"erodes" poems
“Moby **** Herman Melville
<•>
~for the lost at sea~
after a year of saltwater absence and abstinence,
return to the island caught between two land forks
surrounded by river-heading flows
bound for the ocean great joining
the Atlantic welcomes the fresh water fools,
bringing with them hopefully, but hopeless gifts of obeisances,
peace-offerings endeavoring to keep their infinite souls
sea accepts them then drowns the
warm newcomers in the unaccustomed
deep cold salinity, which
sometimes erodes
sometimes preserving
their former freshwater cold originality
I’m called to depart my beach shoreline unarmed,
no kayak, sunfish or glass bottomed boat needed,
walk on water and my toes, ten eyes to see the bottom,
no depth perception limitation,
reading the floor’s topography,
millions of minion’s stories infinite,
many Munch screaming
god’s foot, heavy upon my shoulders,
a daytime travel guide, hired for me,
not a friendly travel companion, nope,
God a pusher showing off a drug called deep water salvation,
designated for the masses, can handle large parties
my in-camera brain eyes,
record everything for playback -
the lost and unburied, bone crossword puzzles
walk shore to ship, on soles to souls,
is this my new-summer nature welcome back greeting?
puzzled at the awesomeness of vastness,
conclude this clarification for me of the occluded-deep,
is a stern reminder of my insignificant existence,
my requirement to walk humbly, spare my sin of vanity, and
forgive my trespasses upon the lives of others
perhaps then the infinite of my soul perchance restored,
older visions clarified and future poems
will write themselves
and sea to it my predecessors
be better remembered
Memorial Day 2018
May 28, 2018
May 28, 2018 at 11:53 AM UTC
<>
The Instigation:
Edmund Black, commenting on “weary weighted,”
I agree with Kim; This is poetry at its best :)“
<•>
*both of you shush!
there is no “better” in poetry
mine yours theirs, alive or not,
just gasps tears and blood
whimsical smiles and isles
cuts and burns of pained revelations,
hidden in fog,
that words try to delete away,
through the shrouded mists of
human tissues,
unconstrained by the
bounded shape
of the human cell,
our first, our own
self-imposed jail
tissue, too,
baby soft, or,
purple beating majestic bruised blotches
by those weaklings whose
kindness never
fully developed;
or old man mine whose
skin cells erodes, so poems and light
weary weighted, lightly flake off
for your “betterment”
mostly tho for worse
good humans all await,
in patientce lightly hidden,
residents of dark sunspots
in the glaring existence exposer
of the unlit lighthouse whose time will come
they get it
how we get there unimportant
get there
GET THERE
get there
that is the poetic
mission critical
no path best or style preferred-
no compare just, but,
any path that
lifts and elevates,
to the commonplace*
the common place
*where all costarred, universal,
where common is the temple mount
of highest praise, holy smoke rising,
a place that
that discloses and closes,
is scribed/described honestly as
a connective,
which is the simplest
successive
call my poems,
blessedly common!
that an honorable,
so gladly accepted
and
so much more meaning-full
than merely best or better*
for that,
I’d gladly weep,
for no praise
ever been
bettered
8/2/18 406pm
on the jitney to my isle
Aug 2, 2018
Aug 2, 2018 at 4:15 PM UTC
Friendzone
Teenage Purgatory
Like a mirage of an oasis
In a sweltering desert
When they're happy
It brightens the world
When they're sad
Your world erodes
When you look at them
You see utter brilliance
Magnificence
Perfectness
But when they see you
They only see one thing:
Friend
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 7:34 PM UTC
I know you’ve heard these words before
I've said them many times before
I wish that I could use them more
To make things better like before
There was a time these words had meaning
Sheathed in heartfelt cries and feelings
But a shaman who can't heal
Is just a man and nothing more
Like worn-out, old and ***** pennies
Now diluted by the many
There's so many, many pennies
Don't care there's one on my floor
My cries of “wolf” no longer heeded
When these words are truly needed
To the darkness they've receded
Blindly searching for that door
In my chest still beats a heart
While pained regret tears it apart
Can't fix or go back to the start
And you don’t want me anymore
My anger and my finger pointing
Foolishly like I'm anointed
Not the one you are annoyed with
You were wrong; I was so sure
Attentively I listened to you
In-and-out my ears your words flew
Silenced; Gave no value to you
Truth revealed strikes at my core
Awakening I newly have
With gained awareness of how bad
I took for granted what I had
A rolling tide erodes the shore
Alone I sit and think of when
We were not lovers just good friends
Fun times together that we’d spend
And from that my heart starts to soar
Reality then brings me back
Jolts like a sudden heart attack
A deep sharp pain gives me a whack
I scream until my lungs are sore
Can't fix the memories or replace
My nightmares wake me; Teary-faced
Past filled with guilt, shame and disgrace
Start questioning what life is for
Jan 11, 2018
Jan 11, 2018 at 11:33 PM UTC
Time crumbles over the years, eroding
under the weight of "I should have been
theres", and "backwhens", and "I miss
yous". And, as it erodes, it leaves the
bittersweet smell of what was, complete
with a little taste of memory on the back
of your tongue that will never quite go away...
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 2:45 AM UTC
...a diary of the falling dominoes chapter
invisibly dying from the inside out
no one is looking into unseen eyes
no one can hear a muted voice fading
no one is close enough to be near
the deafening thrums echo
anxieties’ racing heartbeat
within morphing flesh shell ,
gasping for new breath
in a hovering stale silence
from a distance
the broken mirror ricochets a subdued light ;
much closer the reflection reveals
someone I once knew by heart
now an unrecognizable mask
enshrouds a terminal emptiness
inconspicuous at a fleeting glance ,
impossible to discern what storms rage
from the inside out ,... unnoticed
an uncontained wildfire
smoldering within, lies in wait
for the imminent winds of change
to fan the flames into the final
eternal silent ashes
a poet reaches out demurely
offering a candid look
into the window
of the imperfect human soul
there is no poetry
met by indifference
just gathered unread words scribbled,
squandered time
dripped slowly on an empty page ;
moments turn into days
days turned into years
invisibly dying from the inside out
an unfinished life trickles out
like seeping blood evanescing
from a bottomless puncture
wounding ... penetrating the heart,
leaching out the slow death of a poet
for poetry is only words unless they touch someone ...
befallen to indifference is poetic death
by salted paper cuts ...
a muting suffocation
that hiddenly erodes away,
silencing the passion
of a musing soul
one unread word at a time ...
© harlon rivers ... all rights reserved
Jan 18, 2017
Jan 18, 2017 at 12:16 PM UTC
You can't cry about it.
Not now, not ever.
Your tears will be black from mascara,
Eyeliner smudges smeared across your face.
Waterfall stains like a stream erodes the river bank.
You must 'man up'.
Well who said so?
It's painful, you know,
Standing on Lego.
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 1:42 PM UTC
Nov 2016 - The Fall Line
~
*all the lines of man-made yellows,
so tempting threatening...inviting,
the subway platform, the street curb,
the highway divide
the double parallel equal sign that has no solution,
remaining hopelessly empty,
defining the watery soluble
inequality of null*
~~
The Fall Line
first heard the phrase months ago in Argentina,
standing before the c-shaped Iguazu Falls
the fall line
where the crystalline basement rock
erodes away the oncoming soft sedimentary,
there, where,
a waterfall is nature-gifted
so intuitive, so obvious,
what else to call the water's owned edge,
line of demarcation,
where we grow captivated,
mesmerized, knee weak,
traumatized and tantalized
knew that instant when spoken,
The Fall Line,
saw inarguable symmetry to so many lives,
would be a someday poem
selective service phrases stored and
someday up recalled,
a thousand, maybe more,
waiting for the confluence of
time and place,
to be a mother
letting my fluid sac burst,
giving birth to a concoction symphonic,
the emotions waterfalling, cascading,
the precision, vision seconds,
when words
pour, gush, surge, spill,
stream, flow, issue, spurt
~~~
silently crafted in the weeks and months prior,
the unconscious drowning in ache and pain
of suffocating drudge sludge of everyday living
*all the lines of man made yellows,
so tempting threatening...inviting
the subway platform, the street curb,
the highway divide
the double parallel equal sign that has no solution remaining empty, defining the inequality of null*
the vision infection of the majestic fall line,
so accessible in an instance of overwhelm,
cornea implanted, the sounding call of sweet blissful
whatever
one more additional addiction unshakeable,
jumping from fall line to fall line,
it's the game I am played,
but the controller
is not in my possess
**for the joy stick that drives my actions,
toys with me,
the human fool jumping
from fall line to fall line,
unsure of what he desires,**
salvation or saving
11/26/16
Apr 20, 2017
Apr 20, 2017 at 9:41 PM UTC
My hijab is a piece of imagination
a symbol of Islamic populism,
yet I get carried away by racists
misjudging my outer belief, only
for the sake of white extremists,
I cry and wet my birth certificate!
why am I a Muslim? Is it my choice?
I see a minute third-piece frame
down the lane-a sorrow to share,
it chokes my individuality- an insult
to my devotion for god, for life ;
yet, people have the time to call
us terrorists when they roam naked,
some pretending to be feminists
and lovers! Reality is a bitter piece
of chocolate melting away as time fades,
as it erodes the values we held before,
20th century is still marred by those
who wish to keep their history books
unfolded, un-kept and unstated;
a wish down the memory lane is needed
for it will awaken the senses of my fellow
brothers and sisters fighting over a shawl
covering my head!
I am curious and this curiosity is not a mere
joke, its the curiosity weaved into a cloth
hiding my sensitive and strong brain
from those “all-seeing” eyes around me,
pretending to expose my hair as if it was
something of utmost importance and value,
but friends, it’s nothing, it’s a trick
by those who seek to humiliate me and
my faith for god, and I am sure that this
will echo for the decades to come,
for me, a hijab is – “ a piece of head
covering worn by women of the world”;
and I am sure that our fight for the right
to wear something will reprimand
and will be carried out by my fellow
successors and those who shed light
to our cries and woes in this big world
of ours!
[AMEN]
Mar 11, 2017
Mar 11, 2017 at 12:53 AM UTC
The lonely notes flowing, falling, leap from
The thin and flitting fingers of the pianist,
The cup of melancholy, drained to the
dregs, bittersweet in that the love of happiness
and joy is tempered now, from longing for the
delicate and pensive feel, that comes from dipping into
the small and lonely pool of melancholy. Grief, a distant
specter, hovering in the fringe of chance, is nearer now,
melancholy, the doorway, slides open on silent hinges,
and admits the crushing tide. High, high, and faster still,
the pianist falls, slowly down and up again, grief, the storm,
disrupts the flow of sound and silence, and incorporates itself
into the threading melody, and so erodes the shores of joy and laughter,
the violet waves of gentle melancholy, laced with the thinnest threads of
blackest grief, sighing on, erasing so, youth and joy and light and life.
The melody falters, stills. The pianist alone, playing for an empty quiet,
rises, pauses, his fingers brushing, the cold steel of empty death, smooth beneath his touch. He grasps it, lifts it to face him, hands steady, gaze unfaltering. The man is still, pianists fingers gripping that instrument of death, and time passes, unheeded, ignored. In a motion refined to elegance by the passage of time and repetition, the pianist places that cold instrument of steel and intent gently, down upon the polished black. He straitens, slowly, and settling his black overcoat close around him, he turns, walks quietly to a closed and silent door, lifts the latch, and into a swirling night of snow and light, walks out, and closes the door behind him with a soft and quiet click. And all is silent.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 8:38 PM UTC
Wind erodes rocks over time
Words fill voids over rhyme
Nov 30, 2014
Nov 30, 2014 at 8:49 AM UTC
i look out into dark, savoring the quiet, the stillness of new dawn, wondering who die today, whose life will end and whose will change forever, sending a shock of wave of pain and grief from an epicenter of a dead soldier
who will die today, whose mother wife daughter will cry today, whose father son brother will fall today
the sun has risen, reality has set in, its time to ride, its time for some to die, we roll the dice, who will land snake eyes
to sit in the humvee, knowing you are playing russian roulette, you can’t have hope, no inkling of a dream, lose the desire, it is the only way to survive, knowing you may die, give up all hope, consider yourself dead, be grateful at the end of the day when you are not. the drive down suicide alley, like the walk up gallow’s stairs. now i know how they felt. you surrender to fate. you stop thinking, you stop feeling, you go numb.
no longer in control, my life is no longer mine to live or die
i don’t believe in You, not since i was a boy, but i pray, that if we hit an IED, that i die instantaneously. i don’t want to lay on the ground, feeling the horror of dying, crying that i want to live, screaming out for my mother like i’ve seen happen to other guys
there are things worse than death, the living hell of coming home in pieces, physically damaged, emotionally traumatized, spiritually disillusioned, which slowly erodes and destroys your life. a new war, another battle, this time at home, fought in your head. the cycle of trauma 6-9-12, addiction, depression, how long do you let yourself free fall till you hit rock bottom
i am a man, i am not suppose to be afraid, but i am, i can’t show or say, not to them, especially not to you. i am not allowed to show fear, be vulnerable, you will lose respect, stop loving me, tell me to man up, in some subtle way
when everyone has left, everything lost, when the pain is greater than the fear. you must, you will, reach out, or die in combat, killed in action, in the war fought in your mind.
Jun 27, 2019
Jun 27, 2019 at 5:13 PM UTC
The river has no purpose,
no life or feeling.
No meaning, no dreaming,
Nothing with meaning.
What then is the point of this river that trots,
Erodes rocks,
Splashes rapids that flow to a stop?
The river moves.
No do, no see, no be.
The river moves.
No different from you or from me.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 10:11 PM UTC
empty water bottles everywhere
cheerios on the floor
I can never keep track of myself
or the food I bring out of the kitchen
I'm worse than a bachelor
& my Benadryl is almost gone
I need it to sleep
sleep and to dream
so maybe my nothing
will be something
that it seems
I cannot stop obsessing over
how lonely I feel
in my new married life
I feel better talking to people
I barely know
than I do my own husband
they say the first year
is the hardest
but I think I've just always felt
this way
when your heart clings to something
you can't have
the feeling never quite frays
never quite
erodes in its natural form
I find myself daydreaming about
things that don't happen
true love that doesn't come true
romance is not abundant in these parts
chivalry is carved on a tombstone
a few blocks from my
apartment
& I'm lucky to get a kiss on
the cheek whenever
I walk by
I want to believe that
there is some man out there
who would build me a bouquet of
wildflowers
& play me some classic rock
ballad about eternity
maybe he lives
in this house
maybe he lives
at all
Apr 5, 2012
Apr 5, 2012 at 12:12 AM UTC
The night becomes you -
hair coiffed in fashion
illuminated eyes reveal attraction,
the scent of body oil
pervasive,
ambient music evolves
persuasive
savory rhetoric,
cabernet erodes my inhibition
no contrition, turn the ignition.
The night becomes you -
you wear it well
an amalgam,
ardor and insouciance -
redefining glamour,
ephemeral moments
dial down the sunlight,
I am slain - voice and accent
weave their spell;
black dust coat, white hat,
a pair of posh boots
they live to tell.
The night becomes you
rhyme scheme - lyrical poetry
sophisticated venue, table for two
ensconced, the
leather lounge,
similitude within difference;
undulation - cadences of
counterpoint -
poise and peril of duality
we inhabit the floor.
Postprandial, conversation extempore;
machinations of intoxicating discourse,
I could drink your words -
artistic milieu- beguiling imagery,
sonant susurrations
penetrate my being.
The night becomes you -
theoretical locutions
phrasing depth and humor,
undiluted amour, tensions resolve
frame by frame,
solidify the affair
and validate the rumor
subsumed in sequence, pulsating,
igniting the sapid interior flame
silver screen ending,
effusive reviews
two hearts collide and form one;
the cherub's arrow finds its aim.
©2008 & 2011 W.S. Warner
Sep 22, 2011
Sep 22, 2011 at 10:34 PM UTC
Muscles clench like knots on rope
prior to any wintry water droplets
dripping on my scarecrow frame.
There's a moment of cautious pause,
my mind waivers the rest of me--
uncomfortable with the atypical developments
insisting through western culture's handbook
bathing is meant to be relaxing.
I agree.
So after a thoughtful inhale
we dive in.
oo!
The siberian shock of the frigid liquid landing
on warm, pale-rose flesh
slowly erodes with an exhale...
My mercurial movements
and conscious unravelling of the constricting sinews
offer a peppermint bliss-like salvation!
The chill fades,
water wanders down,
allowing my body to interact with the clear solution,
allowing myself to be and breathe with each cold moment
of wide-eyed cool-headed serenity.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 12:54 PM UTC
I’ve chosen to walk
A lonely road
Where ravens squawk
As time erodes
Where the devil talks
Through whispered codes
I walk along
A dark wooded path
Where the nights are long
And I face Satan's wraith
Everything feels wrong
There's no turning back
The more I wander
The more I stray
More time to squander
The days away
So much time to ponder
The end of days
Darkness is falling
The Earth is dying
The Devil's calling
The news is lying
It's all so appalling
There's no denying
This path I roam
Is filled with sorrows
Nowhere feels home
Too many tomorrows
Too Many poems
Spreading my woes
The Devil follows
He tempts my soul
But my soul is hollow
So still I stroll
This pain I swallow
And it takes its toll
I can not save
This doomed planet
We've dug our grave
Satan's enchantment
Has made us slaves
Bloodshed is rampant
And when we crumble
I'll shed no tears
The devil mumbles
In our ears
So we stumble
Year after year
As the end draws near
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 12:26 PM UTC
<> for the love of friends<>
How does one write
of one he knew not?
the ancillary evidence
mounts relentlessly,
the double toil and trouble moments
edged now, slow vanquished by
steady accumulation
of the evidentiary
a man who lived his life well,
will be inevitably,
nay, justifiably, deservedly
be well remembered...
one examines the evidence with
eyepiece lenses calibrated
to one's own soul,
for this is the natural condition
of humanity
yet wonder,
what manner, what scale,
does one rightly employ
to judge another's
plantings in the soil?
rightly judge another?
then you hear
a woman say,
she knew not knew
this man Eryc,
revealing an honest tertiary,
even cursory knowledge
of an anecdotal life well lived
our shared quandary,
yet she solves
this judicial issue
by asking of herself
a question
so stunningly elementary,
which both
asks and answers
the double risk
you have imposed,
to write of one you can never behold,
and in doing so,
judge thyself...
What Would Eryc Do?
this crystal rapid current question
erodes doubt, the fear to tread
where one knows not
when a stranger says to another,
indeed to many others:
heard tell of this young man,
and know now to ask myself
when I too am junctured, in doubt,
What Would Eryc Do?
there is no doubt, no juncture,
just a provident question
a makers's mark
of and upon a man,
whose future shortened,
will live far, far longer than most,
if one simple applies
a standard to one's own life of
What Would Eryc Do?
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 10:12 AM UTC
A rusty cage conceals me
Deep beneath the waves, of another passing day
The blood inside my veins
Is laced with warmth, that erodes away the pain
The needle scratches vinyl
As the pills provide the music, singing sorrow in my brain
Lost on the lamb
Searching for the touch, from my own callused hands
A wind-up ballerina in her box
Doesn’t spin and twirl like she wants
Damaged dancer
Standing still, inside my antique heart
Jul 13, 2021
Jul 13, 2021 at 7:56 PM UTC
How naive of me to think
Fire and water could meet
And neither extinguish or evaporate
How could I have thought
More often than not
Your flames as friendly fire?
How could you think
Over the edge on the brink
My rain as merely showers?
We were both forces of nature
That should never be played with
One which swallows forests
And one which erodes the mountains
Both to blame for a new beginning
Both to blame for the old endings
We could never be friends
and we tried to be lovers
How stupid we are to play with eachother
Beware of the showers
Beware of the flames
Neutralization was never the game.
Aug 2, 2016
Aug 2, 2016 at 3:31 AM UTC
A cider and a minder
Passing time as a reminder
Pink glow and songs flow
A waxy time erodes the mow
Renegades and perspiration responds
Swimming in winded seas of Jordan
Heated in space, evicted in their pace
Libido fails as the liquor dilutes in taste
Catch an esse as the moonlight smite
Hold another to fake a romantic right
Filter to the cards of ace as the one winks
Emotive intruders farm in fields of pastures
Imbued with alcoholic waterfalls
Molehills of termites condense lose soil
A lack of connection a taunt that apes
Future anthems triumph in hungered strums
Amused by the music erupting volcanoes
A morrow blows as the candle slows
To tow the tall grassed disused straw
A spring to summer that promises sun rays
A resolve to moderation to preserve modesty
A kiss stored forever peeping the awing stars
To guard a heart and hatch uniformity
Trembles justly forgotten in termed premises
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 2:42 PM UTC
Crying and comfort, hugging and gifting,
thoughtful with time, and being uplifting.
Embracing each chance to do what I could,
and doing it because good feels good.
Giving advice after I’ve lent an ear,
and choosing to serve who most needs me there.
Save each damsel in distress if I could,
and doing it because good feels good.
Being a friend in stubborn defiance—
I’m the one in whom they place reliance!
Some may not think I should act as I should,
but I only do good that feels good.
People don’t seem to get the irony.
Such goodness erodes some humility.
There is no deed, good or bad, that you would
do if doing it did not make you feel good.
Aug 17, 2019
Aug 17, 2019 at 3:47 AM UTC
Anyone can laud a sunny day
And lavish it with praise.
It's such an easy proposition
Amid warmth and golden rays.
But it is, I'd say, a refinéd taste,
When a day dawns bleak and grey,
To find some joy in heavy clouds
That bubble-wrap your day.
And even given pouring rain
That many see as vile
The drum of raindrops on the roof
Can bring to some a smile.
A wailing wintry driving blizzard?
Seems to most so rotten.
Yet for me I get a thrill
From a landscape wrapped in cotton.
Now a slush-and-sleet-filled day in March
Is a horrible kind of weather
I fear it seems to void my thesis
And brings to no one pleasure.
It erodes the city's state-of-mind
Optimism is diminished
Everyone is in a huff
And wants it to be finished.
Oh, for a bright day in July
With no one feeling huffy,
The golden sun to rule the sky
and clouds so big and fluffy.
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 2:05 PM UTC