"forbearing" poems
it's not about
ninety-nine cent cards
from the dollar store,
or milk chocolate
in the shape of a heart
it's not about
feeling bad for yourself
because you're single
or going out
to an expensive dinner
it's not about
how many bouquets
or "happy valentine's day"
text messages you receive
love is beautiful,
it is forbearing and selfless,
it is not bitter or rude,
it is modest and humble
so even if you think today
was created by hallmark
to sell more cards
why not show love
to someone
you care about?
or even to
a complete stranger
you don't have to have
a boyfriend or girlfriend
or husband or wife
or "significant other"
to celebrate today
because everyday
is a wonderful day
to love someone
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 5:04 PM UTC
there's a knot in the middle of my spine -
a knot made with flaming fuchsia rope -
that i have never been able to untangle.
my fingers aren't able to reach it quite right;
no matter how much i rub or how far i arch my back against the mattress,
the knot remains as taut as a lifeline.
and i can't cut it loose also,
i don't leave no scars on my back for i have promised myself the blade's lips can kiss my wrist and my wrist only.
there have been people who have encountered me in this life to whom i have mentioned the knot.
a couple of people only nodded and avoided my troubled eyes.
some people have had the pleasure of fastening it even tighter.
experienced sailors with impressive tying skills,
that can secure an entire ship of agony and relentless torture to a worn and raw anchor as heavy as my body,
with the vessel of malicious fingernails and empty words.
most people have only soothed my aching back with gentle fingers;
caressed and patted the knot with a tight lip drawn upon the face
and pitied my sorrow with forbearing eyes.
no one has ever cared to untie the unforgiving knot.
no one has reached out to pull the burning end of the rope and set it loose.
no one has carelessly ripped out of me the sigh i have been guarding in the hollow of my throat for so long.
no one has set me free.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 2:09 AM UTC
Now, O now, in this brown land
Where Love did so sweet music make
We two shall wander, hand in hand,
Forbearing for old friendship' sake,
Nor grieve because our love was gay
Which now is ended in this way.
A rogue in red and yellow dress
Is knocking, knocking at the tree;
And all around our loneliness
The wind is whistling merrily.
The leaves -- - they do not sigh at all
When the year takes them in the fall.
Now, O now, we hear no more
The vilanelle and roundelay!
Yet will we kiss, sweetheart, before
We take sad leave at close of day.
Grieve not, sweetheart, for anything -- -
The year, the year is gathering.
1.9k
What do you see, old man, sitting alone by the fire?
Heartless world of scorn and hurt , treasuring hate like a philosopher's stone.
Judgment passed, greybeard by the road,
Must be a thief, waiting for the night to dawn.
His sunken eyes know the way into the dark
As evil forbearing comes with the folds in his hand
Wrinkles on his face, countless tales to recount
How he crept thru the darkness, still and quietly,
And watched as the baby cried with fear.
How shallow this world, with its looks and half learnt lessons,
The old man by the fire, his tales of a world so far from this.
Child, learner, lover and father
His sunken eyes reveal the times he's forgiven with a heart, so grand.
With his very hands, he's cared and worked for the ones he loved
His wrinkles recount tales of a life well served.
But now, he sits, alone by the fire,
Disowned, refused,
Unwanted, forgotten.
Caught up in the web of the world,
Buried in the sands of time.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 12:19 AM UTC
Jack ropes and merriopes
In solicitous rhyme in fer derilious velope
envy implicitous insectuaryan harridannous
Ensole brodequins forbearing to lace
Trace elements of that remaining empoisonous
For failure interred
Is succes disinterred? And if so, form where?
Where derinferred strands failure unerred
By error masked muscovado coloured Breadth
Pneumonic, perhaps caustically mate
Aerial’d on the glib side of acoustical elimination
Veritable under pooh stick discrimination
Matte clouds of drab depression ove in
An area of low pressure
According to yon hypothalamic forecaster. Core has ter
Fail lently viola lapidavitious stretch so she as
fer ter rousse fer ter kamuskova. An epic
Scribbled on der calen.
Sole of brevity then being approximately an inch and a
Bit minus that
Torrent all yendergelpin cleaving
The very schism wit! It cynicism
Be as may be a pea, no spelling bee entrusted
Where? In there? In that jumble of line?
Barely knows his lime from his rhyme, or indeed
Lime from lime.
He’s just trying to fill up that calendrous space
And make some sense of it.
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 3:19 PM UTC
.
*She put her hair up
All night I imagined its fall
Breathlessly waiting*
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 10:44 PM UTC
Rest stops and road weary vagabonds
Peanut butter, water and stale bread;
Cookie crumbs and lip smirched paper cups
Somewhere's last weeks coffee stained newspaper
Blown out tires and the side of the road
Deep, thick, unmistakable, bear paw-prints
lie fallow ― undead in the mud
Feeling the raw silence of what you’re thinkin'
ooze out of a festering puncture wound within
Churning soliloquies gnawing away
at the unspooled threads fray,
understanding there’s no fear
in less than nothing to lose
Sometimes change happens
so fast you don’t even notice
We can wait a lifetime and never be sure;
never taking that first step that leads to a journey
of a thousand miles ― just a step away
It’s not some kind of bewitching
loneliness spell cast
never seeing another sole
in measureless hours and days
Passing moments languish imponderably,
there are no feelings I can see,
by looking away ―
always as blind as we want to be
Wanting what was taken more than what is given;
still doing the things we learned we shouldn't do again
The longest miles are the trodden ones
with only traces of learning how to be
alive ― off the grid; alone again
It’s a journey where there's no map to guide you
Just a deepening furrowed lifeline standstill
Stalled at a crossroads in the palm of your hand;
uncertainty deriding where you’re headed ―
both a reason and an excuse when we're not sure
we're not alone on such a long one way road
we've been out here traveling on
Forbearing the truth that holds my soul,
the only way through the ache
is through the wound
... and
I’ll get down this long road somehow
harlon rivers ... May 2018
... travelogue 3 of some
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 11:43 AM UTC
In due time
I’ll pay what’s owed
Alone for the load of old moves
Payback for loans to sell dreams for a minute
Pimpish
If it’s crazy to be owned by the past I will be finished
Listened
To the choir to acquire what was missing
My soul is tired
Worn like treads of tires
Sneaker soles and old attire
Suited with attributes of a brute
Uncouth in the present of the future forbearing
Telling what’s apparent
Yet no one will listen
Forever imprisoned by debt
Even bankruptcy is too much to afford
Lawyers are costly
Hard to invest in freedom
I’m left
Like the wrong hand
Gambling for the chance
To win
Signing on lines
Next to x’s
Trying to buy back.....
Trying....
I’m trying to...
****
I need my ******* soul back!
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 11:34 PM UTC
questioning the soul, questioning
the mind. why did that girl have
to have so many strokes? how
skew'd is the memory? spirits,
spirits on high for nigh recurrence -
nihil remembrances. mention'd by
name once. something wrong with
the body. disconnecting from on
high, disconnecting in a somewhat
general sense. no straight lines in
nature, no chaos in nature. get away
from the species' mentality. chaos.
c-h-a-o-s. chaos. chaos. species created
word to organize the unorganized.
straight line, polygon, order, chaos. time.
species ingrain'd, call'd instinct. to file,
to follow, to seek originality through
unoriginality. thru the banal. memory
warp'd, once could live. self-destruction
and a thought of living life without
affecting the choices of others. weakness.
chaos. rambling. tryptamine influenced
creation of language. showing teeth,
trying to intimidate. trying to rise, a
Jane of the Jungle form of archetype.
the passionate, caring, forbearing,
ape hunter. and lids sinking, closing off
the soul of influence. struggling thru
connections severed. those released from
******* by soul's recollections. by
metaphysical muscle memory. weeping
chaos, wailing order. finding null purpose
in. in. of all things. all people, all purpose.
knowing the worthlessness of well-chosen
words. and gaining access, and
trying to rise, and thirteen lines to stretch.
thirteen to fill across.
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 4:32 PM UTC
Your subjectless Objects of capital, the agency bereft GDP drones, O! America,
They are spilled on the pavement, an upturned ice cream cone of discontent
puddled and lackadaisical, they fester beside the hydrant.
Your news agencies and malls, the damp dishrags of industry,
snagged on the nail of defenselessness and exploitation, only infect the wound.
Each mess of a person, walks through the sugary malaise of your suffering
dragging it on to the next in communal forbearing; its contagion, its disease
is so many cysts on the mind of those syrupy vacuoles for capital; the private,
malignant caverns of dewy-eyed trust in humanity, insipidly drawing the rancor to a boil,
without understanding a thing.
You pride yourself on much, without eyes for the condition of your people,
O! America.
People, shackled in your jails, are so many ideas bubbling as to the cruelty of your nature
punctured by the ignorance outside.
Draped in your obnoxious flag, the cites are as malicious as the countryside, toward life, toward knowledge.
You prop-up the price of their crops, the know-not-whys, who plunder the earth to prolong population growth and consciousness-decline.
America, you eradicate discontent with cattle cars, filled with questioning life forms, gasing our minds and burning our bodies with your arrogance.
Like a popcorn bag steaming in the microwave; you have been left alone too long, and have developed a flame-- an inextinguishable flame of reason.
You have been disavowed too LITTLE.
You must not be allowed to expand any further, lest the impoverished bag of flesh which is mankind will burst.
But still you stagnate, until your violence curdles with drones and bombs patrolling our synapses.
Our brains digest your violence against us and **** it out with an abused dialect of greed and hate.
Then you ask us only that we eat from your refuse heap of burnt kernels from the “truth” of market economy.
You taste like cancer. You rot the mouth of competent men, and satiate the anxieties of those who would turn against you-- with a refreshing ice cream cone of absentmindedness
dropped on the ground and melting.
But the stains you made will always taint the sidewalk of man.
Jun 20, 2011
Jun 20, 2011 at 12:26 AM UTC
her heart was at a moribund
as she fell in love despite all his foibles
like a portmanteau
but her half was a deceitful equal
left vexed and nonplussed
forbearing a mellifluous tone
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 4:19 AM UTC
Search out no lie in words that follow
Though, lie and liar have come before
A child’s dose is smooth to swallow
Packaged, pretty endings from the store
Even homes lined with white picket fence
Are filled with macabre, bright-eyed babes
Soon, they’re taken without recompense
None forbearing of life’s costly wage
Don’t you see?
There is no happiness in ending
The promises of life that cheer me
Keep facades of continuity
That’s why the message that I’m sending
Is of pleasure that an old soul takes
Always looking into the same face
And of the heartfelt pain that severs
Spring lovers lost to winter’s weather
So, when seasons turn, shall we follow
The courtiers guide this frenzied waltz
Through strange and tightly spun ellipses
And, knowing this dance and all its faults
My account has strained into thesis
It seems some, stoic toward our fate
And fixated always on an end
Come to ever practice means of pain
To remind them that indeed they live
As the coupled who attack their mates
As a child draws blows he cannot fend
As a young girl pulls steel cross her veins
Sin against self, hardest to forgive
Yes, so they won’t have to look inward
So he won’t have to fight what’s inside
So her pain is seen, but never heard
Thus, old wounds live without parting wide
So, you see?
There is beauty in our suffering
It is filled with tales of honesty
And, though it’s a morbid offering
I hope some smile at its honesty
With each little piece of me that dies
Drowned inside this bottle that I hold
I try to douse the flames of old lies
‘Cause there’s still some story to be told
And where we go, no words can follow
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 3:56 PM UTC
She put her hair up,
All night I imagined its fall,
Breathlessly waiting.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
what a sight,
we see,
when,
with eyes, wide open
we love someone;
from the place of truth,
in our hearts.
it is, beauty incomparable,
enigmatic, eccentric,
sometimes unbearable.
it is, a labyrinth unravelled,
a road yet travelled,
a sojourn for sighing soul.
it is, awe inspiring,
death, defying hope.
it is, kindness and patience,
a forbearing of ill will.
it is, awkward and
uncomfortable
and the revealing
of family secrets.
it is, showing up,
showing off,
antics,
awesome and terrible.
and hell's bell's,
ringing out the doomed
damnation,
of carefree days
and liver
destroying nights.
it is, heaven,
when, you know
the love that is.
but remains unspoken.
it is, every aspect of
daily life,
given extra,
shine and polish
it is, ever forgiving strife
true love is life
and
life is love.
the other stuff,
mere, broken tokens,
spilled upon cobblestones.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 8:46 AM UTC
I see you look the other way
forbearing a feigned sigh
feeling the restrained ache
amidst
a myopic casual glance
from the corner
of your eyes
so beautiful ― oh so beautiful
so afraid the sun might
catch you crying
hearing the silent refrain echo
like hindsight in a box of tears
abetting an awkward growing distance
manifest
reality weighted
gravity
pushing down stronger
pacing the cage
door
swung open
with nowhere left to go
Its not just a dead end
crossroads
in the wake of some aftermath
a portal passed
through
long ago
where mazy shadows
linger like memories
of someone
you used to know
come rain or come shine
falling leaves
return to the roots
like teardrops return to your heart
love is stronger than death
and...,
there's no such thing as fair
May 7, 2017
May 7, 2017 at 1:14 PM UTC
She put her hair up,
All night I imagined its fall,
. . . Breathlessly waiting.
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 10:31 PM UTC
She put her hair up,
All night I imagined its fall,
Breathlessly waiting.
Oct 7, 2012
Oct 7, 2012 at 1:28 PM UTC
Crime Scene
(Flint, Michigan)
Yellow cordon tape hums
low in a stiff breeze off
Saginaw Bay
a norther that scatters
empty evidence markers
up and down Miller Road
eddies on Dupont Street
uncapped and droning.
Tennyson, Bishop and Frost
lost for words
this morning working
my way through a pallet of water
dead poets urgent
as blue sky box kites
specks above a crime scene
easing the truck past
houses of the common
abandoned down Whitman
transcendence, surely
for those forbearing souls
over on Emerson.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 7:07 AM UTC
*She put her hair up,
All night I imagined its fall
Breathlessly waiting*
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 10:26 PM UTC
*She put her hair up
All day I imagined its fall
Breathlessly waiting*
Oct 23, 2015
Oct 23, 2015 at 6:10 PM UTC
Infinite years past
To dig with impatience
Seems like forever to you now
There's nothing here
But betrayal
Twisted words
Depths unknown even to you
Pleading
Again
To go home
Forbearing a tainted helix
Your fingerprints
Not much to see
But stained with rage
We beg for love
But are given faith
However durable
Unquenched
In the simplest of ways
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 10:15 PM UTC
I religion in the forest
I worship what I see
the majesty of mountains
the purity of the sea
I am the deity
along with four legged creatures
and night owls
the serpentine slither
I claim no following
for all is known is
my memory
my sight my empathy my love my being
and I sit on a log
and worship this orb
like a true believer
that I am the creation
the superstar the reason
the prejudice
the forbearing
all I see all I hear is inside
so inside must be god
the visions
are but tricks
and I sit on that log and watch
the river flow and the storms grow
and sunrises
and get it
I am the screen
to a movie
and what I make of it
is all
Aug 5, 2017
Aug 5, 2017 at 10:38 PM UTC
My birth was an infinite hazard slowly
suddenly sparked by a singularity, dense,
blazingly intense, warm womb of everything
to be to become, pitch black smaller than a pea
induced to expand, quantum fluctuations,
give to acquire space, to grow, foreshadow my
future existence, forbearing the libertine conduct
of particles wooing, playing games of attraction
abiding by laws elegantly unwritten, striving
to unite yet at moments repelled, by forces
unfathomable, a dynamic courtship unaware,
unconscious drive of conscienceless creations.
When, an endless labour of spinning behaviour
engenders rarity, beguiling perfection, where,
a molten sphere dances around a fiery young star
at a demure distance to lose heat and hoard
water, become a sphere of stone, a cosmic
delivery room yielding conceptions, billions of species
born, lived and extinguished, primordial ancestors
evolving I was brought into existence. Who am I?
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018 at 6:48 AM UTC
Hold my heart. Love me like your own.
Call my name and hold me tight.
I just want Security and Clarity:
Define them both just for me.
Make me see that what I need is what you heed.
There is Agony spending time with Longing:
Forbearing each other within my soul
with desperate whispers for more.
Hope expands me as a well under earth
Yearning to burst forth as a spring.
May 16, 2012
May 16, 2012 at 2:09 PM UTC
Always forbearing, forever kind;
the interpretation of love in mind.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 6:51 PM UTC