"benumbed" poems
Cockcrow harbour:
the gulls whining like tethered dogs
about rooftops
paliophobic cars and
grounded vessels..
Look:
on the hoary horizon
a glaucous strip
beguils
with backwater.
Not putting on a show
the frigid sea benumbed..
Easily,
with a tail of emerald jelly
skim a vanishing lane off that
lustrous sheet
and watch
the trailblazing mainland
scuttle.
Now,
Only scattered dreaming is possible.
In it's bachelor pad,
cradling over crinkles,
away from the meretriciosness
of validating the real by sharing it,
THE WIND
blusters off any veneer.
Here,
stale but spry,
fare your way around the inoffensive isle
to it's most shyest of harbours:
a mouth full of silver
saving it's breath.
The windows facing the sea
seem
black & white,
their wooden frames hooked to the wind,
the splattered gulls meow
your name
in a way
that's
personal.
Of course comes to mind.
The pines
are demanding a visit,
They're whispering
so you can hear them,
each as different as every snore,
these pines know
how to grow in the sand
and still reach for
the Nimbostratus with heads in unison.
The spaces
between their trunks illuminating
the blazing needles
raining down
painting the ground
familiar
to your lover's
skin texture:
Feel her closeness
from jilted borderwatchtowers
as she speads her mire
like no one's watching:
weedy and sugared
with bellflowers,
the waves in her shallow armpit
billeting a pair of white swans:
demurely they float
sometimes as pillows and sometimes
as question marks..
Go ask the seasoned locals,
they say the bones she parked
when she let her ice sheet melt
are portals
to her noble underbelly.
Hidden in the woods
reminiscent of your heart,
the red
tank-sized stone
is sealed,
but what the lighting reach cannot
the rain shall sluice apart
dumbly.
And though her hair has
come to be
the moss
black and hoarse
as sailor's beard,
there is still time.
The void says
her noisy neighbour is nothing
to die for.
The theadbear car with absent doors
incites
to drive her
in reverse gear
to the first few
days of holidays:
her golden locks a-blaze,
her arm around your
hind-sighted doppelganger.
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 2:20 AM UTC
An indifferent ache swirls in the silence
throbbing like a dancing candle flame;
no one understands the heart of silence
moving the darkness with its ancient dance
Its voice is only felt but never heard
the way it whispers the reality it bears;
disrobing the nakedness of a fragile heart
exposing inherent truth deep in disguise
retouching the chaos passing of love laid bare
Unspoken emotions that nobody hears
float around a muted tongue benumbed by fear
doubt is a bitter taste that knows not love
searching for a labyrinth to begin to wend a better way
trying to feel the unfelt warmth of love in an endless cold
waiting on a frozen emptiness that never thaws
No one understands the haunting fear,
... surly it couldn't happen again ― and surly it will,
a heart stifled silent, silence doth loudly peal
poignant dreaded words:
***"It's not you ― it's me ,.......
I love you but I'm not in love with you"***
and like winter dreaming for the sun to reappear,
to come back again and dry the memory of fallen tears,
a hushed heart falls off the earth lost in ether shadows lay
mooning in the lonely silence within moonlit dapple
When you pull love too close ― it will push you away
some silence heals ― a dissonant silence cuts to the bone
Only the lonely feel a silent voice sigh
Only one hears a silenced heart die ...
harlon rivers ... March 2018
Mar 22, 2018
Mar 22, 2018 at 3:00 PM UTC
Come walk with me a mile...
Walk on without our burden’s weighty shoes,
warily trudging over the long rocky pathway
a lifetime in my soul.
A final edifying voyage to freedom.
The winds of change are blowing briskly
as we walk charily over the long and narrowing
rock-strewn passageway.
I shed these boots and skin, no longer fitting
my scared, blistered and callused soles.
As time slowly passes,
this craggy passage has evolved
from a two-way trail,
into one-way jagged forage…
Standing barefooted and naked on rocky ground,
dark sunken sleepless eyes scan
the rolling vista as the wind blows
dust from the halo around the sun,
blurring the delicate wispy cirrus clouds.
The sun’s radiance paints frozen ice crystal azure
into a vivid aura of prisms’ brilliant corona.
Kaleidoscope rainbows adorn the closest of solar stars.
There's something in the ethereal air
that leaves my soul unsettled,
grasping for an evocative stability
trying to understand the silenced voices
crying out within…
The pain and suffering has vanished
as if the body and soul have separated,
numbness from the ache of longing,
severed nerves, callused fears
ruptured on serrated rocky edges,
deadened useless flesh cut to the bone
by misjudged obstacles encountered enduringly.
The barefooted spirit courses on,
suffused in the solar spectrum’s dust;
yearning, longing to saunter
above and beyond the bloated feathery pillows;
cumulus clouds finally resting at peace.
Dipping heart's lesions and these benumbed toes
into a healing balm
from the bowers of bliss..
An unfinished life
an open ended dream,
reluctantly waking to take the last ,
surrendering steps beyond the threshold...
A long and winding rocky journey’s destiny
draws near
The halo around the moon
illuminates an understanding firmament;
the celestial sphere’s
pending imminent soulful rain awaits
the metamorphosis at the brink of dawn.
A shower of heaven's rain
shall mourn the loss of flesh form
as the spirit of an untamed soul lives on,
barefooted,
naked and free
like the dust in the wind
absorbed eternally...
2011 © harlon rivers
all rights reserved
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 11:16 AM UTC
The elixir that I take in,
To indulge all of my deadly sins.
Eighty proof of malign madness,
Trapped in a bottle of rancid bases.
**** my insecurity,
And drown me in my reverie.
Where all the worst become the best,
Where fear and shame cannot arrest.
Each trickle burns my frozen core,
A second turns to forevermore.
The holy water from the river Styx,
That forces every mime to speak.
Stay with me 'til I succumb,
To this empty heart that's gone benumbed.
When this head's befuddled with every lie,
Until they look true before these jaded eyes.
My most loyal companion,
Don't wake me while I'm woebegone.
I'll intoxicate this bleeding heart,
And let this hell just fall apart.
Jul 20, 2013
Jul 20, 2013 at 10:43 AM UTC
Now that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.
Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long’d-for May.
Now all things smile, only my love doth lour;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal’d, and makes her pity cold.
The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the stall, doth now securely lie
In open fields; and love no more is made
By the fireside, but in the cooler shade
Amyntas now doth with his Chloris sleep
Under a sycamore, and all things keep
Time with the season; only she doth carry
June in her eyes, in her heart January.
2.4k
They are
monotony.
Pulchritudinous
aesthetics,
Alleviation
to
seclusion.
Do you not feel the heat – my wrist on yours
burn tales more rich than ours on nights more dark
than souls too tense to feel the eyes of God
draw shame on backs of necks so close?
Or is it
just me?
Conjuring
fraudulence
Accrediting
ludicrous
buoyancy
I know its there I know the life that flows
through limbs of mine can move through cloth to touch
the skin of yours I hear your eyes I see your voice
I breath you in why else are we so close?
And
innocent
And
serene
And
happy
And
secluded.
How can you sit not feel those things I feel
not think those thoughts I think not see your wrist
sink in to flesh as soft and pink as lips
I long to taste? We are al-ways al-ways
al-ways al-ways al-ways al-ways
so close...
They are
tolerable
Doused
ardor
maybe.
Benumbed
incandescence
maybe.
But still
They are
here.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 5:43 PM UTC
The briny tears have dried
The sounding knells are stilled
The grieving crowd, dispersed
The parting pain, allayed
Benumbed lie the dead
Beneath the marble vaults
Bereft of power and prowess
Benighted and beaten.
The sun shall never cast its glorious rays
The stars shall never their brilliance shed
The breeze never shall bring tidings new
The showers shall no more drench them through
A thoughtful friend sometimes seen around
A fervent prayer at times chanted aloud
A plaited wreath, rarely laid over
A trite rite, randomly carried out
There’s none left to mourn or weep
Nor anyone to sing, sigh or sob
Leaving the dead to rot in the closure of graves
To life’s alluring charms, the dear depart.
Cold as clay the dead lie so still
To be feasted on by maggots and the worms
Life with all its glory – defunct
Its fever and fret too – extinct.
How in vain we run after wealth
The power and position we deem so great
Shall come to naught within Time’s gloomy vault
Yet we run and yet we straggle behind.
In vain ends our travail for might
Inglorious is our quest after fame
Transient turn the riches, we garner
Short lived is their gleam and glitter.
Oh Lord! Lead us not into illusory charms
Deliver us of our avarice to hoard
For all that is born and made
‘Must consign to death and come to dust.’
Feb 6, 2017
Feb 6, 2017 at 6:29 AM UTC
Bravely Burn Barbaric Books of Belief Belonging to Bad Bigots to Become the Bearer of the Bright-less Broken Banners of Both and Between Bruised and Betrayed Beleaguered Borders to Begin Benevolence Before the Beings Below Be Benumbed and go Berserk for Bloodshed .
Boldly Bestow the Blessing of Brotherhood to the Blind and Brutal Blood Beasts and the Bound Brethren of Brazen Ballads.
For a Bare Bundle of Burnt Books can Barricade a Braced Battalion of Bayonets, Block Beyond Billions of Battle Blades, Buffer a Bunch of Big Booming Bullets, Backfire Boorish Ballistae of Bribery and Bury the Barmy Bastard's Baleful Brusque Breathes that Brings Back the Bedeviled Beacon of Blame.
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 8:11 AM UTC
Deadlines besiege me, as stress pennoned limbs
ache for action, yet, procrastination consumes me.
I know relief will come, when: task complete
I can truly unbend, sit back and relax.
Yet, brain benumbed, I irradiate in a background
of autogenous anxiety. I stare through the TV,
study the grain on the page I'm not reading,
attempt to study the air.
Until, deadlines eve, when stress breaks free
staining my mouth, and eyes and senses, bitter
body, shocked, resuscitated
and frantic activity commences.
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 9:23 AM UTC
i'm getting pins put in my body tomorrow
like those red pin cushions that sit on a table in your basement.
and it will also be your birthday.
and i'm sorry i will be benumbed.
i'm sorry this happened
i'm sorry that the mason jar full of loose change and dollar bills
and the piggy bank covered with dust and cobwebs
will soon be vacant
i am nothing but a pin cushion
and i wish i could be something more.
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 10:49 AM UTC
584
It ceased to hurt me, though so slow
I could not feel the Anguish go—
But only knew by looking back—
That something—had benumbed the Track—
Nor when it altered, I could say,
For I had worn it, every day,
As constant as the Childish frock—
I hung upon the Peg, at night.
But not the Grief—that nestled close
As needles—ladies softly press
To Cushions Cheeks—
To keep their place—
Nor what consoled it, I could trace—
Except, whereas ’twas Wilderness—
It’s better—almost Peace—
1.4k
Mind benumbed with a dreary monotony;
thoughts rambling like the black and gloomy clouds
trying to break the boredom of the winter sky.
Dark dust of melancholy
clouding the senses to a hazy opaqueness.
I hibernate,
with shoots of life
sleeping inside me
waiting for the knock of Spring
on the frozen shell of my consciousness.
Latent I lie,
with hues of magic trancing in my soul.
Latent I’ll lie,
till the soft brush of springtime
paints my world in a
flurry of psychedelic colours.
Dec 26, 2018
Dec 26, 2018 at 11:40 AM UTC
Siberian morn..
Benumbed by the frigid gusts,
the Winter is here.
Dec 7, 2012
Dec 7, 2012 at 12:51 PM UTC
O old Gods who wait in morrow, let me shine in sacred sorrow
I proffer, and offer, my marrow, bone, flesh, to thine altar borne,
lone in meeting, only fleeting, silent here for duty sworn
My old Gods who sit in waiting, might I power just to borrow?
Only briefly you must loan me the magic to sunder torn.
Weak and trembl’ng, weak to muster, I sought courage, but I crumble,
at the sight of just thy vision, for to me it seems e’er unseen
naught to know but thy own master ‘til I patient, sorely lumber
wondering if fear has stolen me to thine own sacred meadow
when suddenly, fervently see thine true shape and face and form and
terrible dreams enter my soul e’er to stay and e’er to fecund
for death I prefer to understanding the truth our Gods have shunned.
Yet little more did I then speak among the dead and too the meek,
falling towards an abyss so deep that makes my heart and soul weep
dying truly like a phantom lurking in the shallows creep
and yet falling ever faster and so overwhelmed by deep
my eyes and ears saw nothing and heard nothing, not a leap
from the darkness that consumed me e’er more did I fail to seek
that which cannot only reap the dead and tear them ‘til they so reek
so sharp and pointed so it was even I could witness and speak
“Who have I wronged in this place so awful that I am gaoled oblique?
Yet can still think and ponder the widow’s peak and in vain self-wreak?”
in sacred toil among the stardust that makes us shine so mystique.
What does thou will, O lord, my lord, of more than we can ever tell?
I know it is not my duty not to know. Ask I must, ask besides
the husk of my body is yours and yet I know little of thee
by whose authority do wield such magics and more asides?
it is not plain to me what sort of horror lies ‘neath the scorched ground
so why do I? Why do I scream? Why do I see the beast in me?
The hound that hunts for those who must be slaughtered despite what else they seek
the wolf inside that hunts, rips, and tears, taken apart piece by piece
the awful sound of howling that’s for me to not and never cease
the stars themselves align to my fate fear in mind and e’er besides
‘tis here that I myself sit alone and finally soon to die.
for death I prefer to the fate our Gods have brought to us benumbed.
Dec 9, 2021
Dec 9, 2021 at 5:40 AM UTC
Arteries benumbed
Reading pharmaceutical's inserts no fun
Reading your mind even worse
Print so small
Foldings such as a roadmap
Those molecular models delineated
Moods might just as well be
Translating cuneiform
You wedge-shape marks on me
Deceptive blinks cut my clayey gray matter
That mascara you wear
Like kajal on Persian Princess
Ovular pills with spider legs
How do I defend from?
Enigmatical ellipses
Narcotic exotic
I look for, but find no
Adjoining pamphlets or warnings
To all your strange side-effects
Nov 24, 2015
Nov 24, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
been a-while
spring abridged;winter night
each layer of snow colder n' heavier
earth lay frozen and I frostbitten
icicles of gloom
lining my chest,eerie chill creeping
heart benumbed;slowly melting
basking in apricity,duly warmed up
awaiting spring
anew
Nov 3, 2020
Nov 3, 2020 at 9:50 AM UTC
Do not presume to think dear sun
To ****** away my dreams
The dark still holds me in it’s thrall
Within the great unseen
They will not lift these limbs of mine
They wallow in their weight
Enjoy the burden of their bonds
Refuse to animate
A captive to these strains of sleep
Gladly shackled to my bed
I revel in their sweet confines
My eyelids drawn with lead
I Self sedate with each warm breathe
Benumbed by this safe drug
Which toxifies my consciousness
I revel in it’s fug
I will not wake, I’m staying here
Please do not liberate me
Reality’sbecome too much
For me to cope with lately.
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 11:37 AM UTC
On the foggy window glass,
In the snow that raw,
My finger rubbed past the dew,
To catch a glimpse,
Of fog and benumbed,
Outside of the car window.
My eyes desire a little sunshine,
My skin, a little warmth.
Ears urge for her chirping,
Lips, the touch of hers,
Hands, a stroke in her hairs,
Body, to have a shadow besides hers.
The sun shined shyly over the meadows,
To hide back in clouds,
As if it kissed the snow - a good foggy day.
Conifers stand tall, covered in snow as if a white ghost,
Sailing with the wind, snow shifted -revealing a green arm,
Only to muddle the sleeping fox beneath.
Relishing in my state- haywired,
A smile played on her, if only, for an instant,
to leave me mortified.
My devotion for her- untouched.
Masked, my feelings rattled,
Green eyed- I explode.
Saurabh.
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 6:09 AM UTC
In No Strange Land
O World invisible, we view thee,
O World intangible, we touch thee,
O World unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air -
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!
The drift of pinions, would be harken,
Beats at our clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places; -
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But (when so sad, thou couldst not sadder)
Cry; - and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
Yea, in the night, my soul, my daughter,
Cry, - clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water
....
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 5:53 PM UTC
Empower me
With the keen edge
Of cathartic sagacity
And I will dance
In exalted tribute
To daybreaks invincibility
Double time
While quoting rhyme
To the downbeat slash
Of the scarecrows scepter
While compatable
Emulation
Exposed to rarefied
Imagination
As the keep of the keys
Pounds out
The scathing expose
That dredges up
Those
Benumbed and bewildered
Riders
Who have been
Constantly
Overexposed to the negatives
Developed
In those darkrooms
WHERE
Expedited promises
Secretly enacted
Enabling
Blankcheck *******
Of any and all
Faithful believers
Of our beloved Carrousel
That we have
Always insisted
Is the keepsake
Bequeathed
To all the concerned
Caretakers--once empowered
With the keen edge
Of cathartic sagacity
Now just
Trying to keep dancing
To the fading calliope music
As too many
Once - synchronised
Elements
Of our revolving
Carrousel
Are going wrong
Breaking down
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 1:16 AM UTC
Alight from your throne,
reeking of superiority.
Cast the first stone!
It no longer bothers me.
Spewing impotent venom,
your willfully caged mind,
conditioned, doped, benumbed,
cradled ideology; you're blind.
Let us meet as equals.
A dialogue must be fanned,
or the cycle of upheaval
will regress the promised land.
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 8:24 PM UTC
My nose is benumbed with the
chill, and the cold and the numb
but the touch of her thumb
****** the ice out of me
and into her.
My lips were dry without
her warmth, left with the sweet
painful taste of craving
dehydrated,
drained.
My ears hurt with the
screaming, and the constant streaming
of her tears, and the tears,
in her heart,
in her eyes.
My eyes are blinded by the
nothingness, and the stark contrast
of her pale skin, and her pale face,
against the darkness,
the blackness.
and finally,
what do you see
she asks me
there's nothing to see
i reply.
why can't you see
why can't you see
wHYCAN'TYOUSEE
she yells
because you won't let me
i whisper.
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 8:26 AM UTC
Jilted heart, benumbed.
Feelings died and interred
in forlorness' grave.
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 9:37 AM UTC
How much more breaking do I have to do until my heart numbs itself? I am sick of this routine — my chest sewing itself just to be ripped apart once more. I wish I can leave it be — an open wound for the flies. And yet, how many more wounds are there until there is no healing scar left to tear? I am sick of this routine. Tonight, I wish my heart would just tear itself into a handful of benumbed pieces. And tomorrow would stare at me — an aftermath of a storm. A heaving curiosity. A girl, lying in pieces and with no heart left to break.
Jan 30, 2021
Jan 30, 2021 at 10:40 PM UTC