"barkless" poems
boo croon the sunflowers
and **** squeaks the jay
this garden was not tended to
and when it was, it was done with bitter blisterless hands
the weeds are creeping out now and thickening stalks
and they move out
out out
goes any sense trust we grew in this garden.
and out
out out
goes my frothy yellow blood into the humid grounds of the garden
and you mop it up and glaze over my barkless parts
boo croon the sunflowers
and **** squeaks the jay
the hose to feed me
was bent at angled corners
and the water shrieked its way through
to come out a subtle flaccid
drop by
drop by
drop
on my parched cracked tan sun slapped skins
and i was angry
that you never felt the need to untangle the hose
because you turned the faucet to full volume
so you assumed that was all the water you could give
and i needed
boo croons the sunflowers
and **** squeaks the jay
the garden is all sand colored and tired
and you don’t feel guilty
you looked at it every day
and squirted what you could on it
and picked whatever weeds you saw
but you never went beyond what looked pretty to visitors
and you let the roots rot across the summer
and now that the winter’s fallen in
there’s not enough water to keep the garden beating
and all the melted snow in the world won’t make up for it
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 11:21 PM UTC
Waning dappled moonlight mantles
the margin at the wild-wood edge
Stiff tufts of summer dried grass spears
sporadically sway — raking against
the scarlet poison oak leaves
gently sweeping away the moonlit silence
airing the sounds of velvet antlers rubbing
barkless mountain willow trunks bare
Subtle nuances constantly animate
twilights rhythm; heaven flickers
upon a dark umbrage of forest pillars
softly as a candlelight’s fluttering glow
evanescing half way across the sky;
the sparse illumined clouds stream through
the lambent halo around the rutting moon
fleeting in the blink of sleepless eyes
and like the silent touch of a talisman,
transfixed eyes are entranced by all
the restless night disrobes,
captured and cocooned by the seeker’s
awakened senses
An erratic, familiar feral bark peals haughtily;
a pack of maturing spring pups yip, bellow and shriek
in youthful pursuit; the howling report back,
ignited by the scent of a rabbit's paling squeal,
aroused by the pulse of brother wolf
rippling deeply through their blood
The dried grass game-trail crackles towards the ridge top:
an aging full moon is not enough skylight
to see beyond a seeker’s stirring silent reverie
the coyote choir’s sudden reveling echoes rekindling
an extraordinary sheltering intimacy within;
bending slithers of moonlight into a dull moonlight mantle
but I can feel its weight breaking me ,... forlorn I can't physically
reach out to touch them in an absolving moment —
understanding love was always the purpose of being ,...
futilely repining — I can't face myself alone again
harlon rivers ... October 2019
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Oct 21, 2019
Oct 21, 2019 at 8:39 PM UTC
Once on the kind of day called “weather *******
When the heat slowly hazes and the sun
By its own power seems to be undone,
I was half boring through, half climbing through
A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar
And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated,
And sorry I ever left the road I knew,
I paused and rested on a sort of hook
That had me by the coat as good as seated,
And since there was no other way to look,
Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue,
Stood over me a resurrected tree,
A tree that had been down and raised again—
A barkless spectre. He had halted too,
As if for fear of treading upon me.
I saw the strange position of his hands—
Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands
Of wire with something in it from men to men.
“You here?” I said. “Where aren’t you nowadays
And what’s the news you carry—if you know?
And tell me where you’re off for—Montreal?
Me? I’m not off for anywhere at all.
Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways
Half looking for the orchid Calypso.”
1.8k
the rainbow ridden autumn leaves
sway solemnly falling at the feet
of the dark and dreary barkless trees
who have been stripped of all their dignity
to reveal the rotten wood beneath
so the monsters showed up one by one
to scrape up all the autumn blood
that lonesome limbs dropped from above
in an attempt to outstretch their love
but crushed is all the leaves become
the shrubs submitted to their death
with roots dug deep in their regrets
but once they see the sun's silhouette
they'll try and look their very best
and suddenly when summer ends
shell put their weary thoughts to rest
Feb 7, 2010
Feb 7, 2010 at 7:12 PM UTC
Baby, time goes.
Things don't stay the same.
What feels so good today,
May later be our shame.
Babe, I'm lovin' you again.
I made you go away.
A couple hundred nights alone,
I'm a barkless stray.
Jul 31, 2011
Jul 31, 2011 at 2:36 PM UTC