By Arcassin Burnham



Yawning for the morning light like,
I must have been high touching ceilings in mid flight,
I see the dust float in my eyes ,
There was never a doubt in my mind but my minds eye,
For that I am just a strange loop of a guitar playing over and over,
See this weight that i carry is light while in the beholder,
Life lessons about faith in the Lord when I get older
And here I am with a trail full of sins falling from shoulders,
Do you mind? Picking up the pieces for me sometime,
I know you don't care , all caught up in your self-absorbed shrine,
OK, goodbye,
Hello........ no bye , see you tomorrow, tolerating you is the like devil
And his rambles,
Oppressive living in shambles like the abuser used those pills,
Causes and effects out of strings that break the seal,
Lies beyond lies, I'm not sure what they're teaching you,
Conflict is a must in America like burning statues,
So say goodbye to all that you knew,
That you owned,
And the person that use to be you.

Like water, like flowing rivulets,
notes fly from fingers fast on frets.
Slippery sinuous shimmering tones
(complemented by brash bluesy Bones).
Like storm’s thunder and lightning a chord
brings the sky to us on earth—
or is it that we fly , then die until the rebirth
in gentle reverb of a note two octaves higher?
Strange how rain coexists with fire.
Drench us in the cascade born from your desire.

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.