#travelogue
Out of the blue,
an out going tide
drew him out
from darkness
An uncommon
warmth cradled
a loathed emptiness,
like heat lightning,
finally striking twice
Was it another
stale dream?
A spell cast
from another
unreachable
distant shore?
The water deepened,
warmth thickened,
as the scent
of a burning ember
waft pungently nearby
The enchanting allure
of a mysterious shadow’s
whisper beckoned —
pulling him by
the heartstrings
she lay bare
It had been so long —
never looking back,
never seeing beyond
the sudden silence heard…
4d ago
May 30, 2026 at 8:21 PM UTC
A life well lived,
alone in the woods,
amongst the tallest trees
touching the sky,
upon a distant hilltop
Somewhere,
where nature’s muse confers
in terrestrial tongues—
and fresh air drips from the sky
Where solitude is revered solace
and unbound space is felt without touch
— a sanctuary to just be whither
— the voice of silence is heard
head to the ground
Lovingly listening as nature speaks
in the language of wildflowers,
sung within the lyrics of birdsongs—
anthems of enduring love and survival
Assuaging the void, as life’s seasons change,
soothing a misunderstood heart and soul
— manifesting peace in natures arms,
uplifting the spirit of a peaceful loner
upon a distant hilltop
— loner
6d ago
May 28, 2026 at 11:21 AM UTC
so you write a lot,
pouring entire waking existences,
current n' prior,
into a long and crafted 'pistles,
and pixels
and you got jive pride
and then, the poem,
you worked so hard for,
ups and dies
gets a few middling fingers of reads,
dying on a vining of
Juliet's pseudo poisoning elixir,
no big deal, happens all the time
but here's what's wielding & weirdly wilding:
***A poetpourri.
of newly found co-inhabitors,
from around the universe,
from places unpronounceable,
unlike Venus & Mars, (very poet-popular)
and from previously places were
never or seldom was heard a
discouraging word, igniting a
rewarded mutuality of a
following up embracing***
par example;
Tirunelveli
Poland
Lisbon
Cyprus
Bihar
Uruguay
Ankara
Vienna
Albania
Tanzania
India
Bangladesh
New Zealand/Australia
Soldotna (Alaska)
plus Texas, West Va., Ohio, and other exotica, like
Nowhere
what a blessing!
Blessed art Thou o Lord,
that permits the miracle that my integers
of 0 & 1
can be translated into such
varied exotica, in harmony,
thus permitting this discovery of
never visited oceans and landfalls
of poetry never heretofore to join as
one.
Aman.
<>
nml
Aug 30, 2025
Aug 30, 2025 at 6:31 AM UTC
Travel locations with architectural marvels are always a traveler's delight,
Each is unique in its own way & the list is long enough with no end in sight,
Rating comparisons become inevitable as we witness more during our travels,
But that would be sheer travesty of justice, as each marvel has few parallels
Europe, unsurprisingly, is at the top of the bucket list for most travel lovers,
It is toast to a multitude of exotic locations, if one were to go by numbers,
Italy is home to some of the world's famous UNESCO World Heritage sites,
Welcome to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, whose popularity has scaled great heights
Pisa, a city in Italy is a short drive from Florence - capital city of Tuscany region,
Initially an important Italian seaport, Pisa's growth thro' trade stands to reason,
Its involvement in periodic military conflicts enabled Pisa to become affluent,
Pisans conveyed their importance through construction of religious monuments
The Tower of Pisa is one of the four buildings that constitutes the cathedral complex,
It is a freestanding bell tower and considered the piazza's crowning glory in the annexe,
Located on the city's main "Miracles Square", it differs from most medieval architecture,
It is symbolic of Italian architectural expertise at its best, with just cause for conjecture
The complex was meant to display treasures brought back from Sicily by adventurers,
The bell tower was configured to be the tallest of its age - a landmark for all travelers,
The name Pisa reportedly originates from the Greek word for "marshy land",
Failure to factor subsoil condition, resulted in construction not going as planned
Provision of a shallow and heavy foundation was apparently a gross oversight,
That the construction would be inevitably doomed, was obvious in hindsight,
The tower began to sink to one side while the second storey was being built,
Adding taller columns and arches to the south side, did little to offset the tilt
By the fourth storey, disparity in the arches to restore balance was to no avail,
Attempts to restore centre of gravity from the third storey added to the travails,
Construction continued to the full eight storeys, with the tilt still in place,
That the tower took 200 years to build and is still standing, is the saving grace!
Visitors can climb to the top of the tower, involving a steep climb of 251 steps,
Climbing the tilted building is heady excitement that requires no mental preps,
The tower has seven bells for divine timekeeping - one for each musical note,
Prudently calling it a miracle of medieval engineering, is a worthy point to note
The tower being one of Italy's signature sights should be of little surprise to one and all,
Imagine the awe of looking at a tilted 58 metre-high tower, appearing to be in free fall,
Leaning a startling 3.9 degrees off the vertical, as if in defiance of all geometrical odds,
The Leaning Tower of Pisa truly lives up to it's name, as if ordained by the gods
The Leaning Tower of Pisa's extraordinary tilt makes it an authentic miracle of statics,
You tend to keep looking back at the tower as you saunter, to savor the imagery magic,
And grapple with a bunch of baffling explanations, wondering how the tower defies gravity,
Whilst shaking the head in disbelief & finally nodding, that the visual treat is indeed a rarity!
Jun 15, 2025
Jun 15, 2025 at 3:22 PM UTC
on ruby jacobs walk, a
small girl
asked us for money for ice cream.
she eyed our cones
yours, lemon
mine, strawberry
with a child’s hunger
glinting and opportunistic
as she held out her palm for coins.
i was not yet accustomed to the shapes and sizes,
to a dime being smaller than a nickel,
and in any case wanted to preserve them for souvenirs
so we shook our heads and walked away.
a year later, writing this poem,
i learned that ruby jacobs was a local restauranteur
who, as a boy,
illegally sold ice creams
for a nickel on the boardwalk.
a nickel is the larger coin
the size of a ten pence piece.
i know that now.
the wide atlantic rose from a sloping manicured lawn
star-spangled,
like everything here,
the airborne flag
above a wide pavilion
a fanatic wedding cake topper
against the blood-blue sky.
i slipped
out of my shoes and let
the white sand burn my feet,
and jaggedly fill the spaces between my toes.
the atlantic held open its arms
though we weren’t, as we imagined,
looking east
looking home
but south to new jersey, across the bay.
the gnarled boardwalk was a
song of the twentieth century
a roll-call of mass-market capitalism
here in the city that didn’t invent the concept
but certainly perfected it:
hot dogs
amusements
ice creams (we’ve covered that)
fridge magnets
baseball caps
i bought an espresso cup with a picture of the president
and the caption:
‘huuuuge!’
i stopped to take a photograph
of a space-age building from the fifties
which turned out to be
a public toilet.
later
from the sunbaked d train,
brooklyn spread out beneath us
the houses garnished with flags,
then the city coughed us up on seventh avenue
and night fell five hours early.
Jul 20, 2019
Jul 20, 2019 at 7:51 AM UTC
White violets in the window
Scarlett leaves tumble across
the mossy hidden stones
mound beneath a chilly winter's dawn
A cold wind bares the dogwood tree
where puffed out plumaged woodpecker
gleans on creations' plump red bounties,
beheld subsistence beget for feral wings
Bright crimson fattened rose hips season,
lingering in the frigid morning dew;
stirring warm memories of fruitlet tea's
steeped from gathered garden magic spells
A spoonful of love and raw honey mellowed
a life once so lovingly endeared
Hot Blueberry dutch-oven scratch biscuits
imbue the wafting fragrant air —
life's cherished moments tarry
in the head and heart;
sipped by ruby lips still tasting
the untamable passion
of a breathless goodnight kiss
White violets blossom in the window
the morning fire's crackle echoes
a pining memories' gentle whisper
awakened by the incoming wintertide
A dulcet breeze not soon forgotten
— melancholy traces linger
like a passing season's swan song
as your memory — leads me on...
harlon rivers ... December 5th, 2018
Dec 6, 2018
Dec 6, 2018 at 10:22 AM UTC
words drift away unfettered
from whence they came,
passing like undreamed clouds
– pragmatic eyes to the sky
in a searching stare –
unsought thoughts disappearing hence
a fog bow fading into sunlight
there are days when
it comes out in my silence
there are days when
it falls down in my tears:
muse – muted in poet's pause,
heart and soul whispers
laid bare unwritten
behind parsing eyes
disregarded words let loose,
ungarnered
the way low hanging fruit
falls benign — unharvested —
shortsighted insight
from a bird's eye view
silently fermenting traces
and unfiltered memories
come and go unheeded words,
discarded like the passing
time of our lives
at times it's ludicrous
to follow down
lingering footprints
left behind callous:
when the shoe won't fit;
slogging across eroding
time-worn stepping stones
scattered on this twisted line
these feet have been walking down,
trying to make a getaway
from myself
walking away from the memories
like so many indelible footprints to escape
– while dreaming stardust into stars
in nameless constellations –
reaching out from the inside,
site unseen,
trying to experience
the empirical shape
of stifling silence
in a theatre made by chance
distilling the gifts and burdens
of trying to live a worthy life
only I'll see...
harlon rivers ... September 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 9:20 AM UTC
.
The waves spilled the rising tide
back into the scattered footprints in the sand
deeply entrenched in life’s mystery,
receding into every breaking wave
A stiff sea breeze put back every grain of sand,
elements of a larger object gathers,
gravity firmed, into the silent shoreline chasms—
a beheld essence washed out to sea
by the fugitive tides and retreating sea-foam
Soon all trodden traces visibly vanish;
unmarked mileposts on a metaphysical pathway
slip away back to a windswept shoreline
and elapsing summer tide
Seabirds glide in slow-motion,
held sway into the shapeless gusts —
as if feathered puppets hovering,
hanging from the rafters
of the burgeoning orange sky
There's an uncommon peace in the renaissance;
effervescent crisp ocean air filling
the indefinable emptiness
marooned within each heartbeat’s echo
Each new breath inhaled, disappearing within
the unhealed hollow of every thing once believed;
fully aware this life is unholdable as time,
yet feeling many things deeply retained
in each passing moment—
slipping away like a handful of sand
sifting through all these hands once held
Presence becoming wreathed in a miasma of stillness,
space that levitates like an unpredictable fog
that seeps into the gnawing voids
of an unsated hunger
harlon rivers ... August 1st, 2018
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 8:34 PM UTC
#(a travelogue cont...)
Waiting for summer
just outside the tallest
mountain’s door
Where the emerald vale
streams spring glacial-grey
river waters,
west into the setting
midnight sun
Another resplendent day’s
paling whisper set free
in an unseen blink
and an unheard sigh
In these unwonted moments
eyes rise up to touch
the beckoning sky
like a bug drawn
to the light
Upward over
highest mountain's skies
abides everything
worth rising for
It's so rare
in this fleeting life,
when a dream
for a moment
comes true ―
you come to understand
how deep is silence
and ...
it doesn’t really matter
when there’re no words
harlon rivers
June 9th. 2018
11:55 pm Denali sunset ...
"don't dream it's over"
Jun 10, 2018
Jun 10, 2018 at 4:27 PM UTC
.
There’s an ancient duct tape patched
roller suitcase still up in the attic,
scarred by sky miles and undiscerning
indifference; it came to rest like a final breath
exhaled at the end of the long road ―
In the dusty rafters of silent repose
the death of an alter-ego comes to life
and jars and jogs the sleeping dogs
that lay benign as a pothole riddled road
Holding onto memories buried alive,
hidden away remembered ―
sans wings to fly away
laid bare unweighed with the weight
of everything else garnered and saved
subsisting in a shallow grave;
hoarded and hidden away breathing
locked up with the other baggage borne
behind tired eyes
Feeling the ache of blood stained knees
falling down sullied at the side of the road
Hindsight and a roll of duct taped memories
linger; stuck to the grey bandage scars,
second guessing should have thrown out
with the permanently temporary
fading plasticized luggage name-tags
back when I was still close enough to care;
too many miles to reconsider ago
Some say: "it's the journey not the destination" .
Some day when its too late we'll know
Some day it will be too late to make amends
for everything i could not be ...
harlon rivers ... 07 06 2018
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 11:52 AM UTC
I saw the sun steep
into the seascape ―
lonely as a drowning
wave
on still-waters
the dimming of the day
rescinding evanescent daylight .
fading with the slack tide
lost at sea ―
a gloaming moment
let fall from
the remains of the day,
like some other passing
sea bird's molted feather
drifts away untamed
I sit silent as the driftwood
lingering at the watermark,
watching a random gust
erase the footprints
of another recurring day,
bearing abandoned memories
and vacant heartbeats,
atrophied in the drifting sands
and I see you walking
towards the abating
midnight sunset ―
but I know
you're just a mirage;
like the dimming afterglow
of so many waning moons
elapsed
ever-changing tides grow low
and promises made lightly
do ebb away
Scanning the distant horizon ―
a blindfold heart
mooning all at sea;
parsing a deserted shoreline,
wondering if love
is too late ,..
to stem the tide ―
harlon rivers
30 May 2018
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 12:59 PM UTC
#(a travelogue)
He stared down through
the unbroken silence
lapping the shoreline
Water skippers dart around
the rocks and windfall driftwood
settled juxtaposed in cattail reeds
and emerging broadleaf sprouts
A petrified heartwood timber
lie fallow waiting bare barked,
hushed like a pining lover’s
timeworn love seat,
rubbed smooth as
the crystalline waters
of half-moon lake
Lingering for a while ―
like a hidden stalker,
a perched wildcat waiting
for the full moon’s
swooning spell to saturate
the thickening dusk quietude;
arousing the urgent
call of the wild —
exhaled from the held breath
of the wilderness nocturne
on half-moon lake
The stillness was scattered
with the soft downy hairs
of the sleeping cattails, and
the newly shed catkins
a spring gust bestrewed
from a tall resin birch tree
nigh the Sitka willows
He sat quietly ...
time out of mind ―
tossing his eyes up into the sky;
taking the time to read the stars ―
catching them each again
as they fell into his gentle hands,
to show him who he was
Seeing their sparkly tracers
trail-out above the cattails,
from a distance
they resembled falling stars
unable to perceive their own renaissance ―
plashing lightly upon the still-water
on half-moon lake
A lone shadow glides stealthily
near mid-tarn,.. swimming
enchantingly with the grace
of a blackswan
Appearing to glance shoreward
at the glowing low stars
rise and fall, as his eyes
twinkled skyward over
the moonlit lagoon ―
heavenward of its moonlit ballet;
the lone sleek dark shadow
slipping through
a faint circular ripple
stirring the smooth as glass waters ―
disappearing like a fleeting moment
waning deep aneath
a subtle silent wake.
When all the clear lines blurred,
he knew it had been so long ...
but hearken !
… an interceding
long drawn out wail
echoed a feral ache
across the stillness,
breaking the silence ―
as the shadow reappeared;
his tears surrendered
to the undulating call of the wild;
he felt the spirit of the sole Loon,
as black and white
as the moonlit night,
stir deeply in his wanting heart ―
lay bare the silence
in lengthy yodeled psalms
to the god of the moon
Diving down deep yet again,
keeping the light he’d been given,
vanishing into the lifespring
sanctuary of half-moon lake
harlon rivers ... May 2018
travelogue: 4 of some more
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 2:36 PM UTC
The hollow wind funneled the voice
of the distant night-train crossings,
awakening a familiar silence
hanging from the vast wilderness sky
A restless heart hearkening the echoes,
imagining a runaway Pullman
flew away off the rails, airborne
on the winged wind headed north
Winter pausing for a moment
in the shadows of familiarity,
as if parsing the unspoken breathings
in an echoless surrendered sigh;
uncertain if tacit words set free
could ever allow a heart broken
to feel whole again
There is no absolving voice
that whispers in a solemner tone :
Death has no mercy ―
love remains marooned in the wake ,..
and it feels like the world’s gone mad
letting time be the arbiter of perpetuity
The fading dream of a motherless child;
a wish to be held maternally
fell to the ground with a thud,
breaking the silence,
dissipating formless as the shape of water
Muted cold lips so full of questions
morphing into fugitive sighs
come the unsettled night;
when shadows disappear like frail memories
that passed too soon to grasp,
thickly palpable as the warm breath
a winter bird alone on frosty branch
There’s no fear in braving the darkness
in the winter wilderness of life borne alone
There’s no way of knowing what you’ll find
down that long empty road back home
Life just flashes by silently before your eyes
through the windshield
of countless miles and miles
And there’s nothing you can do about it ―
It’s like hearing the moment of truth in a lie
when all I was looking for
was how I got here in this now,.. yesterday
only finding a hopeless poet
scribbling slightly stained pages,
spilling a bitter sweet dream ...
harlon rivers ... February 2018
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Feb 14, 2018
Feb 14, 2018 at 10:31 AM UTC
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
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 11:43 AM UTC
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
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 11:34 AM UTC
Tomorrow I may never die,
writhe in the loops of time
like catching cold endlessly
over so many lifetimes
But the place I sat,
eyes, a waterfall
of suddenly gratitude
towards existence
for its too trivial
for it to have any purpose
other than to exist.
Eyes fluttering spasms of throbs,
shedding some unknown impressions,
long held in the eye of the mind
suddenly vanishing in the air,
I was born anew in shifted time.
Jul 23, 2017
Jul 23, 2017 at 5:43 AM UTC
Life as a word, as a concept, has been very intriguing for me. The trip however, that happened a few days back, has left me with new questions while some of the previous ones that I had seem answered, for now. I am particularly not good with writing long texts, long pages of articles that might make sense when read all together at once. Generally, all of what I start off with the intention of writing about, loses its essence after the first few lines. Therefore, I am not going to drag this one and start writing that I came across, the incidences, the faces. It is more of a personal documentation as I know that these stories would be lost somewhere if not bookmarked now.
Take what you can and leave what you think needs or is felt to be expressed.
Oct 31, 2015
Oct 31, 2015 at 8:04 AM UTC
There’s a beauty in the path that I followed
White carpet and lavender border
The uneven terrains that I skip and trotter on
A freshness engulfs the atmosphere
I could stay in bliss and a state of wonder
The dragonflies, flickering light
A constant urge to learn and explore
Entendamonos
The hills have called me home.
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 11:17 AM UTC