I was relaxed, and deep in thought
The type of talk that silence brought
When just in earshot it rocked,
tick tock
tick tock
"Must be a clock"
I told myself and resumed my thought

Though as the seconds passed I could not,
Despite the will with which I fought
Do to its incessant knock
Tick tock
Tick tock
I searched for the clock
Unable to find the train I sought

I grew more and more distraught
With each and every tick and tock
That find the clock, I could not
As the silence grew more fraught
With the knock,
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
I knew the pain of Lancelot

On and on it ticked and tocked
I cursed at the unseen dreadnought
It no longer merely mocked
But each and every tick and tock
Became an unseen onslaught
TICK TOCK
TICK TOCK
T'was 11 o'clock,
When my heart felt the gunshot

Though the shots I could not block
And on and on the bullets poured
Further into the fray I bored
Each foot a cinderblock
Weighed by war
I slowly walked
Tick Tock
Tick Tock
How I'd make it answer for

Alas
With little blood left to speak for Desperately I implored
"Restrain your hands that caused such gore;
We need not fight evermore!"
But when I heard the ceaseless knock
Tick tock
Tick tock
I new my words had been ignored
And slowly collapsed to the floor

****** and bludgeoned when I hit bed rock, I had still found no clock
But tick and tock it had forgot
The church bell rang t'was 12 o'clock,
Though mortal wounds the seconds wrought
I no longer was distraught
And as I lay in the hemlock
It occurred in my last thoughts
I would miss the beating knock
tick..., tock...
tick..., tock...

The proud warship Aiko sits in harbour,
Showing the flags, firing off salutes.
Her crew boasts to tourists of tremendous exploits,
Proud to serve on the pride of the navy.

The crew line the rails as the boilers build pressure.
It’s time to depart on the latest mission.
She looks pristine, her paint’s good as new
But the inside is rotting, she shouldn’t have put to sea.

Her latest mission, as always, to assist an ally in distress.
The crew, resolute, prepares for the fight.
She arrives on the site of the stricken merchant
And sends repair crews to close up the hull.

So far all is well, she’s able to help
But the chief engineer is highly upset.
He begs his captain to repair his own ship.
The decay is critical; she’s on the verge of collapse.

He’s rejected, of course – the other ship’s more important.
Finally the merchant’s fixed, and the crews come back.
They’re put straight to work, to salvage their home.
But Aiko’s already off to help others again.

En route to the next, they sail into a storm
‘No matter’, the captain said, ‘we’ve done this before!’
Perhaps so, but the ship was in better shape then.
The ship’s dashed against Noose Reef by the hundred-foot waves
Water floods in – the Aiko seems lost.

The rope in her hand, she weighs the choice.

He squeezed his voice out of the throat  
an old Dreadnought guitar
He bared his soul to anyone
who would listen to his psalms;
purging the torn an anxious silence within,
surrendering an unspoken heart in a song

Some days you feel
like you live too long
Watching the recurrent tides
recede and grow low
This life, such an unplanned journey,
given to lose what’s been lost once more

How many times
must a heart be broken?
To realize a heart heavy
won’t stop beating strong
Steal away the broken inside
these flesh forsaken walls;
breathe one’s last bated breath
in the peace of a song

Sometimes life falls
w a a a y y y y short of expectations
Though passing time
may assuage evanescent dreams,
there is a stillness that floods the moment
awakening a motherless child in a soul

Fate befallen a wordless silence
in the aftermath of finally letting go
Fingertips no longer calloused
Dreadnought wood dusty gone cold
Melancholy madness echoes unrequited

A lonely bird without a song ...


* September 2016 © H.  Rivers*
              all rights reserved

I once met a viking girl,
who hailed from Norway.
I usually wouldn't have bothered,
but there was something special about her
I couldn't fully grasp.
It was like some weight had been lifted
to relieve my tired body
of it's former failings.

There was a magic she could wield,
some massive dreadnought of power
she kept sheathed in ornate leather.
Sometimes, when she was nervous,
her fingers would brush it's scabbard,
tracing the embossed symbols,
unaware of what she was doing.
And then this longing would overtake her,
leaving her eyes vacant,
momentarily...
As if her vessel had been abandoned
as she expanded
well beyond it's threshold.

During these brief moments
when she'd slip away,
I saw things I couldn't explain.
A furnace of starlight,
encased deep in the Norwegian ice,
alongside the warships of her ancestors.
Usually well-guarded,
out of habit
or necessity.

Before I was consumed entirely
she returned from her reverie,
tearing me away
from that solace.

I wonder now
if she was aware
of what happened.
Those secret woodlands
will haunt me
long after I've gone.
Long after life has left me,
and into the outstretched arms of eternity
and the worlds that follow.
And like some dream,
it still escapes me..
how so much beauty
can be reserved
and contained.

It sickens me to know
that what I'll remember most
was the physical form she'd taken,
and not the things
that truly mattered.
Not the magic she used
to tear me asunder,
wide open and spilling..
helpless in it's radiance.
Not the gentle breeze
that expanded from her wake
as she passed me.

Because it's easier
to be shallow.
It's easier
to forget.

You think you’re hard ‘cause you threw me in a cold cell?
You think you’re cold ‘cause you giving me the hard sell?
You’ve shown your cards and this game is getting old.
Hell, you just mad ‘cause I’m ******* wit’ your cartel!

Huddle up, cover up.
I’ll call your mother up.
Ask her if she’s proud of her son
Then we’ll snuggle up.
Make another little pig squeal; hit the double-up.
Pack a bowl, lean back and we bubble up.

Another day in the life of a citizen.
Getting chased down by the pigs
‘cause we dissing ‘em.
Wool in your eyes?
That’s their lies.
Don’t be missing ‘em.
Always spoke the words of the truth,
Now I’m spitting ‘em
and I don’t need no introduction.
Please, no interruptions.
Quiet down! We’re here to talk about corruption.
You’ll make a copy, right?
Free for reproduction.
These ******* think that nobody can touch them:

Shouting HANDS UP!
Yeah I see ‘em on the clock.
‘cause your time’s running out.
Tick, tick tock.
You want a witch hunt?
Put me in the dock
And we’ll see who’s the ***** when
You’re ******* on my ****!

‘cause I’m gonna rid your face
Of that smug little grin.
Convinced the world I’d lost it.
Oh! But I’m about to win.
So little pig, little pig, let me begin
‘cause like an anorexic hospital my patience wearing thin!
I said…

Prosecution full of lies and irrelevance
***** please! Don’t insult my intelligence.
You want respect? Well excuse my irreverence,
But a little birdie said you’re fabricating evidence!

Beneficent, benevolent.
Arresting your malevolence.
I’m shattering your elements.
Establishing a precedent.
My work may be inelegant.
My actions are unhesitant.
But when we gonna talk about this ******* elephant?

You know it’s tragic
How you cannot see the logic.
******* neurons are nomadic,
Your intelligence sporadic.
    Ugh!
You’re an infection, I’m the,
Antibiotic.
Sick enough to turn a man
******* spasmodic episodic.

Drink swill from your buckets
While you steal from our pockets.
Red pill. Better **** it cos you’re,
**** out of luck.

Deep-roots to your habits.
Blue suits to the Sabbat.
You’re Masonic yet moronic,
And you know I’ve ******* had it
With this *******!

Cos you’re full of ****.
Forked tongues set to stun with a full clip.
You’re just a bully and
I’m sick of all your school ****.
Law unto yourself
But I won’t let you enforce it,

‘cause I came to rescue an angel,
Heaven-sent,
and I can smell what kind of **** this is.
Yeah, it’s evident
You’ve been intimidating witnesses.
Like FGM.
You kidnapped Themis and Astraea
And circumcised their ******* – is

This a ******* joke?
Are you for real *******?
It’s the Devil you invoke.
What’s the deal *******?
This a dreadnought you provoked
And I’m steel *******!
Now it’s time you ******* spoke.
Take the wheel *******…

What, you got nothing to say,
And it’s too late to pray?
Justice coming your way,
Now truth has entered the fray.

So I’m passing the mic
‘cause we gonna indict.
Focus the limelight.

******* be ammonite!

Stalking lion,

Do you miss the way I touch you?
It's just that you long to be touched like that.

Were you shocked to find I knew of your crime?
We've met before, she warned me it's souls you control.

Your method of approach was unwise and unseemly.
The accidents, the rumours, the campaign to search and destroy.

So here I am rife with anxiety,
seeking emotional primacy under your barrage attack.

The outflow of promises to be kept, leaving a wake trail like a dreadnought.

And thus we called the Conqueroo,
to dance the king snake to ashes.

Winter's razor seashore kisses
Permeate my skin and bone
Slicing deeper than abysses
Sharpened on rock bottom stone

Now dead men's tales and widows lull
My vessel towards the blue it lacks
She reached inside my beating hull
And shipwrecked me to fill the cracks

With distant memory city lights
A dreadnought captain's ghostly fleet
Of anchors made of empty nights
I drag along this lonely street

the dreadnought,
has at least six guns
           or six strings,
both are heavier than
this poetry, one is larger
in life, than the poet see?
The other has better curves,
oh, enough of that.

One is a metal machine,
the other a classic acoustic dream,
one from war, the other,
well the other you buy from
a store or some garage sale,
one floats on the ocean,
the other for only a little while.

I am no bard,
that is not hard,
to hear,
stand near,
you are my only hope,
oh beyond the canopy
where stars and wars
are witness to my
profanity,
I swear at
this, one day
I'll be good,
no great, not
grate on all
the nerves that
were collected
on my behalf,
as I have none.

So dare to compare
yourself to me and
I will grant you the
victory, because as
there is no one like
you,
good luck finding
another like me,
why did I give
you the nod,
well your more
different than
me and odd, that
you did not
note, your
the boat
and I am
guitar,
your rusting
and I am a
chick magnet.
So go ahead
dare to compare.


©DWE102013

The leader will stand
For all into one
The sum of his fears
Is a product of none

He has learned to fight fair
On this life battlefield
With a sword of ideals
And a virtuous shield

He will rise over mountains
Cross river and stream
As he carries the world
While upholding his team

He will sink to the depths
Of the loneliest ocean
A man-of-war captain
On seas of emotion

Beating back pain
Like a ram against waves
His sails painted black
By his treasure horde caves

Where desire was buried
And locked in a chest
When at the world's end
A most selfless behest

Then summoned him from
A Laurentian abyss
Reborn as a dreadnought  
Of true nothingness

Imbued with the force
Of a righteous typhoon
Commanding the tide
With his purpose-full moon

To glow as a beacon
A lighthouse of hope
For the stars yet to see
Through his telescope

Beyond space and time
Past nuclear fusions
Celestial beings
And cosmic illusions

To find that within
Is the energy source
To channel this power
And rewrite its course

For the leader has done this
He's doing it now
Tasked with the honor
Of showing them how

Soaring away, what could I provide
Do you not perceive
Of my dying inside
Are you so naive
To believe I'm alive
Or that skeleton keys
Could unlock what I hide

In the cellars of cold,
Dark, abysses bereft
Of the soul I have sold
For recompense left
To steal my heart gold
In a present-tense theft
Of the treasures I hold

In troves now discarded
By knightly assails
Of princesses guarded
Beneath my chain mails
In armor regarded
As legendary scales
Of dragons bombarded

By dreadnought regret
In a galleon remorse
Oceanic lament
On my rocking seahorse
Capsizing I've sent
Myself drifting off course
Until I can forget

The lies I have tasted
Seduced by desire
The lives I have wasted
Consumed by the ire
Until I embraced it
My funeral pyre
Reborn to melt faces

With phoenix sun fire

Words are rivulets
Dreadnought pamphlets
Of arrhythmic planetary spin
Let the Ayes follow you in

Bold intones, D minor
Sharp pressed cleft dictate
A child itches with the simmer
Of starlight concentrate
(The powder of the meteor
Twitching his nose)

Imagine gravity sewing the words you speak
The syllables stitching shank trade and incubation
Oh, the birth of a nation
Is best recollected in poetry
(God’s words are too powerful for my ears
But His verse is sung by man and I fear)

Blood angel *****
Sword angel heart
Sun flower perfect
Snake venom kiss
Candle flame passion
Titanic she wept
Cheerleader's chant
Death is her whip
Snow crystal smile
Blood razor thirst
Tumble **** savior
Guillotine sharp
Bulldozer mettle
Dreadnought steel hard
Mountain relentless
Criticism cursed
Clergy condemned
Lava she burned
Swallowed by fire
Statue her corpse
Remembered by masses
Nowhere but heart
Wishing she be here
Saint Joan of Arc