Rest stops and road weary vagabonds
Peanut butter, water and stale bread;
Cookie crumbs and lip smirched paper cups
Somewhere's last weeks coffee stained newspaper
Blown out tires and the side of the road  
Deep, thick, unmistakable, bear paw-prints
lie fallow ― undead in the mud
           

Feeling the raw silence of what you’re thinkin'
ooze out of a festering puncture wound within
Churning soliloquies  gnawing  away
at the unspooled  threads  fray,  
understanding there’s  no  fear
in  less  than nothing  to  lose
                                  

Sometimes change happens
so fast you don’t even notice
We can wait a lifetime and never be sure;
never taking that first step that leads to a journey
of a thousand miles ― just a step away


It’s not some kind of bewitching
     loneliness  spell  cast
never seeing another sole
in measureless hours and days
Passing moments languish imponderably,
there are no feelings I can see,
        by  looking  away ―
always as blind as we want to be


Wanting what was taken more than what is given;
still doing the things we learned we shouldn't do again
The longest miles are the trodden ones
with only traces of learning how to be
    alive ― off the grid; alone again


It’s a journey where there's no map to guide you
Just  a deepening furrowed lifeline standstill
Stalled at a crossroads in the palm of your hand;
uncertainty deriding  where you’re headed ―
both a reason and an excuse when we're not sure
we're not alone on such a long one way road
we've been out here traveling  on
 

Forbearing the truth that holds my soul,
the only way through the ache
is through the wound
                                     ... and
I’ll get down this long road somehow


    harlon rivers ... May 2018
     ... travelogue 3 of some

in the carnival
that is life

time spins fields
of sunflowers
sweet corn
and sassafras

tilts and whirls
to form
paths where caravans travel
riding out their destiny

in the dusk,
at evenfall
in firelight's twitching flames

music echoes

scuffed boots dance
in drifting dust

raised under wheels
worn and rusted
heavy with age

when darkness swallows
the horizon
dying embers crackle
                                  spit
                         ­              spark
                                              
            ­                                            sink into
                                                            ­        stillness

stars peep through
the dark curtain
of the sky

moon follows
- radiant -

the sky is theirs
- the moon and stars -

until midnight
wanders in

bringing gravid clouds,
pregnant with life

the moon hides
stars recede
as if too shy to watch

the wind awakens

seems rhythmic
in its gasps

lightning rips the dark drape

thunder bellows

clouds
- labor relieved -

pour forth
delivering their gift

earth's lifeblood
soothes the dust

twists
cascades
down the hills
forming whirlpools

collects in streams and rivulets

that merge
with
grateful rivers

winding
to the sea

homecoming
of
the carnival
of life

Raindrops descend, puddles form,
A stream engulfed, a river is born,
A course is set, the sea to reach,
Meandering ponderously to a far off beach.

The sea reclaims its myriad young,
Kidnapped by clouds, thunder-slung;
The storm is long past with calm all around;
Albatross glide, with a whisper of sound.

Seagulls circle, dogfish sleep,
Gannets dive and dolphins leap,
But black clouds return and lightning flashes
O'er storm-tossed seas, as thunder crashes.

Once more a stealthy cloud abducts infant water,
The sea's own offspring: a son ... a daughter;
The thief sets off at a wind blown pace,
The anguished mother unable to chase.

The criminal finds refuge in a partisan crowd,
A formless body in a vaporous shroud;
The cloud has no guilt, shows no remorse,
But heads inland on a predestined course.

A hill stands guard, like a customs post;
It stabs the guilty, but allows past the host;
The rogue cloud is ruptured, severed seam and pleat,
Releasing its captives and accepting defeat.

Raindrops descend, puddles form,
A stream engulfed, a river is born,
A course is set, the sea to reach,
Meandering ponderously to a far off beach ...

Sea levels rise
And the cruel frigid waters
May one day flood the island of my mind