heart and the silk strings
beneath my fingers slip into her enigmatic allure.

"Wounds heal over time," I say to no avail.

Each empty note immerses into her pool
of toxic thoughts. My eyes become lost
in the nihility of her eyes as her lips form
an unconvincing smile that quickly fades.
To soothe her internal pain, I strum away.
My guitar and Lita are the same --
hollow.

Bright green fields
And a brighter blue sky
Tractors moving
As the clouds float by

Tent's pitched
Kinda quick,
Fire's lit
No wood on it

Guitars strum
Then uku joins along
But my phone is singing
The song

Playing football
With the farmers dog
Then go back to
Burning logs

As night falls
On the fields around
The gentleness of the
Guitar is the only sound.

Do you remember that old guitar that I use to play and strum
As you would set and listen, watch and hum

I found it just the other day, where it was put away
I could do no more than stare at where it lay

Time had warped it's shape a bit
All the strings where snaped and bent

Never again music would it make
Inside I felt again my heart break

I remember when it was bright and new
Of course I thought of you

How you danced, your hips and feet so smoothly flowed
While quickly over the cords my fingers would go

I would play by the roaring midnight fire
Your voice as sweet as the heavenly choir

You would stare at the stars, as they would gaze down on you
I know that you both enjoyed the view

That was all before the music up and died
No longer inside of me would it ever again reside

One moment you where full of life,  then in my arms you lay
I watched as you quickly slipped away

Now all I can do, is talk to old pictures of you
Wishing also that my life was through

Just like that old guitar,  what use is there for I
Without you there is no music, happiness or joy, all I do is cry


I found it just the other day, where it was put away
I could do no more than stare at where it lay
Never again music would it make
Inside I felt again my heart break

You gave me a guitar string heart.
Every word you played me with reverberated in my chest
making me feel like I was something worth listening to.
As though I had the power
to drop the crescendo of your eyes,
to mine,
and love you to the beat of your favourite everything.
I was wrong.
Now all that's left is an out-of-tune guitar
that hasn't been played in two years.

Can we jam, brothers and sisters?

Dare we meet at the impalpable chat room
that exists beyond our third heaven?
Dare we to speak in tongues and timbres,
our skin taut across hollow shells,
our veins strung across cadaverous bodies?

I'll grab my drumsticks if you grab the guitars,
and there's somebody on the bongos
slappin' the skins with zealous fervor--
where my tambourine girls at?

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten our forlorn hero
sitting behind the keyboards--
Tickle me those ivories with pious hands and aching fingers,
shake em down sweet Jerry Lee!

And so we begin--
I lay down the drum beat that bops heads and scatters feet,
and the bassman always on top of things
slaps and slides and skips and sizzles
hot diggity dog!

I hear that sweet guitar scream and moan,
praying for death under hazy lights
and we all coast with eyes rolled back into our skulls
and torpid lips drooped open over slack jaws.

Not a word is said from a human voice,
we speak through hands and feet,
basking in colors eking from every kick drum stomp
and the desperate wail bleeding from amplifiers.

Feedback sings and screams, fighting the silence we taunt
and hold at bay.

Around every corner the colors trail
coursing through our vesselious bodies
propelled along the dizzying venture.
We somehow spot every pothole and take detours,
embarking down backroads and backalleys--

We can turn the wheel,
but don't think for a moment we know where it's going.

And the mirror's have all vanished,
we know not from where we came.

Someone shouts from the discovery
as we exit a phrase to enter serendipity,
toying with destiny, clay in our hands,
stretching out the ****** perennially--
We laugh as the gods try to remind us we are Man.

And the screams and the moans
sensing the ****** is getting close
so there's a crescendo I ramp up the tempo
ahhhhhhhHHHhhhHhHhHhHHHHHhhhETERNITY IS NOW AND WE HOLD THE KEY TO HEAVENS GATES AND TIME STANDS STILL AT HIGH NOON IN THE TOWN'S SQUARE WHERE TRIGGER FINGERS TREMOR AND WE SPEAK TO GOD ON HIS PRIVATE CHANNEL COMING THROUGH WORN SPEAKERS CELESTIAL CREATURES IT WOULD BE SACRILEGE IF WE WEREN'T SUDDENLY SO HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY

So I say again, brothers and sisters,
can we jam?

SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?

SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?

So I say again,
brothers and sisters,

can we jam?