Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
harlon rivers May 2018
" Don't walk behind me; I may not lead.
Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend." - Albert Camus


                 ~              ~               ~    

The telegraph road circled through the foothills,
rising towards the majestic mountain high
It’s been a long and twisting passage soon forgotten,
with the pavement abruptly dead ending,  
just below the timberline

The dawning blue heavens look so much closer now
Just a step away from standing within reach                                  
The birds uplifted on the telegraph wire rest atop me;
perched on the final material traces
disregarded by a digital world

My awakening soul is ascending beyond
the distant alpine meadow horizon  
At the threshold of an untrodden wilderness wonderland,
climbing up above the meandering clouds

It’s exhilarating to look back and know
there is no turning back around;
I’ve never been higher
and can never get back down

What unknown frontier lies in wait before me now?
Just on the other side of the impossible dream?
The last step forward to find the next step beyond the bounds
There is not that much that changes,
when we just repeat the same old song

The atmosphere’s thin air leaves me gasping for wings
Like dust and ashes free to soar with the tempest breeze
If only time would sever these loathsome ties that bind
The ones that enchain the weight of this load unto me

While understanding the pace to a long journey’s rhythm
The only barometer you have to trust is in your heart
Adaptation is at the core of freedom's survival
But it feels almost like running away  

I have felt the fear of falling with nothing left to lose
I’ve climbed as far as flesh and bones can reach
I've come this far always feeling subtly afraid
It has been a great distance back from the beginning;
knowing I must take these last steps alone.

Understanding it was love that brought me here
Naturally tugs at the spirit in my soul encouraging me on
I'll keep searching for the shining light of guidance
Listening for a voice that softly beckons me home...



written by:    harlon rivers ... May 24th, 2013
Authors notes: a prose prologue;

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2528189/beyond-majestic-boundsa-prose-prologue-to-beyond-the-telegraph-road/

5/26/2013 Edited to delete the back story:    ...thank you for reading.
harlon rivers May 2018
Three thousand miles
navigating a storm
without drop of bad weather
Abacus odometer clicks
rotating forward ―  
spinning with the
world go round

Circling back down
a long and winding road;  
where unforgotten memories
were once searchingly explored,  
untrodden pathways
coursing way up north of alone
on the low highway
  
Now an aging shepherd
wonders without a compass ;
a vagabond deprived of light
from an ever blurring north star
Heart empty as a gas tank
with a broke down gauge,
running on fumes of hope
for unpromised tomorrows
Running from loneliness
just to be on the run

The gales of silence bellow
No feelings I can see ― lay me low

Wild-eyed daydreams
of Full sails billow out
through the windshield,
only hearing the unspoken
moments sigh restlessly ―    
The dull droning road rumble
re-sighs renunciatively,
a tired monotone voice
mimicking the loathe silent echo
wallowing in an
omnipresent hollow void
deriding unspoken chaos
between the passing centerlines ―

A frost heave pothole erupts,
with a leaf-spring rattling thud,
as a fleeting cloud of dust arises,
set adrift with the draught
headed off the east side
of the Alcan highway:
blown way outside the lines,  
towards the Alberta prairie

White knuckled steering wheel
held sway,  rolling down
a beckoning wilderness
          reincarnation; 
default reset button paused ― 
stuck in a moment ― until another jaw rattling
frost-heave pothole in the highway,
            jars it free

Leaving it all behind
like a sigh breathed
in a silence a heart has outgrown;
just a fleeting cloud of dissipating dust,..
         a paling whisper
the past seems to send forth
  like a fading last breath

Letting it all unfold to become what it is


     harlon rivers ... May 2018
       ... travelogue 2 of some
Cam May 2018
Every year is the same,
same people,
same places,
same time,
same faces.
They bring me their labeled tickets,
the same ugly tan-colored, black-inked tickets.
Bent and smudged as if it went through their wash.
No time for conversation,
not even small talk,
only the same old.... hello.
They sit, they smile, they leave.
They sit,
on that same old boring brown box,
"Feet placed where the red exes are please."
You think they'd already know that by now.
They smile,
tilting their head to the right,
their eyes looking directly at the lens,
looking as if they were hypnotized.
They leave,  
the camera flashes bringing them back to realization,
they release their breath,  
"Goodbye!" They say,
"Have a nice day!" They say.
Who I wanted to be is who I am not today,
who I wanted to be is not where society has placed me,
who I wanted to be is what society calls a joke,
who I wanted to be is free.
A photographer.
Not here working for life touch taking pictures of the same bland faces,
I imagined myself... flying,
Like a bird traveling around the world,
Capturing every moment I see,
Where the natural light glistens across the landscape,
where i can direct the poses of my subject.
But instead,
i'm stuck here taking pictures for life touch
of the same people,
at the same places,
of the same faces.
this is my first time posting a poem.
i do not work for life touch.
a soliloquy is an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play.
(so im acting as if i were working for life-touch but i really wanted to be my own free photographer).
-cam
cleann98 Apr 2018
You've always seen right through me...
It's like
I'm looking into your eyes
    and I see forbidden fruit...         
a forbidden love         
It's like
I'm staring into a mirror
trying so hard          
to look for myself    
but all I see is black.
Like a corpse---            
It's like
I give all I have
In love with you
---Ectoplasm---    
             I give all I am          
To be with you
To let you feel      
  Who I am...
----I am a poltergeist----   
It's like
I'm reaching out
My hands open wide
Extended towards you
      and when              
you look                  
it's like                      
     you don't even see me----
We hug
and it's as if    
you could          
almost just              
pass right through me----
It's like
We love each other...
But it feels like                  
Necrophilia.        
It's like I'm gone...
even if you're looking            
straight into my smile                
my smile I force myself
for you to see                  
it's like you're still looking---                
you can't see me can you?    
forcing a smile
on my face          
day          
by              
day                
do you even know
      that I just smile for you          
because
I'm tired of you
always crying for him        
   night              
    by            
night        
But you can't even
See the smile don't you?
----It's like I'm his ghost----
It's like
I'm a nightmare            
and I'm haunting you                
except I'm right here          
always right in front of you.                        
------always waiting to be noticed.    
always.        
Waiting for you to realize
That love is not a ghost.                    
Love is not a graveyard.                    
Love is not somewhere lost.            
Love is not sealed up in heaven.    
Nor is it burning in the void of hell.
Love is here                              
Love is waiting in front of you                      
always----                                                  
even as you were crying for him                  
    even as you were lying for him
even as you were fighting for him        
even as you were falling for him                        
even as you were breaking over him
even as you were blinded by him                         
even as you were losing him
even as you were mourning for him...    
always----
Even if I'm            
the only love                
you're allowed                  
to love,                                      
you've never                
allowed yourself                
to love me...                              
You've always seen right through me...
We are both alive but when we hold each other it feels like necrophilia---- there is emptiness in your eyes even if I pour all I am to fill you up daily....
Daniel Mashburn Jul 2017
You know, I'm never sadder than those moments I realize how much I miss you.

And at first those moments came frequently and without delay but the pain they brought was simple. Dull; an ache.

But how as time crept slowly, the moments so frequent would come intermittently when I was most vulnerable.

But that dull ache was replaced with a deeper longing and a pain I couldn't shake. And it would stay with me for days and haunt my fevered sleep with memories I just wished would go away.

But I fear if they were to stop, I would lose all sense of self.

I already write so sparingly.

So please, just spare me the impertinence of soliloquy, that indecent exposé.
afteryourimbaud Jul 2017
Yes I heard and cried
knowing that you have died
in the midst of that ******,
sinful ruckus of Nagasaki
but fate is no longer great
tip-toed twinkle of a pathetic
plunge over the dying Sakura
I have not changed for years but
you, you have changed
for the romance, for the sanity
of your everlasting dance.

Fatal, it is fatal, they said.
Denial, it is a denial, I said.
The balloon has escaped for years
and it can only haunt us for years,
but now,

The balloon waved at me
as I was caught red-handed
by an atomic, stoic handshake
drowning athazagoraphobia,
so I left the *** unattended
and I wander for a sweet end
in Misaki, Sennichimae,
calm, youthful exuberance I love
I no longer remember
the lasting kisses
that she left,
as a soliloquy in May.

I am lost in the wildest dream
of an eternal existence.
Today, today it is always today.
Never leaving my side nor allowing
my lids to rest their tension.
To hide from the always now,
the unrequited  thoughts.
Beliefs I never knew I had.
Within the seasons of the self,
standing in the shadow of my mind.

Away, away, please do not stay.
Give me tomorrow or yesterday,
Images and dreams of greater or new.
Visions of joy, structures of wax.
To follow the mind of the season.
Give me fact-free fantasy's
folly and fancies.

But:
today,today it's always today!
Always here to keep tomorrow away.
Pagan Paul Mar 2017
.
And from a golden thread
hangs a gilded cage with filigree.
Waiting for a little bird
to sing a sweet soliloquy.

In your heart this gilded cage
is kept under lock and key.
Waiting for a heartache's tears
to sing a sweet soliloquy.

Be proud little bird and sing
from your cage so eloquently.
Waiting for a lovers kiss
to sing a sweet soliloquy.


© Pagan Paul (2016/2017)
.
Julie Grenness Mar 2017
Is this soliloquy fun?
Of good men, I'd like to meet just one,
Isn't snivelling fun?
There's a comedic part of this,
Inner whinese is a lovely chick,
How do oldies get proactive?
Soliloquy of an old woman,
To whom do you reach a hand?
You got the best of men,
I got the worst of men....
This is a soliloquy of one,
Isn't snivelling fun?
Feedback welcome.
Next page