"basalt" poems
Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.
That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.
And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.
Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.
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there’s a barnacle scar
deeply ingrained
on the basalt stack
at mark thirty two
whispering summer winds
scented oil
cotton and roe
drift
as waves brush
and shape
the sandstone shore
the briny air
and lost erratic
set a tone to this
pollyanna portrait
it's andrews undulations
and gifted benches
its concessions
and traces of the barry burn
its sculpted driftwood
and sanko lines
make this picture
almost perfect
children play
as venom spews
from the caterwaul pair
those odd looking mates
casting smiles
with arrested despair
settling shots
swiping bugs
dipping and darting
as photo men
and muscles
and long neck seabirds
make their turn
the hunched hoody
and his sorted sidekick
get their fill
(of moss and rubble ~ chubby and kelp)
nice to meet your acquaintance
the pho man would say
an odd drop
and ironic turn
from those horrific corners
of timeless desperation
down by cannon bridge
harbor seals
and carriage horse
are fronted by
raven shade
jolly tides pause
in quiet bays
(with curious looters
and *** pickers)
sand merchants
and field totems
all streamed by the light
cirrus strands
blanket the
outer edge
hovering craft
and shimmering willows
bolt the evening frame
blood orange
and tethered
with a filtered glare
bottle-nose dolphins
and seabirds
(and shifting tides)
are all settling in
for the long night stay
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017 at 11:21 PM UTC
As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep
the black river of himself.
The grain of his wrists
is like bog oak,
the ball of his heel
like a basalt egg.
His instep has shrunk
cold as a swan’s foot
or a wet swamp root.
His hips are the ridge
and purse of a mussel,
his spine an eel arrested
under a glisten of mud.
The head lifts,
the chin is a visor
raised above the vent
of his slashed throat
that has tanned and toughened.
The cured wound
opens inwards to a dark
elderberry place.
Who will say ‘corpse’
to his vivid cast?
Who will say ‘body’
to his opaque repose?
And his rusted hair,
a mat unlikely
as a foetus’s.
I first saw his twisted face
in a photograph,
a head and shoulder
out of the peat,
bruised like a forceps baby,
but now he lies
perfected in my memory,
down to the red horn
of his nails,
hung in the scales
with beauty and atrocity:
with the Dying Gaul
too strictly compassed
on his shield,
with the actual weight
of each hooded victim,
slashed and dumped.
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I cannot spare water or wine,
Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
From the earth-poles to the Line,
All between that works or grows,
Every thing is kin of mine.
Give me agates for my meat,
Give me cantharids to eat,
From air and ocean bring me foods,
From all zones and altitudes.
From all natures, sharp and slimy,
Salt and basalt, wild and tame,
Tree, and lichen, ape, sea-lion,
Bird and reptile be my game.
Ivy for my fillet band,
Blinding dogwood in my hand,
Hemlock for my sherbet cull me,
And the prussic juice to lull me,
Swing me in the upas boughs,
Vampire-fanned, when I carouse.
Too long shut in strait and few,
Thinly dieted on dew,
I will use the world, and sift it,
To a thousand humors shift it,
As you spin a cherry.
O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry,
O all you virtues, methods, mights;
Means, appliances, delights;
Reputed wrongs, and braggart rights;
Smug routine, and things allowed;
Minorities, things under cloud!
Hither! take me, use me, fill me,
Vein and artery, though ye **** me;
God! I will not be an owl,
But sun me in the Capitol.
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**Earth Day, April 22, 2017 "give back to Earth",
as an "offering" for all the planet gives us.**
For Global Earth Day information visit: http://www.earthday.org/
Her ominous shadow
shown a path
far beyond the miles high
a majestic mountain stood
Silently climbing down
million year old
steep canyon walls
at dawn,
each step chosen carefully
coursing with purpose
Finding a way forward
was the only way
to look back up
river carved ravines
where higher ground
once stood
Instincts drawn downward
gravity feed towards
the faint murmurs
deep echoes tracery
down sheer basalt cliffs
Artesian waters'
resounding gurgles ―
bubble up to quench
a lost soul’s incurably
intrinsic parching thirst;
to find an unfolding
metamorphic peace
in the trove of igneous
fountain veins of earth
There’s not need to wait
on sunrise pathways lit ―
there is no fear of gravity’s
downward silent weight
nor burden to be borne
Listening beyond dark silence .
igneous bedrock roots
beckon deeper expanse ;
spirit realms of ancient souls
whisperer like thunder
to the soul of man ―
Awakening ruptured lifelines
deep below earthen crust ,
creations hidden essence
eternally remembered
by the light above ...
April 2017 © harlon rivers ... all rights reserved
Apr 21, 2017
Apr 21, 2017 at 10:02 AM UTC
a ring of stone under water
a breathless figure sits
between red coral-fingers
blue eye-fish
and from her hand the lava pours
steam
running away with the motion of stone
leaving silent twisted images
basalt black
wracked back
spinal cord columns
to salt
and become green
and beautiful with algae
Violent underwater mother
birthing continents
all mineral
gem
metal
plant and animal
birthed
thru her
and the sand that is the
product of so many
ancient fey stone and glacier
meeting each other again
and again
and the sun
and the wind
the river
the hoof
the root
the heel
the rot
the sand that is
the mana
that make
the motion
the Aa
and Pahoehoe
slowly rolling new mass of life
that we are
is!
submerged
remembering
remembering
a ring of stone under water
a breathless figure sits
between red coral-fingers
blue eye-fish
and from her hand the lava pours
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 6:49 AM UTC
I want to free fall into the Mariana Trench.
I want to watch the world become darker and darker till light is not in the dictionary.
Forms of life will become less distinguishable with every meter.
Motel rooms and apartments litter the crevice's walls-"low" income housing-
Soup kitchens begin to occur less frequently-
Replacing them are drug houses and grimy gas stations with metal bars for windows.
Every creature notices my existence.
They dart their eyes just too much,
And I know they suspect that I came here to sleep. To be at peace with myself again.
To watch them, to hear them, to wander them.
In my mind, seconds melt like ice cream cones in July.
Minutes cut through the silence unnoticeably.
Time slips underneath me as the rug is pulled out from my feet and over my eyes,
And it covers my mind.
I remember nothing of past events,
They told me to leave all behind.
As the day grows darker into nothing but here and now,
My skin turns blue. I am the ocean in this divide of magnetic silence.
I am the fish who struggle to find meaning for themselves.
I am time which does not exist here.
I am the water whose stagnancy sinks me deeper into earth and beings of past eons.
My hair becomes the nutrients, the seaweed and algae that provide for the citizens of this primitive paradise.
My eyes are now seashells which house these forgotten creatures.
My arms stretch out towards surface and harden into coral shoots, but my mind is rooted into sea floor basalt and sand.
I will never leave.
An eel approaches me.
He welcomes me with a warm embrace too far up my body.
Not an under-the-arms hug,
A beating, lively hug around the neck.
It takes my breath away,
And so I cannot help but gasp with excitement,
And I find my peace.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 8:57 PM UTC
The Cambrian period had 7000ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.
That was a time of the perpetual fire.
Even though the solar luminosity at the time was 4% weaker than today, the earth was much hotter due to the free amounts of carbon dioxide.
Slowly chemical weathering and living organisms bound the carbon in the atmosphere so, at the time of the Carboniferous period, it had reached 180ppm.
The earth was much cooler. A wonderful time with 34% oxygen in the air.
Then after this period, flood basalt eruptions, such as the Siberian traps and the Deccan traps released vast amounts of CO2, and this caused the earth to heat up again.
That was an inferno. 90% of all life died.
This followed by slow weathering out of CO2 and subsequent cooling.
When the CO2 levels are in low and balance the earth temperature change due to the Milankovitch cycles. During such period the climate always changes.
We even had ice ages during this period.
Now there is no flood basalt eruption at all. This time it is we humans who released the CO2 in the atmosphere. It took us one hundred years.
Earth will be warm. It will be hot.
(Source: youtu.be slash r7aZ6vqCk2E)
Mar 25, 2019
Mar 25, 2019 at 2:17 PM UTC
the ocean is alive, her heart beats in the echoing crash against the basalt slabs
the ocean is a creature,
she lives in the daylight
soaking up the sun
she hunts at night, to fill her belly
and sleeps when she's full
the ocean dresses in greens and greys and blues and blacks
she's always changing clothes
the ocean gives and takes away
life, homes, and joy
the ocean is more powerful than man can fathom
with her mighty swells and crashing waves
the rumbles of the tempest and the chaos in her depths
the ocean is alive, and her heart is hard
the ocean is a creature, a beautiful one
do not underestimate her
the ocean is green and gray and blue and black
and she will swallow you up
the ocean gives and takes away
but she rarely shows mercy
the ocean is sister to mother earth
and paralleled in power
the ocean is a force
and she will not be tamed
you have met the ocean, now
but you still do not know her
swim in her depths and meet her creatures
but don't be the one to fill her belly
Apr 6, 2019
Apr 6, 2019 at 3:26 AM UTC
Sometimes I fain would find in thee some fault,
That I might love thee still in spite of it:
Yet how should our Lord Love curtail one whit
Thy perfect praise whom most he would exalt?
Alas! he can but make my heart’s low vault
Even in men’s sight unworthier, being lit
By thee, who thereby show’st more exquisite
Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt.
Yet will I nowise shrink; but at Love’s shrine
Myself within the beams his brow doth dart
Will set the flashing jewel of thy heart
In that dull chamber where it deigns to shine:
For lo! in honour of thine excellencies
My heart takes pride to show how poor it is.
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'And am I then a pyramid?' says Senlin,
'In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden
Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh?
Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly
Above those stones and times?
Or the green blade of grass that bravely grows
Between to massive boulders of black basalt
Year after year, and fades and blows?
Senlin, sitting before us in the lamplight,
Laughs, and lights his pipe. The yellow flame
Minutely flares in his eyes, minutely dwindles.
Does a blade of grass have Senlin for a name?
Yet we would say that we have seen him somewhere,
A tiny spear of green beneath the blue,
Playing his destiny in a sun-warmed crevice
With the gigantic fates of frost and dew.
Does a spider come and spin his gossamer ladder
Rung by silver rung,
Chaining it fast to Senlin? Its faint shadow
Flung, waveringly, where his is flung?
Does a raindrop dazzle starlike down his length
Trying his futile strength?
A snowflake startle him? The stars defeat him?
Through aeons of dusk have birds above him sung?
Time is a wind, says Senlin; time, like music,
Blows over us its mournful beauty, passes,
And leaves behind a shadowy reflection,--
A helpless gesture of mist above the grasses.
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The rain is falling glass
Shattering from the angels' eyes
They hit the ground in shards they splash
And if you look close enough you'll find a reflection of lies
The unwashable wounds of problems past
Awaken the demons that gush your logic out of mind
Half-remembering telling yourself that last time was the last
But everyone dances with the devil when they've been left behind
Something sharp, subtle pain, screams at the edge of the glass shards
And the angels cry their silent pleas that your deafened ears refuse to hear
A blinding reflection of white light (maybe white lies) stun your mind's composure guards
While the devil comes out to play in the glass rain, turning spatters into basalt ashes of burnt-out fears.
Nov 15, 2013
Nov 15, 2013 at 10:49 PM UTC
A knave to hold a soft core;
Schist, basalt, limestone!
A cross, kaleidescoping until it's square then into a passkey.
Solids, Solipsis, a patterned plane was your gift, almost as cruel as mine.
Given me, as due, for my recognition of your soul.
Your belief is a gaes, almost as burdensome as your mistrust.
A blindside for a blindside.
Apr 6, 2013
Apr 6, 2013 at 9:34 AM UTC
We place our wishes
in the canines
of spackle.
Above us the teeth
wait
to be broken.
While we watch
the Dog Whisperer
breaking
mustangs,
I wrap my arm
around the eternal flatness
of your shoulder.
We say nothing,
we don't even whisper
as our dreams fall around us,
in an automatic spray.
I get on the coffee table,
to fix the fan.
You arc your neck
around me,
like a diamondback
you coil until you feel the heat
of the tv in your eyes,
on your cheeks,
on your lips.
As you watch Cesar
more than me,
I dust our dreams off
of the fan.
I am a sculpture
that you must break your neck to get around
as I fidget with the monkey wrench.
There is nothing eternal,
we burn our love
like shoots of wheat,
so much beige grass
extending over your shoulder
into forever.
What kind of dogs
are we?
The ones that no longer
know the plains
of each others' fur,
the fire in our teeth,
the sun of each others' eyes,
the rain of our lips.
There is too much heat between us,
too much dryness now,
not enough calcium raining
from basalt clouds.
What I'm trying to say,
is that I do not explode
like a force of nature,
I am rock.
Mar 6, 2012
Mar 6, 2012 at 10:21 PM UTC
The nation's Capitol rattled and shook.
Washington's monument cracked.
The Nation's Cathedral is minus a spire.
The people cried out for Barrack.
A previously unknown fault line had shifted
causing a crack in basalt
The President paused from his golf game to chat
with his geologist, a man named Walt.
After a lengthy Analysis
down in the Smithsonian's vault
The commander in chief is relieved to report
that this too was Bush's Fault
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 5:25 PM UTC
The nation's Capitol rattled and shook.
Washington's monument cracked.
The Nation's Cathedral is minus a spire.
The people Cried out for Barrack.
A previously unknown fault line had shifted
causing a crack in basalt
The President paused from his golf game to chat
with his geologist, a man named Walt.
After a lengthy Analysis
down in the Smithsonian's vault
The commander in chief is relieved to report
that this too was Bush's Fault.
Dec 19, 2011
Dec 19, 2011 at 9:17 PM UTC
the blood of the women of my blood
stir under deep layers of earth
like cackling magma
churning through and by
like the arteries
of my flesh
moving
and burning
and exploding
like enraged volcanoes.
the words of the women of my blood
cool and harden--are dark and shining
like basalt or obsidian
we are the casual sort
something that shouldn't be confused
with softness
our tongues are tougher than pumice
and our mouths only shape
letters that chafe.
I am of fire like
my mothers before
me
pulsing
radiating.
Nov 23, 2011
Nov 23, 2011 at 12:33 PM UTC
you stopped visiting the ocean after your brother died
so we drove inland, instead, that day
and found the pit of old bunkers
left to decay
from a more actively
apocalyptic age
and, inside, the
eschewal vision of
tinned food,
concrete pillars,
liquid flesh
warm comfort in disintegration,
emerald concavities that lace the sky
we considered stealing some **** but just drove on back instead,
leave history to history
if you stack the boxes, there will be more space, you-
yeah, just like that.
the chairs have no back, sorry, so you'll have to be careful.
sorry, i just have to deal with,
yeah, the drain pipes broke again,
it now decants into the living room, all
dammed up with paper mache and static
so uh
make yourself some tea if you have to
-ah, no, sorry, i didn't mean to be curt
it's just,
there's no time
but stay, anyway, please
it gets lonely at night
all boarded windows and
old casements
till in the end you're just
embracing a
damp ****** guilt
just to pass the time
with a forgiveness complex
do you think you'd do it?
they make you wear their shirt, and take a photo,
but they give a free ice-cream at the end.
i mean, it doesn't cost you anything,
nothing palpable, anyway
remember that time we drove inland?
and found that petrified forest,
buried in basalt and pumice?
we walked among treetops, near the old crater lake
and
skipped stones
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 7:09 AM UTC
TV light glints from pale fingertips.
For how long have I been passed out?
The longest I've been dead is nine whole days.
Stirring in pitch darkness to faraway sounds
delusion of two dark cracked lips upon mine
infect long loved texture with bitter hate.
Now from Heaven a hand rips off the roof
godly divine bound in rags soaked in proof.
"Drink of me, drink me down."
I'm left lone and uncovered under basalt skies.
"Drink now, drink forever."
Here I'm left vulnerable to you and that original knife.
"Drink down, drink down, now."
So swallow, I think, swallow.
Pressure from within building, pushing out
ruptures suddenly leaving a cold head hot.
Twisted highway we ride quakes spewing black
broken fragments through white eyes as glass.
Hungrily ******* for life, skyward again.
TV light glints from pale fingertips.
For how long have I been passed out?
Falling, with unfolded wings.
Dreaming, luciferous dreams.
Burning, brightly nine days straight.
I bring and bid you drink from two leaking lips.
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 1:01 AM UTC
My Tango Master
His hair was deep, rich,
the black of unweathered basalt,
slick backed, like his look,
an arrogant dare to stare,
eyes directed at newcomers,
intended to make me,
a novice especially aware,
a bon voyage has begun,
now a worshiper, full of faults,
warning that I sought entry
to a temple where admission was a
sworn affidavit promising
total sacrifice of body
The flat contours of his body
disguised a airy litheness that
embraced and made me giddy,
pliant to his methodology,
mastering my psychology,
making the whole of my body breathe,
as if for the first time
No questions asked or allowed,
he bent me, taught me supple,
the surety of the pleasure of
following a leader unreservedly,
my body straight from within,
but the exterior,
a symmetry of curves,
I am,
his precision human tool
His hands grasped me
with utter certainty,
with a petal light touch
and fingertip precision,
directing me to Rio de la Plata,
where his swivel hips
lift this black robed disciple
upon a golden altar where
I have remained, entranced,
a devotee forever more,
enslaved to our one god
Demanding the perfection
that comes only from rigidity,
irony of ironies,
it was a vocabulary of
spontaneity and fluidity
step by step learned,
this contradiction, soon intuitive
With posture *****
he taught the history of seduction,
constructing the tale
each time differently,
creating within me
the ravished need for the
surprise of the unknown,
teased me into obediently
accepting the satisfaction of
joined at the hip ecstasy
With boleos that mesmerized ,
but not a one memorized,
he captivates me,
a tandem for a tanda,
until cortina-released
What is your name?
Tango
he whispers,
his name is in his eyes,
never spoke aloud,
I am your new master,
now come and master me
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 6:54 PM UTC
Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.
They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.
And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,
And some strange shadows threw.
And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving,
Restlessly moving in each lamplit room,
From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire;
From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:
From some, a dazzling desire.
And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought,
Combing with lifted arms her golden hair,
Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night;
And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death
As she blew out her light.
And there was one who turned from clamoring streets,
And walked in lamplit gardens among black trees,
And looked at the windy sky,
And thought with terror how stones and roots would freeze
And birds in the dead boughs cry . . .
And she hurried back, as snow fell, mixed with rain,
To mingle among the crowds again,
To jostle beneath blue lamps along the street;
And lost herself in the warm bright coiling dream,
With a sound of murmuring voices and shuffling feet.
And one, from his high bright window looking down
On luminous chasms that cleft the basalt town,
Hearing a sea-like murmur rise,
Desired to leave his dream, descend from the tower,
And drown in waves of shouts and laughter and cries.
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The last place for a waterfall, no mountains or valleys,
horizons flat as summer seas, then from thirty miles,
a white tower of spray punctures the blue sky.
Closer, you hear thunder, though there is no storm,
see double rainbows, bright bridges across air,
feel a welcome drizzle in searing, blistering heat.
Closer, you part a bush, stand on the edge of a chasm;
the wide Zambesi glides forward, then plunges deep
into a wound in the earth’s crust, a break in basalt.
The ground trembles with shock, you shout but hear
nothing except a raging roar as solid water
explodes up in your face, blinds you, engulfs you.
Down in the Devil’s Cataract, the river cuts frantic
zigzags through deep gorges until it pours into a pool
where a dead hippo bounces up like a rubber ball.
[Mosi-oa-Tunya: the Victoria Falls, translated as "Smoke that Thunders"]
Feb 11, 2014
Feb 11, 2014 at 11:10 PM UTC
The wet, basalt sands sing songs with the light,
mirrors the spirit of a starry night.
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 4:31 PM UTC
High upon a basalt cliff,
carpeted round with lily fields
and blanching poppys' lips,
high upon a basalt throne,
Persephone sits.
Frail as lily wands,
lithe as Syrinx songs upon a reed.
And there, below,
grim Sisyphus,
and there the Centaur-sire
spins upon a wheel of fire.
And there, Tantalus sits grinning
mumbling prayers of sin and sinning,
hunkered down to steal the peach
which quickly leaps beyond his reach.
Or there, a hundred weary sisters
with a hundred leaking jugs
and a cistern dry as bone.
High upon the basalt cliff,
still as infant breath upon the air,
Persphone, sits and stares.
Feb 1, 2017
Feb 1, 2017 at 12:31 PM UTC