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I, whose sleep gloats
searching for answers, steering for a dream

I take my place amongst men
in parks, in alleys, in trains,

and the Sun unmasks itself
like timeworn skies of linoleum.

trees their bulwarks realize such oneness
and birds start to rain

where time wounds all feelings
and lovers innumerably lay flat on their bellies.

mountains ***** as tall as truths,
and the sleuth more than my body’s engine

turns less than a seraphim – dizzy with the
night’s utmost haranguing.

I, whose soul returns not with garlands
but with chains as my phantoms go with them

swimmingly across the blue Earth
and a man brindled, tussled against

space that so distant the star becomes so near
and all sleep lose names of dreams.
1407

A Field of Stubble, lying sere
Beneath the second Sun—
Its Toils to Brindled People ******—
Its Triumphs—to the Bin—
Accosted by a timid Bird
Irresolute of Alms—
Is often seen—but seldom felt,
On our New England Farms—
harlon rivers Dec 2017
Gray Owl hearkens
the dappled daybreak knell
echoing through
the wildwood forest stand;
rock doves and frosty stones abide,
where a marooned heart doth dwell,
disrobed by the longest night's frigid touch

Timber stand grips tight
red clay and bedrock of ages,
postured tall and strong
as eagle's spirit throne

Pine cones hide
in the low drifting clouds,
ripe acorns tumble down alone
unto  a  windblown
shallow earthen grave,
hillocked  beneath
the sky-high canopy

Bones of branches,
furrowed bark from burled oak,
wood-grains of pith,
natural gnarled achings
peeled by the shivering
wind's breath

Paling autumn memories
grow dim as the receding sunlight,
recollections of ebbing Jasmine's
mellowing fragrant balm
waft aloft in a favorite fading fantasy,
the edge of winter metamorphosis
bears down with a prodigious weight
of a different kind of retreating light;

brindled Queen Anne's lace
hold sway across
the tawny frostbitten meadow
imbuing the poignantly
whetting breeze

The blink of an eye winks,
to catch sight of
an intimate glimpse,
an unspoken
solitude holds forth,
the mesmerizing coo of rock doves,
reverently mirroring
the sanctity of the forest wildwood
lingering amongst the frosty
ferns and stones

The harmony of tranquil silence wanders;
only the bowing resistance of the boughs
manifest the shapeless wind’s
whispered  breathe
swirling above the labyrinth threshold;

therein lies an unfractured fault line
rooted deeply beneath
the earth’s crust
like the sonorous heart
of a sanctuary hearthstone

Hence there is symmetry
felt in silence that only whispers
in the deep toned consonant
of our own harbored sighs

a holy human blood link
born of  heritage wilderness heartwood
beats keenly alive


written by:   harlon rivers ... December 2017
Notes: Midwinter orifice into the North-woods

Thank you for looking through a soul's portal at winter solstice
harlon rivers Sep 2017
The fleeing clouds have cleansed the tawny earthen meadows
Migrating sun doth steal away waning light of summer’s glee
High atop fir boughs bow in wind whispered homage
To the sapience the coloured leaves hath gleaned

The sweet scent of auburn brindled pinecone clusters
Ooze of  glistening pitchy resinous fruit
Sticky figured squirrels chatter while they gather,
Stashing a survival cache of acorns and spinner seeds,
For another moment in sleepy winter tide dreams

A swirling eddy of spiraling leaves whirl beneath the tall timber
Fluttering gracefully with a gravity only falling leaves embolden
Enchanting like the evanescent timbre poignant piano notes decay
Writhing silent as summer Jasmine’s fragrant final bloom

Dandelion wishes soaring higher to kiss the fleeting winged skies
Lazily adrift up and over Cascade Mountain Crest
Fuzzy treetop flyers ascending far beyond darting dragonflies below

The sliver of golden harvest moon’s blossom aglow ,…
While wishing upon a shooting star's paling gleams
Serendipity sown about whimsically in the blustery wind
For to sow the will of untamed heart’s desires                                    

A festive troop of Chickadees clinging like tiny acrobats
Foraging on ripened ginger hued fir-cone seeds
Wings to the sky wave goodbye to the deciduous cadence
Softly wafting with a pungent Lavender potion scented breeze

There is a secret place where memories go to hide deeply alive
Amongst the wild wood and impending leafless trees,
The only place on earth I've ever understood a sense of belonging

Where Autumn coloured leaves whisper in the gentle breeze ,…
                  “I would do it all over again”

Come September ,..when the leaves come falling down


                      © ... September 15th, 2016
if … we will be remembered by our poetry;
It would be my hope to be recollected
for an intimately personal love and respect of all creation
Although there has not always been an emboldened sense of belonging with others, I have come to understand I've always belonged to the untamed wilderness of myself, still understanding that love is the eternal purpose I'll strive ―

Sometimes we sense that we feel too much
Being highly sensitive is not an imperfection but a gift - -
not a misunderstood, stigmatized, dark &  broken star
befallen a Sky  full of  Stars

always believe a poem can make a difference -- even if it is only a difference within you-- rivers

Come September ,..when the leaves come falling down
Written by:  h.a. rivers
Seán Mac Falls Jan 2015
Waters waltz land dancing,
Dragon flies flutter a buzz,
Cat-o'-nines torching tales,
Where beavers are logging
Time with fresh water fish
Who breach as they mouth,
Fly catching in a casted sea,
Mossy and bogged with peat,
And the colours, mottled, fey,
Brindled, brim, know they say,
There are lessons, hear stillness,
Punctuations in the spry singings
Of the never tardy larks, windrous
Riddles ripe rushing through reeds.
lighting with my eyes,
this inward sanctum

hair, her black river; my terrors
congregate. strobe of aurora
strokes auburn conflagration; my
secrets aloud

her eyes now are birds floundering
in vast oceans of tawny bodies;
onerously present like the
gladiola

where warm-blooded stallions
gallop the sinews of this
straightforward physiognomy.
******* are islands thick
with fleshly origin,
  
navel's cave oozes foam
of brine, sweating in the heat
of this frail moment where
my tongue conquistadors
exploring varying perfumes,

caught in the latticing shrub,
this gossamer pearl, furious
with godly ecstasies no heaven
could tell within the bat
of an eye or the heave of seascape

relics of soul hidden in all,
mine to quarry in my hands so
little with uninterrupted thrill,

  i love thee, all darkness.
Heated moments, in memoriam
Isabel May 2019
She sits
Atop a myrtle bush
Wingless
She cannot fly
But sends out her desire
Her future dreams
Through the unsuspecting air
Her belief
In distant generations
Borne upon the breeze
Hope of the unseen
Messaged across the barren lands
And am I powerless?
This is inspired by a moth we came across in the Scottish Highlands whilst working with Trees for Life (look them up!). The female is wingless but sends out pheromones to bring the winged males to her to breed. It was also inspired by the Extinction Rebellion/ climate change protests which were happening at the same time, so dedicated to the marvellous Greta Thunberg.
Seán Mac Falls Apr 2013
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2012
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
Seán Mac Falls Jun 2012
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
Seán Mac Falls Jan 2013
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
Seán Mac Falls Sep 2014
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
Seán Mac Falls Oct 2013
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
Soar with me, the young
     we are a flock of marvels
       roaring vertical

claiming it, the laughter
  and so years go running around

the sturdy, brindled narra, trilling of birds,
existence born from
Also works reading it starting from the last line. :)
suppose words
are water and our bodies, wells—

flat on our bellies, our unsuspecting laughter supersedes their suddenness.

too late to unsay the space they occupy.
they arrive not with wind galloping
through trees.
they continually commit a nuisance
to us here in this decrepit home,
christening us with depthless sleep.

— what transpires beyond these shadowed moments unlearn the hairbreadth syntax of their perilous measures:

even the morning has no promise of May.
i say that in wide-flung hours of April when leaves begin to smoulder a cluster of red in the brindled breast of foliages, and rushed like lions to a slaughter, paring the flesh from the bone, these words unsheathe us more than the Earth shedding its skin — a dull synonym of how we are pressed against walls, our bones outstretched to breaking, ourselves displaced somewhere where the air of rescue does not wholly kiss us.

there is no image fainter than what was painted. no machinery can outlast the weight that is carried —

persisting lovelessly, a ragged meadow.
clambering ceaselessly, the warmest of bodies recoiled in melee.

suppose words
are such black-red thorns becoming petals and stems merely lovelorn, joyful to the eye
and hands are moons the bedfellows uninvited, you hiding behind shadows
    of changeless flowers:

so much the quiet way of this fate
reduced to hair-trigger.

thighed and pried lilies, dew slips frightened to a mist of trouble;
morning sleighs its brilliant face,
  such a luminous beginning to a dislimned end — far less touchingly than
a lullaby, this hot water music scaldingly
  presses on naked and whispers to them
  a new name without forgetfulness.

the weight is immense — anchored down, full of something in excess. there are doors that wish to commence oblivion, windows yearn to squint at the Earth so timidly muted in the body.

suppose your body is a home and the night subtly the wind that blows,
topples the roof-beam —

may your sleep be still and unshaken,
  your unperturbed garden slouches with a bounty of emerging flowers;
may your windows to the soul
  be always ready for birds that secretly
move in virulent strings of melody,

  something the world sings screaming
of life, something the stone of a fool
  so supple in hearing, something
the heavens hold together with the
  purest hand, something we precisely
    dream, such that we

        suppose you angels
  and us, the witnesses.
This poem was written for the victims of all kinds of abuse. Also, this piece was supposed to be read tonight at a poetry reading after being invited to read there, but then due to unfavourable circumstances, I was forced to opt out of the reading. Anyway, this was written in complete faith that words can also heal.
carve your heart in me, love.
deeper and away, our tender kisses bid the full moon farewell.
the pungent swelter of breath and the verdure of leaving furiously sway in attendance.

i can see you now through the pane of the next minute,
moving near with a moment's fervent undulation.
together with anonymous eyes, the stars watch in glee
unsheathing the night, flayed like a bare bone.

your thigh's silken river, brindled and flowing like words
from any loose tongue fragile enough to break.
my shaking hands tremble with a fresh fruit's succulent emergence,
rid of alarms, wringing the wine out of it for mine to drink.

chanting the mellow, the bed whirls with noise
when all of these volumes slither back to their caves,
i will touch with my territorial hands, your body's ample darkness and choke its depth,
concluding the sepulcher with the lightsome fire of my kiss and its workmanship.

all the things we once left trilling marks on
remain stilled,
watching at the edge of the pantheon, our souls unashamedly admitting that we are uncertain with ourselves.

i can hardly surrender fears to your brazen feelingfulness yet as your fingers try to unclose what the winter of living has hidden in the shroud of cold,
i find in me that we are each to ourselves
like autumn's tawny daughters.

the gentle ray of your wyes searches me
underneath the tumble of virginal sheets.
your ******* tingling fleshly in the sharp
stab of the air's crisp arrival through
the windows.

going down and finding myself in you
(my tongue breaking free from my mouth's dungeon leaving all words
and soldering this avid yearning)
dancing inside you
in sempiternal motion,
i can feel the sweetness
at the verge of breaking
like the length of words reduced
to all-telling moans.

rising and falling in the stillness
is the aftertaste, leaving me bright in
youngness, laughing freely
behind whose flumine hair sleeps
in the eventide far from ending

as my hand still roams like a starved beast
in the jungle of slackening breaths
and gushes of blood,
hunting for something still,
drunk in believing that this moist venture
will lead me to an unfaltering belief
that it was your heart that i have had
in my hands, forever to endure—

these moments
and their stark absences.
Eros:
the days leap as they should,
over serrated blades of grass: brightly,
transcendentally.
i open the voluminous page
of the twilight: it is October bruised
with brindled water.
white is the color of your laughter,
nourishing the noise of heart, crumpled
over the virginal sheet.
in the staring mirror dizzy with life,
shining with a sudden image
in sempiternal fume: both of us,
twining, entering each other
even before the world was complete,
heavy with your hair, lithe with
your embrace, eyes gorged with
  naked visions,
hands flayed, full of hours—
i make your ample sea my scarce wave's
anchorage, erasing the twinge
by habit of shores.
i weep: you are filling the world with your own light now drowning the shadows
in the depths of their caves, choking
the silence, wringing out the leafage
of your body's inflorescence.
in vivid decree of your smile, you have
made me the cargo of minutes
rummaging across the dunes of lust:
the tousled sheets,
nearing, coming to me, swarming
soft body: we fell into the hollow of sleep.

Thanatos:
here at the lip of the bed
receiving our smallness, the days—
felled into the night, stilled,
in this finite hour a darker blue
is given; i speak not of love.
how are we alive here?
raining inward, above the brim
of an open window, do you wind-hover?
your voice has escaped the dungeon
of my mouth, and the twining of
our fingers give birth to a forest of specters and a moonless love demanded.
i beat through your harsh curve;
i go tracing your eyebrow
engulfed in the festering fever
of half-light marches and the faint spark
of autumn leaving no tawny scent—
there is only silence peregrinating
in the room before you and after I,
it began to pour in our room,
both of us struck down to mortals
together with a feint recall i cannot parry:
we fell into a bottomless hollow of eyes,
chasing our chained breaths, wordless.
gd Mar 2014
Sketch a diary in autumn frost
leave behind a sorrow lost.
A night beneath whispering stars and
listen to their voices afar
for they may drift in colossal numbers
yet their words speak -
the words of the wise
and the words of the weak
for there lies a thousand wishes
so hopeful in brindled streaks

And at last they remain -
captured by the stars,
but freed from the night.

gd
I came across this in one of my old journals dated: June 16th, 2011
taut the barb which my heart
flung away and adorned – such language is black while
many others have their places that silence
   had fractured.

the punctual shadow of the night,

                                   I converse in them
   through the pulse of the roots and their
   consistent counter-beats.

the many others, whose centers encircle
    heavy in their viscera:
enisled as a conference of birds
    in plenitudes of brindled mouths – the augury
that sees itself, my full being – this nocturne
     of stone-flight. the cosmic working of the sky
that hands me, a necklace of stars which implausible pearls
   simmer in fond gleaming: these foundlings that are
         dreamt away, and named innumerably across
   many other anonymities we recall with a throng of sound.

   in my hands the night folds like an origami
   conscious of its florid ikebana,
       as there could be another splendid thing
          like the calm: glimpsed, coveted like the light
   of all things grave in darkness.
I  know  the  world    has only    space
      for    a woman   and  her  heart,   her  ******* emblazoned in  the trees,
her  depths  in voluminous   books – let only   the   saltine  water
   touch   her brindled   body   atilt   amongst  the lilies   in the  silver  dawn

         and   that her    cusped   hands  demand  a softer  hue of  love    whereas
the   salacious  wind  continues   its   grasp  championing  things   both  fragile
      and   sturdy:  the   world  slides  in the  coloured  curve of   a woman
         and  the men dare  too,  follow  the road  where they meet first  with
  death   sitting   still with  the  roses  like   a    splendid   fragrance   stilled in the mind
      leading     you   to a  garden  which   thorns   are ensconced
          in  a smoothness   that  sings    salutations    to love – as  I   remain  to be
nose-deep   sheath   after    sheath,  ****   after   ****,   stalking   the
           perfume   of   the  world  a  woman   owns.
How in that timed instant all was brown: I look at my hand, the world outside the lens, the river, town when after April then crossing May, how everything went brindled, cut, and broken – housed in that fragmentation are so many lives: I, awash in the many a breaking and passing of things. You remember her weight to doubt and begin she was not there, for whose security she was being filmed but my own sake, from all the appearances the distance switched to fog as I remain in immense debt to time from the then and now which made no difference, and how I associate all the hollow to a hue I fear not black, but brown in this setting – how to straighten when found in the orientation bent already to begin with and is deadened by a refusal, how once again, in the hollow of, are unexpected blurs of your own skin color echoing outside then in, in which all the trembling made you sure-footed, changed nothing in you, insult I took when I see your laughter or in lotus positions there is something you ought to give me, but didn’t.
*******
Sometimes we are a foggy day
a brindled mist that hangs like a beaded curtain
across the doorway of the altered bikers from down the street
and walking through us requires a
machete of caution and silence and
a flashlight of sixty-percent honesty

Sometimes we are a Thanksgiving break
a respite from the weight of responsibility and
a monster dustbunny of anticipation that tumbles from
beneath the bed requiring
a broom of clarity and Potter-esque frenzy and
a damp paper towel of decisiveness.

Sometimes we are a banana
Spring-green on the precipice of perfection
only to tumble into the ravine of
only good for banana bread or compost
a sliceable bite of tropical gratitude and
a sticky sweet batter of hostage taking.

Sometimes, not often enough,
I reflect upon the void you fill which
I never imagined existed until it was filled
like concrete between flagstones
Grand Canyons made plateaus by
a surprise and a sigh and a homecoming.
To watch with intent but not desire, his life passed
     him on as he tries to explain which one he
     would take to the afterlife if there is such,
like a convergence at the tip of the horizon or a
     humid evening in Pasay as pyrotechnics scrape
     sky fashioned like acrobats. The breeze he needs
     no longer. And then begins to disquiet the quiet
    with the heavy burden of which he will then forget
    when he starts to move all of a sudden in space,
       capitulating afterlife again if there is such,

 and if everything takes a sojourn into the bleakness, must I remind you that you are all
     variations of the same absence. Remember when
you had your name carved on wood as attendance
    but not for long. You have escaped, locked in the
       arms of a life that you thought was yours but
     still isn't, leashed under the Sun. Bodies pulse
  then fluctuate but not a sign of life. Words function
     more in stillbirth. Never forget, as a dandelion
     hovers and puts a smile on your dreary face,

and a question in search for all available and naked
    answers. Principles undermine caprice. Do not
 adhere. Must I remind you that you are
       someone else apart from who you think you are.
  You have yourself straightened, tucked safely
       like intent, not desire in all its voluminous and
     vehement speeches annotating something unknown
           to the behest of ourselves. If I were a house,
  I am gratified by windows -- your mirage there
       transfixed in a secluded spot, looking out
   brimming with life as curtains oscillate as the
      Earth breathes with you. If I were a house,
   you would ransack everything with a sly mouth
        packed with powerful narrative. How you
   have done over, leaving everything undone,
        moved off-tangent, under impossibly gray skies,
    brindled in prayer. If I were a house,
    
       doors slammed, speculative fabrications sleep
  through evenings and mornings until no difference
   is met -- you meant a word as if it had a lock
       and the key, somewhere cold in the air of
             sleuthing pains making me so, less than
     this and more of a fractured house.
it is not that we are far away
but there is   this stilled candor  that
   there    are   spaces,  gaps,  turns  and swerves   that we   cannot   close.

   as in  a star in  its throne will remain
to be  lit in  diadem of white, cannot be touched    or you   in your silence
   with the drone  of such  tired machine:
  moon's all  round and  all i saw, yet not
    always   the visible,  encircled in flesh and
without  so much question, the  mind's a
     quicksilver marauding to  motion all
things  except   your own   parasols bending
    to such   airlessness,  and  to make tractable, this  unstable   mirage

  
      of you,    fulminating in such bright auroras  persisting within the day when you
    arrive  not with   hands but with chains,
   machineries  and not   bones,  no such lissomeness of skin love-hewn but  walls,
    not   the earthen  night  but only brindled   silence like the world whispering ssmething
     close  to the   ear not   love but   pain.
in   my   side
   of  the Earth
I    was   not   tilted,
   realized      and    emptied
my   eyes    are   spigots
   my mother    left   open  to thaw
the glaciers   of
        supper

   zenith   visits   the   Summer
most   often   than  the
  wind blowing    through   the
curtain     of    my    eyes
   where   I   always   see   the dead
smidgen    flowers   all   over
   the    ricefields

             this   measure   of
tomorrow –    to  have been incarcerated
   in   the   past that   bears
no     arms    to
       this   very   Saturday    afternoon
fish   breathe  now
  in    enigmatic    means
    pulses    of   rivers
tangle     joys    with
    naked    boys   of   brindled   youth


    see   once   they   jackknife
into   a   memorized    depth
            pellucid  like   my   memory
of
      uncollected      afternoons
zebra May 2017
eyes in the trees
slick brindled bark
like overgrown
muscled animals
every hamlet filled with life
delicate toads
war colors like origami kaleidoscopes
in clutching copulation
secreting their viscous eggs
onto moistened leaves and petals
vines strangling their neighbors
wrestling for sunlight
a million years of combat
ant warrior slaves
breaching a **** of
a herculean tree
harvested in descending labyrinths
for there insatiable queen
royal *****

the forest eats herself
and lives forever
all of nature
a choir of
vibrant doomed blossoms
******* life out of death
like rats in a bag of snakes
glory one moment
damnation the next
a rhythmic limp through hell
with a fly that devils him
is not the howl of a canine,
  or the gesticulation of a hand
  alone, which if left unspoken to,
  ceases to make meaning. what we
said is what shapes our mouth,
  and what we mean curdles
    the body of who hears it:
  hurting which is another word
    for weakness, and bravery which
is a transmutation of lout, this rigmarole
   is far nothing but a *****, if you wish
   to call it that, or perhaps a gladiolus,
    a scimitar, a punched daguerreotype,
a subliminal stereo, a ludicrous cacophony.
   and if there is much conspiracy to say that
  the rind of words is tensely, the appropriation
     of sound, then it shall be that the song
    I sing, is for the world to own, unmindful
   of its hapless victim. and because trees are
     brindled, thatched to the Earth, reaching
    for the desolate sky, it is the distance in between
       where our words are, trying to make
        ends meet.
Seán Mac Falls Apr 2015
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
Seán Mac Falls Apr 2016
And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.
Inisfáil (Inish-fall) ] Gaelic word meaning: Isle of destiny, island of the fall, Ireland.
.
Seán Mac Falls Aug 2017
.
Waters waltz land dancing,
Dragon flies flutter a buzz,
Cat-o'-nines torching tales,
Where beavers are logging
Time with fresh water fish
Who breach as they mouth,
Fly catching in a casted sea,
Mossy and bogged with peat,
And the colours, mottled, fey,
Brindled, brim, know they say,
There are lessons, hear stillness,
Punctuations in the spry singings
Of the never tardy larks, windrous
Riddles ripe rushing through reeds.
.
in the provincia, scarcely dense
of terrors and their territories,

oh, why the familiar "magtataho"
resonating in the hollow gray-lipped gutter

the batter of eggs and their absolute
nuclei in the dome of the bowl

so trilling of birds christening the town
with their sibilant breeze— myriad gyration of the "banderitas",

aye, my heart gallops in its shearing throb
and no moon shall eclipse underneath
the unheard druid of strife-torn memorabilia;

all green, prancing and zithering the shadow of the bramble and the tawny
body of this brindled Earth, all mine
to take in my mouth
the supplication of silence,

all mine, the fine afternoon!
My lovely Bulacan!
milbrightlions of sky
where the brindled Maya
begins its escape
from the wind's seething hands,
O, celestial machine
of pompous working:
when the day breaks
its shell and births
a yolk yellower than
all dandelions,
the world from
its shell will rend
the horizon and there shall
be forever the two Suns
stamping the raze
minting in the livery
of the world, each to
our tenderness sings
   humanity, purely—

— The End —