words fall
like hapless fledglings
tossed from a cliff edged nest

with much screeching, squawking,
countless feathers lost

and then an awful thump
or hopeful, glorious flight

first love is tachycardiac love
all adrenaline, sweating palms
and stutter-stumbling sqeakings,
ungainly gropings,
when not with you, mopings
unrealistic hopings
for happy ever after endings,
breakings, bendings,
awkward mendings,
repeated leavings,
repented lovings.
heartfelt givings,
of broken hearted rendings.
lendings,
of time stolen from life
tearing, teasing,
tantalising teamings
crying, begging,
pleading strife
and then,
the metaphorical knife
cutting, slashing,
wordblow bashing,
screaming, reaming,
end to loves life.

til eventually, words fall,
like old birds leavings
to settle, unremarked upon
at the base of the tree of life.

first love's loss, is slow dying.
arrhythmia to flatline
in a multitude of laboured breaths
and long lingering sighs.
a loss of warmth,
from breast and thighs
and water copious,
falling from red rimed eyes.
sobbing, murmuring,
don't know whys?
from lips turned
toward,
bleakset skies.
as one settles firmly,
into black dog muck
no longer able to give a f▼ck.
tucked in tight to sadness,
lost all sight of former gladness,
caught up and shackled tight,
to the badness
around and around,
the carousel goes.

then,
at last,
the blessed silence,
as you die
one of many of....
                    life's little deaths

Her heart pounds, a thunder in he veins
Pulsing bright and red and deep within
Courage took farflung flight long ago
Before the journey was to be made

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

There was silence before this, quiet as a grave
And the streets were filled with happy feet
It slept alone then, on all it found to keep
No overlap or closeness to be feared.

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

And then life wasn't what she'd been promised
He threated a hell on earth should she think even of what she knew
Blows came when the words stopped coming
Maybe there wasn't anything in the big white clouds up there

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

So she left alone, running away from it all
Nowhere to go and none to care what happened out there
Feet chased a path along a clif's side
Found another path hidden inside

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Came upon the sleeping one
Belly deep in shining rings, golden plates, precious stones
All of the leavings of those that had gone before
It earned them all fairly

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Surely they wouldn't notice just one cup?
One cup for freedom, one cup for a new life
One for the time she spent running from no escape
So she took it and fled

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

A stirring spread thourgh that scaly pile
Orange orbs snapping open, knowing something was gone
That cup the mother'd drank from at the king's court
When magic was still thick and the world thought less of monsters

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Wings unfirled and death came that night on quiet wings
Fire broke the night, people died, fleeing anyway they could
Those earth riches where all that's left
Before men came and took what they thought they owned

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Day rose to a ruined place
Choacked grey black, shifting with winds
Villages left that day for the reasons where not known
But she knew and it did as well

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Journey came with baited breath
She knew it would come again with hot breath and burning eyes
Maybe there would be nothing left again
Death would come again

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Head raises, hissing scales of ash, long strong neck
Those eyes shine brighter now
Tips of wings touch staggered points of topside
Ready to reclaim a life

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Quick and slow she bends, quicker hands holding out
Uncurling fingers flex apart and the cup is placed
Once more in its rightful place
Them or her, chosen to make right

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Thin wings settle again to the strong sides
Ribs show their ridges against the jeweled belly
What's this human who would give back what it took?
Dangerous points part in black stone gums

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

You'd give thisss for them and what you ssstole?
Hissing air breath, a volcano's hiss
Wide eyes and hesitant hands reply
"Many more here that you don't deserve but they don't either."

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Slow shifting seething motion
Tail like rope unwinding from the center
Weak legs bend and don't break
Eggshells lay safe in the last grey curl

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

Small bones, little skull and empty eyes
Young mother happy once then
Men broke the home with sharp points
Young mother no longer

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

She sees broken bones, human heads burned
Nothing could bring the hatchling back, piece the pierced back
It had stayed to die in silence no reason left
No food to be found, no water to drink

Feet crushed the ashes spilled
When they fell in a spiral across the village
They left the buildings empty since
Fire takes all

The girl leaves and goes
A secret to keep for the old mother
Until the body lies forgotten and the earth takes back
No one to touch the shining seas

a quote of Bernard-Henri Lévy

~~~

the divers’ recovery, diverse,
shipwrecked salvage from different locations,
auctioned to the highest bidder,
tho the excised excerpts are exceptional,
none come to do the bidding,
for the provenance of words
belongs to all, and to none

~~
“so oft we trifle words,
expel them from the country of our body,
without passport and earnestness,
as if they were the cheapest of footnote filler,
day tourists, to be treated as leavings,
refuse for daily discardation,
barely noting their fast comings and faster disappearance,
but leaving not, a mark of distinction”

“the addicted pleasure words granted to we privileged few,
like every enslaved soul to the mind, which I am, I am,
evening dreams, midnight thinkings, sunrise seeings,
how can I infect and thus protect the young to the liberty
to love the crafted content of our human essence to better
comprehend that a moment caught on tape of our shared
words is a holiday, a celebration for the ages...and every molecule,
becomes a human tuning fork in concert, in pitch identical, in blood tainted with the simplicity of we are all the same, only words, this will transmit”

“murmur me, with soft downy charms,
these words discovered
recoursed and intended well to
pointedly offset and contradict
their very own tumultuous discovery uncovering,
tear tongue me
with calming, lapping word  wages,
hymns harmonious and fine homilies,
a call, a request,
a bequest
to sedate my shrill life

“some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
                                                         ­­ of the vaguest of dearly departed

skin is not the only mot shed,
                                                sloughing of woeful words”

“speak them slow and distinct,
for they arrive slow to you,
a trickling of refugees for your sheltering,
harbor them as full companions,
protected by natural law,
provision them well,
prepared and ever ready for a quick departure,
moor these words at the embarcadero,
for the next restless leg of endlessness,
which they themselves will inform you
will last longer than eternity,
long after there are no humans to speak them”

The fuselage must gleam
in a pink Pacific sunset
at 29000 feet
inside, I am brought puffed cellophane pouches of tamarind by attendant ladies and men
and a sanitary case wraps my pillow.

Bangkok’s taxis are driven by a man with bones for a neck on cracked
roads that vanish into blind ways.
Later a child – spying left – pulls me through a curtained door into an ante-room to
sell me cling-wrapped copies of Japanese slasher movies. “Cheap!”
Flies circle a mound of meat spiked to a vending cart -- “special for you.”
A sea of mopeds rumble up the road and chase me between parked cars
Tattered hunks of plastic bag blow past off the beach.

At night gut rot infects the air, and I walk in brown puddled streets.

The tar sky smothers above the neon and the barkers and the *** for $10.  This last part was in the guidebook.

A woman sits, cloaked in a shawl, selling women’s apparel, all arranged on pale and chalky mannequins, angled at attention.
They wear the rouge of the truth-telling jester.
Their mouths are gaping, smiling, lurid, laughing, howling.  Eyes wide, piercing and empty, excited.
They look like me. And I look away.
The woman’s throat moves.  Or does she chuckle?
“For you.”

exude the moment;
you are a transformative fulcrum

of intersubject's rent and awe:
anthropomythic ecolaw

the dream cascades into words,
birds fly little crisps of meaning
into morning light. last night's
snow leaves a crystalline spark
of you subdued, become a finer point
of tantric sight, gazing rose-blue pulsar
lashing through a cosmic garden,
delicious fruit of spacious letting be.
i'm grasping for that pleasure,
vermillion moan of lifestring vibrance,
but the wind carries on outside,
swirling pieces of the mind in
flux of upturned joy~
our heartbreeze summoned,
now whispersssoulsounds to come
and earthly darkness grips the future frost,
thaw, break and steam as it wills;
the churning ground sings to us
of bear-sleep and jackal-howl,
of seasons transpiring,
one lost sled of memories
leaves us empty, pressing crystal sky:
my aching ideality trounced in bliss-meanders
!stunning revelation! you! You! yOu!
bringing all to be a second time,
as it was.. in me.. now new,
sweet novelty of union,
this gathering of nervure self,
gliding insights, sudden soundsss.

like a node of forest-echo swirls
it dazzles: unseen colors for my inner eye;
ancient tones of fog ripple
off something you are,
creaking center easing of my sidling,
spirit drop and wavelet growth:
as if you were a branching greenery
of my own once lost other-self,
last gasping there as what i pictured 'you'~
swayingss.. sun-spikes speaking,
sky-gaze and soaking barky iris sssuck,
moulding into me the wisdom of our past leavings,
those raspy kites of sap-filled yearnings
shadow sunshower evening.
i would be a tree with you and
let you pierce our foundations
with roots of gaiasight slipping though
our primal urgings, concrete deference
under sun arch, spin of moon. let
ignorant insistence on fetishized divides~
slipping past my grounded darkness
still unknown, remain
my underself unleashed
my silent trunk-swilling soothed,
stable chaos-other, self regiven,
life renewed in leaf,
the touch of you imbued.

the whole vision lost
but for that glimmer~
it finds me writhing unknown spirals:
ringing wonderment in a seed,
or dormant sporocarpic lineage of life,
the vast hyphae-humming cups of death-born
nethergenesis of cycled hyle me.
a womb that never knew of pain
or being evertorn in dessicated spectre-sea.

the burning desert-storms helixify our rain,
a heaving hiss-like suncry
from that dark, sandy baobabic throat.
the earth consumes in shifts,
and blossoms toward the alterbliss of you, too,
an expanse of solar flare
its beautific reach engulfing terribly,
nepho-logos spanning all the air.

ssssunlit boughs of winds' remembrance
grow soft across this window,
then shift with forest breath,
their snowlace puffed before
an azure true expanse,
the burdened greens stirring a needlish depth
of metawinter, all-too-human
starfields constellate in hiding
far behind my starshine there a curtain blue,
whose prismatic humor lights more
than scenic treescape, frigid dust.
hair, nose, glass enframed by sapless wood
of window cut to square my void revision of the world.

the colors whirl into mindflow,
inter-material upsurge-undulate,
abyssal cauldron seething passions stilled by
comic symbols of a secular mystic;
dancing eddies convey my sense of sight
just thought, then lost into a wider dance
of tensions eased and drawn,
of geometric visions seemly here and gone,
inner, outer: conveyed by stroke of
spinal eidos, its rhythm set
before my time, its tone the vital,
draping earthverse
recited in my veins, the sinews of my
life in other lives,
the song of us expressive in my gaze~
one blink()a single point of beauty
fades into another haze,
lighted icedrift iridescing evanesce.

Look up and breathe it all in
The sky is crying, exploding
with a torrential waterfall.
Inhale natures’ showering
an unblemished symphony
The black cloud’s unavowed weight
lingers invigoratingly overhead

Emotions ebb and flow
with the moment’s
immanent spirit of light;
there is a liberating sensation
that excites anticipation
of the sky’s impending
purposefully fated  release ...

Heavens… flood down holy water
in a drenching act of baptism
a merciful drowning in a river
of celestial tears
Dowsing rains wash over
in a cleansing rain

Refresh the dust and ashes
the fallow summer leavings
What once was a blossoming presence,
evolving into a dimming  
cold winter reign...

Now all that remains is but
a shadow of what once was;
hearts and bones nearly eroded away
by the years of fallen tears

To rinse away unrequited love’s
stagnant inversion, washing away
the invisible bonds that bind
to the loathsome heavy ball
of an unforgiving chain ...

Know the cleansing rain
is the spirit of love, washing over
a malnourished heart of soul;
exposed and bared naked
to a remiss world

Looking out with thoughtful eyes
into the boundless universe
Never to stop believing
rejuvenating dreams course beyond
this long road

Imagine the storm clouds
parting in the ominous
threatening sky
as an uplifting awakening light
comes shining through;
renewing the promise
that surrendering to love
shall renew purpose

and it feels like rain...
baby can you feel it (?)

December 2012 © harlon rivers ... all rights reserved                  .

Someone was here,
but now has gone.
They left these remnants to carry on.
Those who knew him, they could tell
by the rot and fetid smell.

A shank of meat,
a bit of bone.
Soon, they will not be alone!

Hades winged creatures, all astir,
procreate and do enter.
Their seeds of continuity,
fecund in their gratuity.

And soon new life will arise,
mature,
take wing -

No! Not more flys!

she writes of the falling days
- knows them well, one can tell

simple things like string
and wrappings
autumn and swallows -
hollow places she has seen
in boxes and photographs

and so it is -  the falling days
the number of birds at my feeder are fewer
no more humming, no painted buntings
-only my homies come now, my vato birds, my mijas

the cardinal, both red and green
the nuthatch and chickadee, the titmouse-
all three
the wrens and finches, too-

and the blues still like to bathe
in the pyrex baking dish sun warmed
on a sunny day-serenaded by the mocking
one hopping from grub to worm below

- my usual feathered friends
not caring about the weather-fair or foul
and in the pale blue, a gull still laughs
at the folly of it all-

leaving goes slowly-
a spiraling, a gust of wind-
days slowly graying
shorter, lightly fading
- friends, they go

the falling days, change and leavings
leave me - well, you know...

i see the simple things
that soothe, like string
and wrappings, swallows -

- autumn, you know?

r ~ 10/6/14

I'm a Prisoner Trapped Inside a
Little Rectangular Marvel
Which knows, to six decimal ...'s,
My position on Earth

And the irony is that...
Electronically found,
I feel lost.

Way before we knew about
Jeep *** EssSs...
I lived 300 miles away,
In a little town called
Bettendorf, Iowa.

Few days after last
Christmas.
I made the journey
Back. To the
Former.
Place I existed, survived,
Lived, thrived (albeit briefly)

I took my family with me.
Or, I went with my family.
The four of us in the same vehicle,
Anyhow.
300 miles in December.
There was snow everywhere
Else. Not on the road, thank
You.

You leave bits and pieces of
Yourself in the place that is
The home for your feet, blistered
And toe-stubbing sidewalks and
Your hands grasping frozen Gym-
Door handles on Minus 10 Saturdays
When you bundle up and slog 1.3 miles
To play Dodgeball all Saturday afternoon.
(And returning it's twice as cold and dark is
Edging its fangs over the dim, muted horizon)

You sweat in the summer. Profusely,
Drops of the stuff watering brown
Grass. You bleed in the snow,
Stark red on even pastier
White, though it feels
Painful only in the abstract.
Sometimes numbness is better
Than painness.

You get blisters from raking leaves
In that season that seems
To have gone palavering somewhere
East of here.

These fringes of leavings, like
The tiny toenail clippings you spy
As you use a foreign bathroom, balefully
Eyeballing someone else's Medicine
Cabinet of Curiosities.

So we went to the place
Formerly known as home.

You can travel a linear or
Non-line-like distance back
To the place where you cut
Your teeth on life, and life cut
Its own bicuspids on you, but fading,
Fading,
Only the shimmering
Ephemeral memory of an
Equally diaphanous memory
Of those teethmarks exist.

Or, succinctly put:
The past is dead.
Long live the passed!
(But not the vaporous
Kind)

Still, we pine for the earlier
Times, younger and much,
Much more innocent, gull-
Able, even: When time had
Not yet painted and varnished
Us so much, the years piling on
Our faces deeply and thickly,
Lined canyons of worry criss-
Crossing our brows, the feet
Of those ****** crows nestling
Where our eyes end in points;
The sagging, the
Lowering of once springly,
Spritely flesh. 3 chins.
Since when do I need two
Extra chins?
**** you, Gravity!
**** you to Heck!

We travel back on new
Roads over the great
Old ones that used to be
Concave asphalt trips to
Anywhere and Nowhere
Special, they all were, even
The ones that led to hilarious
Dead ends.

Wow! There used to be a
(Insert memory here)
But hey! Lookit that!
A Yarn Barn. Hmm.

And oh! I lost my
(Insert memory here)
In that very back parking
Lots of Tots? What kinda name
Is that for a Pre-School!
Open on CHRISTMAS? Whaaaat?
My hometown has lost
Its mind.

And then silence, as the
future that passed us by
Reasserts itself so strongly-
It might as well be screaming
At us from useless billboards
Selling crap we don't need.

This place is a foreign
Country to me. I don't know
When it stopped being home
And now, I really don't care.
Let's do this thing, family, this
Familial obligation, and then kick
The stupid dust from this town
Off our tailpipes.
Go, Bettendorf!
Go, Bulldogs!
Go, next-town-over!
Go on with your bad
Selves.
Because, people of these
Towns, in 30, or 25, or 12, or
4 years, you'll blink, and find
That you no longer recognize
The place you can't call
Home any longer.

You left me.
why can't i leave you?

A road of palest lime fluttering Sycamore trees
Some almost leafless, others coronets still there
Through the golden branches colbalt blue skies
Lilac bushes, the garden daisies, flower in rows.

Thinning Robinna casts shadows of dim shade
Contrasting the red Acer’s lace leaf with green
The trunk arch of handkerchief laden Foxglove
Holds open its beautiful boughs to be admired.

For Autumn spreads my walk in glorious glitter
Though the evening pulls in the coldness of year
Making the best of these last savages of seasons
Gathering leavings, the birdtable spills its seeds.

Love Mary ***

Remnants
  of a plastic world
    haphazardly dropped
      in the duff of pinecones and bracken
        litter this redwood path.

Our thoughtless leavings -
  shiny mylar strings
    and red straws -
      must sadden the bluejays
         watching from hidden branches.

Gravel mounds in the mist
Are the mountain ranges of fantasy,
Spring green, eerie seen
Through commuter train windows.

Pitched roofs recede
Into infinite distance,
And junkyard parking lots are legion
In the gray suburban obscurity.

Factories and landfills loom,
Monuments and mausoleums,
The labor and the leavings
Of the little colossi.

energy surging,
             heat begetting heat
expands to dark expanse to cool and brew what slow restocking weight
with white supernal flare between
around an equipoise of center you imagined as you write
and what non-being-being residing in beneath the deep?
inspired by the question-thought embracing
death beyond what death to value life a blissful state
in even darkest reaches found
the pain a sundered gate of joy you capture with poetic greeting ploy,
that coin is split to join opposing worlds
as when blind Shiva blinded world
unbridled lust arrayed from hut to hut
obliging them his ***** to rip
but then extinguishing their rant
to foster pleading for the dance again
collecting yoga as viyoga
                               in samanvaya chiaroscuro maya-vidya
or adept on cosmic player focus
hate-trancendent into vast eternal love
which even Luke (14:26) dropped lovely clue to
un conditioned by contingent fondness
for what myth of real  play
we stage together evermore
to frolic in the uncut hair of graves
                                                          ­                                                          (greene­st grass to know what past)
whose leavings are for future sunrise lush to celebrate another self envisioned
in another set of singing eyes
the literal, empty, formless mien
a synthesized good-bye recursion rush













.

Transactions have redundant residuals
The remnants of commerce and trade
In pockets the small dust of currency
The left over cash of price paid

The clinking froth of things purchased
The metal remains of exchange
the leavings of costs and desire
the chinking bulk of loose change

It fits in you grasp like genitals
Warm, round with a vague sense of sin
What used to be golden and silver
Is now mainly nickel and tin

We are tired of the weight in our pockets
We are shamed by the drag of its need
For if it should fall from our fingers
We forsake our grace for our greed

For there is something quite reassuring
When you empty your pockets at night
You glimpse a glance of old memories
The sixpence of childhood’s delight

Exams over, friends dissolved and school also told bye,
Holidays commence; time to wander and to fly.
The first day of holiday-I woke up like an early bird,
Mom preparing stuff for breakfast,
And dad busy with calls and hurrying fast.
I stare at my room window and take a glimpse
Of people rushing their cars past the traffic.
Seeing everyone in routine makes me terrific!
The birds chirping daily without any holidays
And the sweepers taking away the dust without any leavings.

The gardener has arrived, the maid had come
In almost each person’s home.
People terminated their morning walk
And grabbed the car.
I’m still at the window spotting tones of people departing out very busily-
The merchants and vendors shouting noisily.
All the work is turning on without distraction,
Everyone at their workplace in attention.


After some time, my neighborhood turns out to be calm
The tranquil and the ready floating breeze blow past my face.
This assures me that everyone left their houses
And reached their respective places.
I take my eyes off the window and sit-back.
No more to-do lists, no more writing the home works,
And timetables on the calendar looks.
No more wearing shoes at the sound of the school bus
No more books and things at mess.

I see the clock-it’s only eight
Same time yesterday I was in an exam fight.

Spotting everyone at their routine work-
I feel so much desolate and forlorn.
And yet at dusk I watch people returning home from their day’s work.
At twilight, I see the firmament fading into a thick sapphire loom
And ask myself-“What have I done today?”
The obvious answer is-“Watching people drive and return from work!”
I see the calendar-Two more months for school:
Two more months for my homely eyes to twinkle
Two more months to shut the windows
Two more months to mess my table
Till then, my homely eyes-weak and feeble
I just need to nurture and make them twinkle…

there is no privacy anymore
tinker with your settings,
imaginary dragons, but to no true avail,
your scathing privacy has since sailed,
only to return for another sinking

what you forgot,
is very well remembered
in a some very overlooked place

see me in my summer camp class photo,
blonde crew cut and goofiest of grins,
find my poems of eons ago,
in living tricolor,
to my now better understood
"eternal" embarrassment,
they writ on, vainly looking
for a way to enjoy a
natural unnatural aging,
a wordlessly, self-destructing death
on a someday,
though the probability is that
someone's gigabytes
will cloud store them forevermore
because accumulation is
cheap and easy and
whatever

everything you need but didn't want,
the tangled webs, births and deaths,
multiple divorces and successes,
ancestors, progenitors,
children who no longer acknowledge
parenthood,
the detritus of lives writ even larger than the
original reality life show

confrontation tween my suppression
of long term memories that  
are dangling participles,
going gone being been,
confusion resultant in
the tenses of existence,
I was therefore I still must be
but no longer
the me
I pretended to be

there is no privacy anymore,
especially,
not even from thine own
prying eyes and faulty memories...

when they ask what is my name,
to better trace my leavings,
I will
like Jehovah to Moses respond,

I Am that I Am
(אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה,  ehyeh ašer ehyeh)

In Africa the lissome eucalyptus leaves
Sharply ovoid, a washed celadon,
Turn their silvery backs, yield, bend with
The promise of on-coming rain.
You taught me this
Sign, this tree-voiced prediction, long ago, among
The tenderly sloping, densely viridian hills
And heavy, somnolent, rolling fogs of Iowa.
And so, I turn my back. I yield, oh, how I yield.
But, you didn’t foresee, didn’t know
How, much later, my heart would
Flake and flay
How great sheets of myself
Would peel, would fold
Would slough off just like
The bark, the back of those massive whitened eucalyptus trunks, you
Didn’t, couldn’t foretell how this long union
Scars, clings, sinks so deep, tattoos itself so that eucalyptus-like, despite
Repeated rain lashings, leaf bowings, droopings and sun decimated leavings
My heart, my soul sheds, molts, reforms, renews itself and just as those
Sharpened leaves arch and curve and arc and sway
So I bend, I turn, I give in, I give in
To the chafing wind, to the scouring hurt, to
The on-coming African
Rain.

Mulling about
The muck
The haunts we are hardbound
Foggy fetal leavings by the sea
Right before the light;
The days of purple haze
Of sallow street cars, street lamp,  amped up
Yet dampened loss of desire
Pop another oxy-hydro-fire.

To be able
To muck about
With inner abandon
the abandonments deep
Numb battlements   / "Hoorah!"
Semper Fi the pain
Only significant
With derivatives
From ******* plantations
Opioid addiction’s contractually binding
Lingering love notes
A vice grip on idle minds

So many now that prey
But with a side affect of
Try holding in your ****
for three-plus days

So as not to feel
Not at all
Not even the rage
We keep anxiously pacing
Clawing at
Nonexistent strings
A Beast inside our cage
Forgiven by preacher men
Proclaiming to hallelujah
Change

At war with illusionist
Freedom
The boys fight for still
A country of patriotic pill poppers
Believing in heavenly kingdoms'
Healing
Secret silent pleading
Because nothing takes away
The pain
Like Hydro Oxy foxy pills

Self medicate down wind of will
If unaffected "consult your physician"
He’s at the edge of the stage
A Spearmint rhino making it rain
For Peaches
From patient list of his *******
The business of lust
Is feeding the loss of will
If you still feel lost -- and war sure did
Give them nothing but
PTSD & bad dreams
Machine gun migraines
Pop another pill
Jagged little killer
Softly knocks you off your feet
Black is cheaper
Smoke out not to feel

The muck-about days of
Constipated pains
Reader Digesting heavily,
Numbingly unreal.

Casualty of a nameless waste
That’s his deal / what it's like :
Most fecund
A life on the toilet
In wait for relief…
Get off the ***
Can't give a ****

Like this bowel movement
His heart has called it quits
To all this unholy *******!
Veteran
Patriot
Manhood’s defeat
Damnation

Mucking about...

On campus--at the very top of the new
eagle pole--a raven struts, one fleck of blood
stuck to his beak from morning carrion, bright
black eyes the same primeval color
as those on the pole.  This ode to nature,
this prayer, this harmony of adzeman’s skill,

tradition, inspiration, and sacred task—I’ll
admire it later—was carved by folks who knew
from childhood each crest and its nature.
Mostly from the clan, and of course blood
relatives, they memorized each color
of each crest, how to mix together bright

pigments from this root, that bulb--right
amounts of everything, reagent to skill
to alchemy--required to make each color
sing.  The importance of ritual to renew.
Significance of Nature, consequence of blood.
Black iron raven in landscaped nature

patch consults his brother.   “Our nature
is belligerent, our destiny to chase bright,
shiny objects and live off the blood-
sticky leavings of another’s ****.
Don’t you think we should blaze a new
path for ourselves?”  Replies the other,  “The color

of your coat is lighter than the color
of your mood today.”All around them Nature
labors.  “Brother, we don’t need a new
direction.  Our future, as always, is bright.
We’re the keepers of knowledge.  Our skill
at irony keeps us relevant. As long as blood

is red They will need us.” He ***** on the blood
red head of the top crest.  A streak the color
of snow bounces down the faces.  “If you ask, I’ll
reply,” he cackles, which makes Nature
grin.  A fuzzy red vole begins to climb right
up the front of the pole, as I realize how new

it is, how fresh the pine.  When I think of the blood
shed by men for money I am struck dumb.  Right here--the only color
green you ever need--Nature.  I’d as soon carve as ****.

11/3/10

There's a hole in my wall which the wind whistles through
And the wallpaper's mouldy and calamine blue
The carpet besmirched with a decade of grime
And the pattern is lost to a happier time
The journals and books where my memories stay
Have mixed and submerged in a fearful array
The curtains hang tattered in woeful neglect
Where the mildew and fungus and beetles collect

There's a hole in the floor where the mice have a nest
Where the walls creak and groan like a cancerous chest
And a puddle emerges from under the door
Like a serpent, it winds on the laminate floor
Underfoot, fragments of crockery crunch
Still stained with the leavings of long ago lunch
There's a rattle and scratching of verminous claws
The spoon never stirs so the *** never pours

There's a crack in the window that lets in the rain
Where it runs in a rivulet right down the pane
The mattress is rotten and rusted inside
Bacteria thrive and amoeba divide
The ceiling is sagging from waterlogged beams
And catches the sunlight with putrefied gleams
Like powder, the plaster is fast in retreat
With it's choking secretions, the air is replete

There's a trace of a life that was never fulfilled
Like a drink only sipped and then carelessly spilled
There's hope of a future and trinkets amassed
But frittered away and consigned to the past
The wires are old but the bulbs are still new
And pictures of vigor are hanging askew
As if from existence, vitality blinked
A carcass remaining though life is extinct

A decomposer
of brutish sins oft
repeated, I worm
past the pretty germs
shut tight in candied
shells, bursting to birth
untapped corruptions.
It's on the sawdust
dollops buried deep
I feed, biting bits
from soiled skins riddled
by regrets of not
offending good more.
Turning their oaken
flavors o'er gently,
my mouth will work them
down to a relish
of soft, black leavings.

pejorative memes remade unwise,
the natural artifice of slang;
and the mnemo-linguistic "advantages" of being called a ******...*

arbitrary signs..

chosen  reasoned    signs.

i don't remember history, living it as
predetermined amens sinking blind
profane in sacred incense dogmas polished
                 elemental airs of azure old allure
named aesthetics new and purely false
    unlike a snakeback break
    they realm of fear indulged--
placate artistries of loving touch to numb;
with medieval noose, blade;
          scald of iron pen and human metaphors for *******
    sent to human metaphors for hell before their deaths
to burn as scapegoats for immortal xenophobic herds
remade

this is a word's weight
  now,
  for all unhearing yet apologistic legend-churners earthling-bound:
one witchhunt grin and phrase
--legend or not, urban or pagan--
    will burn me here
    to face imaginal apotheosic
   dawn
   of bigotry complete
.
in long-yearned laughter, musics
     yet unleased to propagandist aims:
empty prayers undone as selfish grims
  i do without
  as any fairy might
        with dusty wave of hand
my wings are spillful everjoys
    of momentary vasts
          of ancient youths; of loves of
    glittered rainbow in the hush of sunfall snow--
escapes of real dismissed
   all
    real
       fiction-true truths
                                bearing living worlds of love
and labyrinthine strands? and twisted more, ripe!
      for shock and awe filled fuel
      sierra-cut at ranges incomplete as Tolkien Silmarils
                                i brace the let of leavings-be
sever severed links in inner chains of links
    to remake ****** moonbeam skirt
    of spectra cloud and starry breath
---the window opens maths of savor
        (apsaras! tulpas!)
        surveyed in the tones of healing buildings
        shaped of love

huddled shapes of perfect friends
                   all craning necks to common interstellar home

i could be clear and disagreement wright
but i am here to feel ineffables of ******* felt
fall  up    from anger
        into union's many-petaled rifting veils
and in a citrus spray of scattered mists unshared
a stillness swim of happily amused
    awake a zombie-language only Borges knew
        to burn a mark of joy on history's flesh
a hidden question-heart of sensuistic quest whose end is known
    and yet exclaimed unknown
    as glories only moving rainbows know
hang-glide words to shadow-stripe the eyes
                       and dash Mneumosyne another arching voice

i’ve always been on a
mission to reinvent myself

a mission expressed through
spreadsheets, guitars
powerpoints, paintbrushes
fabric, calculator buttons
bright colors of yarn
coffee and flowers
smiles at strangers
and always words

here and there
then and again
i’ve found myself satisfied
with who i found myself
to be at the end
of the week

i thought things were
on the upswing
thought that i had
almost made it
for two months this year
i was satisfied

with fifty six hour work weeks
and the bright blue blanket
forming under my fingers
the feeling of hope
brewing when i looked in
my bank account and thought
about him
about the home
that wasn’t ours yet but
would be soon

and then it began
to crumble
a brick or two at
a time until a whole
piece of the picture
tumbled out

and my weeks were reduced
to thirty five hours and
a crippling sense of
impending disaster
even though everything else
was still looking up

now that i have a
bit of extra time i find
myself low on motivation
and wondering
if it’s time to build
a new version of myself

but i’ve reinvented myself
so many times
i don’t have the energy
to do it again

i just want to
exist

just want to fall
asleep in bed at the
end of the day and
not wake up in the morning
wanting to sleep
for the rest of the day

to enjoy moving
my body
the way the
seasons change
and how the stars
look at night

i’ve always been good
at staying
you just keep doing
what you’ve been doing
let your routines pull
you along with them

but now i’m learning
the art of leaving
and i’m finding its not
as hard as i thought it was

in fact you might
even think
of it as almost
freeing

the leaving
behind of what’s
gotten too
familiar
the option to
reinvent

past leavings
have hurt
left me reeling
on cold floors
fighting to get air
into my lungs

but this time
the leaving is
quiet
barely noticeable
in the chilly
morning dew
as i let myself
slip away
under the gray sky
that hasn’t yet
realized it’s hanging
over a lost town

and i don’t feel pain
only the slightest
twinge of
bittersweet nostalgia

i’m not going
to reinvent myself
this time
i’m going to
exist
and somewhere
along the line
i think maybe
it’s myself
that i’ll find

Ragged clothes on the sidewalk, toddlers murmur and cry
cold morning air where abandoned row houses
smell of whiskey, sage, and molded cotton

diesel exhaust belches into light breezes
forests of burning coffee beans mingle
into their hearth, the children, this is their nostalgia

everywhere leavings of life scatter driven by wind
cover unhoused, distressed, makeshift families
they stand shoeless as fortunate people drive past

Glut of humanity smells of wet newspaper
grey gulls picking at grimy cellophane
cardboard litters muddy sidewalks
above the billboard the wealthy jeer at them

sitting by a liquor store with bars on the windows
shut out of row houses with black wrought iron gates
basement stairwells filled with trash

men in alligator boots ready to lunge
into the lives of slick, bright, vacant women
this is the fate of feminine mother love

Thriving in dead landscapes
growing lost opportunity
under skyscrapers where it is always
almost dusk

You asked me why I write,
why I daily hope again to fight,
as I ignite it takes my sight,
like lovers in the heated night,
& nothin' but a pure delight,
musta  been a true birthright

It covers me & smothers me,
engulfing me in flames
a place for me to point some blame,
& bury me unwanted shame,
I know that this is not a game,
& not for fame
& not for fate,
I already gotta a real full plate,

& hey they say it's not too late,
I am banging on the waiting gate,
let out the angry angels
& let out the long forgotten hate,
it's a crazy little bit of spate,

I took a pill, was feeling ill,
& went along against my will
it takes my heart and runs
it shakes apart, in booming guns

It's a hiding cluster
& I'm a wordsmith hustler
guess a real crime buster,
yeah I think I trust her,
ya know that shiny luster,

Hope is dope, grab a rope,
the drugs, the thugs,
the tiny little budding nugs,
the tipping back of happy mugs,
giving you a little hug,
a white hot plug,
electrifying baby
an aiming slug,
try to get me maybe,
a stinging bug,

Ouch that hurt!
while rubbing in a little dirt,

It bites & bites,
& then I writes,
again, again, again
again,
yes its true my poet friend,

My hands they move to a different beat,
& down a different funky street
with moving feet,
it's groovy, neat,
& this is sounding really sweet
it repeats, repeats, repeats,

Awaiting  dictating
sometimes  frustrating,
enticing & slicing
my hands always dicing
& giving me pricing
sweet just like icing,

Skating through life,
finding creating,
all the press is still waiting,
and me it is bating,
I'm hating the dating,
'cept while we are mating,
sweet, sweet loving
& good turtle doving
is soooo satiating ; )

Sometimes I'm grieving,
but always believing
& ever retrieving,

There is a voice
it's not a choice,

I hear it now
they tell me how,
a sense of humor
I heard a rumor
a cancer's tumor,

In the radio
the tower on the mountain
my pens leaky fountain,
signaling changes in the weather,
calling me birds of another feather
when that lone whistle blows,
wherever my shoes may go
as high as any flower grows,
leaves of fall & winter snow,
what the tallest cedar knows,

What about the crescent  moon
& how those lovers kiss & swoon,
this could be such a boon,
like incandescent bulbs
come
May in  bloom,
& hearts with maybe too much room,

Aggravating spirits

A fever spikes,
so I must take
a farther hike,
a stronger bike
peddling & meddling,
shining & pining
sometimes I'm whining,
in the brilliant ink
it's the deepest well,
the very deepest sink,
I'm in the drink, I shouldn't blink,
Nevermind to stop and think

Like lidocane I am tot'ly  numb
my mind alive & feeling dumb,
it's sticking like a piece of gum
as I come all done,
I know I'm not the only one,
captured by the guilty sun

Metaphors the seep my veins
taking with them tired chains
my chest can breath without the pain

Ahhhh so sublime,
it's why I rhyme & rhyme
why my voice it chimes,

Say what you mean
and mean what you say
because the Sun is gonna
rise on some other day,
& anyway
as a coloring book streaks
& takes away the ugly bleak,
to seal up the finding leak
I must write if I can't speak,

In the deepest midnight skies
I think I heard an angel sigh,
she saw a falling passerby,

Turn it up,
till death comes again
sometimes it comes, a long lost friend
one my pen it will defend,
my heart it might be on the mend,
when pain to me, it looks real pretty,
& getting kinda nitty gritty,
and scars bleed too
from me & you,
we bleed our truth,
in wisdom of our years and youth,

In deep crevasses of beauty
it's a poets certain duty,
the bones we bury deep
in messages they seep,
& tiptoe 'round and creep,

I dream, I hope
I hold on a rope,
I'm dizzied by the angles dope,
in a hurry and in our worry,
we want to be saved
calling from a darkened grave,
watching shadows dance,
as they kiss in sweet romance
hoping for another chance,

Don't wanna be played,
in death to be slayed,
plunging a sticking blade,
& down my enemy is quickly laid,

Rescue me poet
you are, you are & you know it too,

Sleep peacefully at night,
live your life & say it right,
you keep the lid on way to tight,
open it, let it out
just scream & shout
but never doubt,
hey you got clout,
releasing the way
in every word you speak and say,

Listen intendedly
& contentedly
find a beat,
& take a seat
have a treat
just grab a pen,
& say it again, again,
a heart you know you must defend,

I hold teardrops in my hands
I hold them out & as they land,
release me in the said demands,
a clench my fist,
& I slit a wrist,
bleeding & needing,
just keep reading
love is breeding,

I tighten up,
I take a sup,

I reach you & as you teach me
as every one of you beseech me,
as minds are racing
and hands retracing,
as I'm embracing,
the poet's calling,
again, again I'm always falling
falling,
in love with life,

Like lightning in a bottle
I'm a genie,
& holding on the throttle,
my heart BEATS like the rain
I feel it's endless painted pain ,
it's electric & hectic,
I'm a gentle bird
a voice I hope is duly heard,
can be wounded easily
though strong in storms,
I fly again,
& can't be warned,

I'll never fly too far
I must reach the closest star,
touching souls,
drifting & sifting
words I'm grifting,
I'll never go without saying so
no matter where a poet goes
or what the traveling picture shows,

A hazy start
an aiming dart
a broken down ol' heart
a silly **** (haha)
a nice full grocery cart,
I'm acting kinda smart,
a glowing celestial chart,
cuz ya know
I think that this is art
especially when we drift apart
and even more when we depart,

Note taking for granted
as my feet are planted,
words they are slanted
& dark art is chanted,

If words cut deeper than a knife
Just write me out and bring me back to life

There is always a compelling story
one of histories honored glory,
& even if it's kinda gory,
I gotta a suitcase to pack
a train to get on back track,
pick up the slack
sometimes derailed by life,
divorced from reality,
as once I was a loving wife,

To tell & share
a way to find, a way to care,
& yes we must, we must dare,
words can't bring me down
hey, I love that endless sound,
fall & crash back to the ground,

I am beautiful
& you are too,
I know these things,
I know it's true
skies above they are so blue
a color that looks good on you

I hear a rap repeating tap
leavings of  unwanted scrap,
a song that I still can sing
I hear a voice, my voice it rings
another soul,
a bell it dings,
a dance left to dance
a chance of romance,
a hand left to hold,
the shiniest gold
treasure for seekers,
for look at life peepers,
I hope it's a keeper,
I'm delirious but serious,

Game changers & rearrangers,
in infection & detection
not won in a election
a sugary confection
in delusions & illusions
& constant intrusions,
the magic is tragic,
ecstatic & fanatic
this curse could be worse,
you could be me
as I bleed ink
& quickly blink,
can't stop to think
or ever take a tiny drink

Kick the ceiling
minds are reeling & keep feeling
just touch it
just do it to it,
come in undo it,

It's a really deep well,
so I gotta tell it
& I try to sell it,
close my eyes & try smell it
wave a wand & even spell it,

I want to take a sip
so hear my families battle yip,
my heart it just skips & skips
a wandering blip
just take a little skinny dip,
here's a little helpful tip,

We gotta spill it,
need to **** it
because they drill it  
way down deep,
in veins they seep,
Oh my ****
I think I'm struck
& now I'm stuck
by luck or fate
in love and hate,
it's been a date,
I had to wait,
it's been real great,
I can rate & keep it straight
Pick up the weight,

I can avoid or be annoyed,
I tell,  I yell
my soul, I'd sell,
say in a way you understand,
so poet here's the perfect plan, Stan
I want to dive
so we survive,
& feel alive,
live vicariously through my words,
know your voice, it too is heard,

As water & gasoline
is touching my skin
as I reach out, to be new again
reaching out to find a friend
I'm burning down
& hit the ground
a violent sound,
I turn around,

I swim inside the glistening wet,
to clean my life from sins & sweat,
& anything I might regret,

Carbon Copy

If there is a God,
in him I say, I'm truly awed,
I'll find out too,
I'm humming right along with you,
we cannot undo
the sticky glue & residue,
words we pray
& ones we say, & where we lay
or head to pray,

Say what I think
stand at the brink,
& take nice long lasting drink,
let the indigo ink,
just let it flow,
write it down as you go,
& let a shining spirit glow,

Earths angels
party hard, & learn harder
we work just a little smarter,
get it down
get it right
as it hits the ground,
I'm kicked around,
poetic sounds
as ears they pound,

Sometimes the rain
in tears and sun
sometimes a battle
or a war we won
sometimes I cry, inside I sigh,
or walking in a dessert dry,
my pen will tell & never lie
protect me as I wait to die,
painting words in pictured skies,
so many left unsure goodbyes,
diamonds fall from tears they cry,
I sometimes think that I,

I can't go on
until I hear a poignant song,
please won't you come along,

Sometimes my feet are on the run
those setting tangerine skies
the blistering hot & sweltering sun,
illuminating my darkest ink,
& every thought I try to think,
a Titanic ship can sink,
when you need help
I'll beg & steal
try my best
to make you feel
when you are suffering
& life not buffering,

I'll believe
in tomorrow
find time we can borrow
a bottle to drown out every sorrow
I'll love you when you're gone
this is a place where I belong
together we can sing along,
a crutch for a rugged heart
a gift of life,
a brand new start,
so don't be crude or ever rude,

I am human too
just like them, just like you,
a drum don't stop beating
or keep on repeating,
Keep me up,
give me a cup,
keep me going,
& ever knowing,

My heart it never does take rest
after the most grueling test,
it beats & it heats,
in the pain &  the rain
I can't stop this ugly vain
raised it from its darkened bed,
now it demands, I hear it said,
every single word
that anyone
has ever said, I heard,
crashing burning
I am ever learning,
& always yearning
a day I'm earning,
to get a chance,
just one last dance
before its over
to kiss the clover,
my starry rover,
an Australian drover,

To be rendered useless
if my words are fruitless,
if said in vain,
against the grain,
it doesn't matter
as tears they shatter
the sky it sets
but you can almost always bet
I'll be writing of you
& love that's true,

& everything that's beautiful
trapped in Autumn's wind
with tombstone eyes,
caught  again in sad goodbyes,
please baby don't you cry
stupid cupid,

The bittersweetness
of our yesterday's
I feel it in the touch
one you want so very much
again come tomorrow's light
again I will take another flight,
again I bleed the poets plight,
I pray for vision
hope & sight
listen & get it write,
I know I will win the fight
burning lamps into the night

Add, edit, do that again
hold a hand & be a friend,
be a lover and a mother,
celebrate & graduate,
follow & lead
ask of us  & beg & plead,
I will not be afraid,
filling every heart it's need
drowning out the sounds of greed

There is nothing to fear but fear itself,
no truer statement
could have ever been uttered
  whispered,  or muttered,
like sweet Fred that stuttered
warm wheat bread that's buttered,

It's why we rhyme,
we are chasing after time,
yup, your words & mine,

I go unafraid into darkened night
and even with my blinded sight,
lit by scars & brilliant stars,
candles snuffed out too soon
caught by the tail of the crescent moon,

I'm mesmerized I can't move my feet
unless I hear that haunting beat,
as demons flee in sweet defeat,
at times I carry the weight of the world
& that of my children,
that they too are heard
ancestors calling as I,
I am,
I am always
falling,

Afraid to close my eyes,
& look at the skies,
afraid of that surprise,
and each day I awake,
grateful for what I take,

I rise up,
a phoenix from ashes
& blinking eyelashes,
while I can still see
sight please find a plan,
left upon a grain a sand,
I'm made of glass & paper
I got a pass  hey what a caper,

Wake it up & take it up
just make it up
it'll be just fine,

I must go unafraid into the long night
an endless spinning soulful top
one that I hope won't soon stop
I am like an aurasma
my own Galaxy
past the Milky Way
Listen close to what I say,

As demons flee & I can see
in every lovely memory,
please say you'll remember me
& our history,
kicked around & on the ground
I still hear that painful sound
I think I'll  even maybe drown,

I might be a muse
that the heavens abuse
or my words that they want to use,
intentions are everything,
listening & glistening

Watch me burn,
ya know I never learn,
don't put me out,
or even pout
we can't doubt,
hear me fry,
Cuz I,

I just keep swimming
as waters are brimming,
& stones are we are skimming
tredding in cold waters,
waves pull me under,
fires grow hotter,
a thinking blotter,
cleaving bones I am asunder
& broke apart by rampant thunder,

Breathless & gasping
my hands are grasping
in desperation & despair
cannot pretend that I don't care,
something that I must share,
I see a shore,
& I've seen it before,
just beyond the waiting door,

A mascara smudge
but please don't judge,
or hold a silly hateful grudge
I'm through the wading of the sludge
I just wouldn't budge,
it just took a nudge,

Because a beautiful mind
one so very, very kind,
protected by the hands of time
a precious thing
a voice, I sing
heard in my poetic choice,
undiluted  not refuted
undisclosed, many ohhh's
a twitching nose,
teaching all in what we know
to be silent is a terrible wasted gift
to not hear that sound,
bring a voice around,
the voices ring,
I've had a taste,
my shoes are laced
I can keep the pace,

To not write,
to seal the vain,
relief from pain,
would be a terrible waste
of a divinely inspired pen. ❤

Cherie Nolan© 2016