I feel the cold bites, mittened children yell
they’re sewing sky flowers as they run with yellow or red kites
ocean makes that great space with tides that linger over the rocks
we fashion nothing like the clouds and feel small

As storms build up I walk a coastal trail
where ashes of an old beach fire left roasted pinecones littered
an Osprey flies up above the shore’s edge  
and as I read your book, I feel the restless melody in your poems

Tides flap and slop against sand the color of worn concrete
ocean’s spoiled lives permeate everything, my skin tastes sea salt gargle
gulls and passersby all watch the waves moving towards us

I’m lingering here for too long and return to my car
clicking heels behind me in the parking lot
the castanets of other lives with their importance
arouse such unpleasant thoughts, I walk back down to the beach
hurrying until I no longer hear their rhythm

But now the fog rolls in and the ground is covered with wings
all the doors are locked when the sky drops down like this
thunder knocks in the distance saying ‘“celebrate!”
its echoes wake the clouds, rain gives an answer with applause

on the threshold of storm I turn away from the ocean and look east
a forested mountainside crowded with fading painted houses abandoned
a single car on the road with headlights, we have hundreds of days of rain here

in other words, most people forget anything but rainy weather
the chill from Alaska reaches down only in gusts but snow is distant

This Sunday when Netarts bay is full of kayaks and fishing boats
Oceanside’s patch of beach is strewn with sea grass, people with their dogs
walk amongst shed crab shells, a lone restaurant opens selling coffee and pies
none of the people in rain slickers and hoodies move off as the rain falls

I walked along the sandy beach with a crisp breeze gliding through my hair,
I gazed out into the crystal clear water and thought about life.

I thought about how my life was like that ocean...vast and open.
I thought about all the people that have swam in that ocean and in
turn, swam through my life.

The people who just stuck their tiny toes into my great unknown, but
found the water too warm or too chilled. The people that dove in
without understanding the full complexity of navigating the unmapped
depths of my humanity and in turn, quickly fled for shore.

Finally, the people that waded gently into that great wide open found
that, when done at a resonable pace, the water was just fine.

These were the swimmers that have been coming back to the beach for a
long time now, and these were the ones I liked having around.

Welcome to the land of golden trout

Where black bears roam and hawks still shout

In the eastern Sierras, hills of the west

Tales of the Adventurers and their first test.

Forming an alliance in Santa Cruz

They left together, unwilling to lose.

Packing up and heading down the trail

They knew as a team they would never fail.

Without a moment’s hesitation nor shred of doubt

The crew took their Tools of Tenacity out

And in less than three months flat

The Adventurers finished, exclaiming “that’s that!”


But who composes this mysterious crew?

Wait just one moment, I promise I’ll tell you.

First, there’s Nico the Noble, the leader so fearless

Who also frightens many when he’s not beardless;

Followed by Ben the Benevolent with his hearty laugh

And never without his Capitals hat;

Kahn the Courageous has his wild antics

Telling stories with Buckeye semantics;

Jamie the Just and her vegan ways

Had to eat lentils for most of her days;

See Jen the Jubilant with camera-in-hand

Shaving logs for as long as she can;

The team’s newest member, Maggie the Merciful,

Has now experienced the wilderness in full;

Tim the Wise lacks alliteration, unlike the others

But has chased many cows, some scraping their udders;

And at last there’s me, the Notable Narrator,

So our crew’s legacy can live forever.


In our quest the crew has changed slightly.

Those unable to handle the tasks lightly

Had left- like Mary, Bobby, and Stary the Skeptical

All well-admired, and mostly respectable.


Now let’s shift our story to the work completed

In the struggling meadow, its health near-depleted.

Using fallen trees that have long-since passed

We found a clearing with their numbers quite vast.

Cutting the deceased into sixteen-foot longs

And lugging them over thickets and bogs

Our team stacked them perpendicular

To the stream, or creek, in particular

And in a magician’s “ta-da!” moment

Water rose up to our new component,

Flowing over the freshly-made dam

Then briefly meeting with dirt and sand

At the bottom. Multiplied by thirty

And that was work: rigorous and *****.

But why were the Adventurers sent there,

To build check-dams and do repairs?

It was, in part, human consumption

That led to the meadow’s near-destruction:

America’s insatiable need for beef

Will not, for a long time, see any relief,

So Industry has pushed forward, sending cows to the fields

Grazing and growing to become our future meals.

But little did Industry know how devastating

Hundreds of cattle leave an ecosystem suffocating.

Trampling grass and dispersing banks underhoof

The bovine are easily guilty, there’s so much proof.

Stupid, noxious, and obnoxious creatures

Recognized by these, easily their best features.

Incessantly screaming day and night

They are more like demons by every right.

Yet the Forest Service lets ranchers send

Hundreds of cattle, seemingly without end.

And while the Golden Trout crew fixed things,

It’s not enough to ease the strain the cows will bring.


So what can we do, if anything at all

If we go veggie will Industry stall?

Can the end of beef save the earth

Is society only worried when we gain in girth?

That’s not for me to say right now

It’s up to you to answer the “how?”


But I digress, I must end the story

Of the Adventurers and their summer glories.

In the end they saved the meadow, saved the day

Held the bovine rampage at bay,

Raised water levels, erosion erased,

Then was the time to leave that place.

So the Adventurers hopped in their van,

Eight warriors mean, lean, and tan,

And took off down the mountainside

To Santa Cruz and the oceanside.

Each followed one’s own path

But only after taking many baths.

The Golden Trout legacy will live forever,

Only made possible by the best crew ever.

You with your bedroom eyes
Soulful, piercing and wise
Raw emotion
And total devotion
Your Hemingway jawline
And your bottle half full of wine

Substance overcomes shyness
But it never oversteps your kindness  
A smile that can break millions
Unfortunately you've captured the heart of a civilian  

There is a distance
That makes me lean towards the path of least resistance
Since Baby, we're living on borrowed time
Waiting on that day where you can finally be mine.

Crumbling concrete screens at the old drive-in
reminiscent of an era bygone.
Progress is our god
we've no time for nostalgia.
California moves too quickly for sentiment;
what's past is past, and is no more.

I.
The people look like flowers at last - sick thoughts of dead men strike the clock winding backwards and ignite to illuminate my approach,
The people look like,
Cigarette burns,
Bullet wounds,
Casualties of Rollins' war with himself,
Of Ellis' numb utopia,
Of the Bukowski cynic suicide,
Of the thoughtless progeny of deadbeat generations desperate to push back,
Every street corner is holy, baptized in the blood of those who died believing,
A thousand fists moved to release a thousand frustrations, and a celebrity endorsement for each overdose death,
Angel mine, abate your gutter wars and mob mentalities,
The tattoo ink has dried and the clubs are closed for the night,
Where are the revolutionaries to go now?

II.
The revenge of the skinhead minority,
The born again soul of a fallen brother,
The madman defiant in publicized rage, the faces of the enemy painted with crosshairs on TV screens,
And the damaged finally able to stand on their own,
Damaged and unrepentant,
Damaged and brilliant,
Damaged with criminal record eyes,
with paranoia brain, with X's tattooed into calloused knuckles,
with track marked arms,
Damaged, the unstoppable tide of the righteous youth - caricatured in the spray painted stencils of their testaments

III.
The spoiled children of an undefinable zeitgeist with nothing to lose,
In ecstasy binges these angels hallucinated manifest destiny through non prescription lenses,
Studying traffic patterns I remember how people are afraid to merge and everybody is looking for just the right amount of trouble,
A fire dies and another is born almost immediately,
Careless ramblings in careless county - a land I'm sure was promised to someone, somewhere, sometime
But after the gold rush nobody could cash out fast enough,
I can't cash out fast enough -
Every girl has got the guilty smile of a teenage runaway living out a Janis Joplin fantasy, and all the boys line up like addicts itching to cop,
The air is so heavy nobody can hold a thought - and when I speak, It's the accent, they say, they can always tell,

IV.
Taxi rides in laser show utopia,
Sicilian saint newly minted tells me about the ******* machine and it's ravenous posturing -
be present & be seen,
Fake it till you make it,
Cop killers singing confessions for beer on the street corner,
While the socialist manifests itself in mispronounced beverages and faux-marked Russian volumes,
avant-garde hyperrealism & ritualistic sacrifice,
There was something about *** and dying on the radio I couldn't be bothered to hear,
A drunken brawl over a bad bet made, disappointing street race, police sirens distant growing moreso,
In ****** bars where ladies always drink free, I rewatch the fall of a ***** old man from the penthouse to the street all over again,
If you haven't figured it out by now,
Don't try

V.
In dreams I walk the Pacific Coast Highway dead of night, barefooted soul alive and naked in the Western night like a Jim Morrison poem, the traveler that never arrives, watching the sunrise form halos over the Sierra Nevada, like a girl I know back East who talks a great deal about plans, the best of which never even have an aftertaste of freedom
There is the same sublime anthems playing on every radio and palm trees forming crosses for any messiah who is willing to claim them,
Last train out of Anaheim as the tessellating California skies swell and give, catch and release,
I see the roofs of tenements lit up by Disneyland,
ocean reflecting the glare from Heaven,
faces of the impoverished reflecting the glare from Heaven,
everybody getting sunburned from the glare from Heaven,
I watch the lovers depart for Santa Ana,
Elderly Asian tourists for Irvine,
Hipsters for San Juan,
and the rest of the destitute ******* for Oceanside en route to San Diego,
There but by the grace of God go the drunk kids spilling out of greyhound buses, sitting till dawn contemplating skylines reflected on the bay, finding romance in every moan of living Earth,
wide eyed at possibility of removing themselves from the equation and finding the answer,
Neil Young harmonicas drift listless above Spanish villas,
Everybody talking like something bad was gonna happen but I couldn't see much thru the windows past the tourist burly shouldered slumbering beast,
I think it was somewhere between Yuma and Dallas, with Mexico stretched out like an invitation to an anarchist rally where I was haunted first,
I'm haunted by El Campo Santo, paved over restless Indian graves in the shadow of the hanging tree,
By La Calavera Catrina blessing the sinners as they pass, hollow faced and sunken on the ***** Spanish streets of their ancestral Apartheid home,
I'm haunted by Calvary, 3000 spirits hanging around unsure of what comes next,
I'm haunted by the faces of the beggars I couldn't spare a cigarette for,
In dreams the Western night releases me and I leave California a shade lighter,
And the handful of stars that manage to burn through the haze seem to promise me:
"You may be gone, but your shadow lives on without you"

My bare feet tread upon soft, dampened sand
toe-trails follow me along the shoreline & stones rest within my hand.
I gaze out upon the angry, pale sea
yet even in her times of melancholy, she beckons me
I wade in to my ankles, strip my clothing to the skin
her waves, a sirens song gently pulls my soul in.
Chest deep, the icy sting of her watery tendrils
send me shaking from within
I still push farther on,
I am among the waves but stone cold porcelain
I shut my eyes, & give body to her mercy
for my soul will never feel this whole again.

Even pretty faces need a mind to enamour the soul.

A loners trail is slowly washed away ,
yet sometimes even the private have their
holiday
Bare feet covered in warm sand , dressed
for sheer comfort , walking the edge of
blue ocean with no place to be
Picturesque sea , gathering gulls , sailing brown
pelicans , forever horizon , white sugar revelry
Clarity returning in waves , morning cloud canopies
corrected in brash , cresting sunshine

Before I close my eyes ... Before I drift away ...
      fallow as the evanescent tide grows low;
      before the falling sun echoes
      upon shown waves of estranged sandbars

Before I draw this life’s ending breath ...
      as beclouding skies ache like a windswept shoreline
      kissed by a bitter sweet gale of love and misery
      beget a chilling spell cast of invisible winds of change

Before you no longer remember ...
      the way the song a gentle wind's caress
      swirls and sweeps away bare feet
      set free to soar beyond the reach of your eyes
      
Before these eyes see the final sunset tiptoe down the sky ...
      even the sun feels the dimming in its wake ;
      unrequited footprints in the sand course straightaway,
      never turning around to look back whence they came

Before another tide floods a deserted oceanside ...
      erasing the traces of where we danced naked as the dark
      glimpsing the diminishing horizon ― 

                              and I let go .........
      as the tears steal away the last glint of the sea

           The way you took your love from me ...



                 © harlon rivers ... May15th, 2017

I have only seen myself as a beautiful artwork once in my life,
It had been the advent lovely Spring of sweet sixteen,
There is a photo of someone else’s mind in which I am the subject, rife
With calculated gorgeousness, the white blouse and powder blue skirt
And I had been wearing black ballet flats; a day upon my feet had left me hurt
But the enchanted, oil forest before me had healed my eyes and entranced me
That pose, holding onto myself with ribbons in my hair, someone could see
A beauty that which I have never known since.

Into the heart of the Prince
Into the hearts of all the folk for she was a fairy tale heroine,
Cinderella, lovely lady of ashes, had glass slippers
And upon such toity-toity footwear, she had slipped
Yet, it had been such fragility that would unite her with her love

Will I be united with such grace, such love for myself, if I hold onto my ballet flats?
After all, I have not once seen this grace, such love for my own self since sweet sixteen
Since the foolhardy winds of chilly, oceanside Spring;
Where upon the Museum modern, I saw myself as timeless artwork
Admired and appreciated by all; much like the lovely lady of ashes whose slippers
Have walked her beloved soul into the hearts of all; into the best of time

Yet, these beloved shoes of mine
Have seen so much better of time
For I can see through the soles wherein holes
Have shown where I have worn my own souls
In bitter wanderings and light-hearted adventure; so many type of walk
For a single lass, I could not talk
Of all the places and thoughts these shoes have led me astray within
Of the beauty that had once sunken in

How am I to part?
How am I to part with such faithful companions through all my wanderings of
Yonder years soon to come asunder as I am no longer sweet sixteen,
As I am no longer before entrenched trees of oil, elevated in buildings upon
A chilly, Springtime by the sea I’ve only known in passing afternoon
In black ballet flats; not unlike the glass gussied slippers of lovely cinders

Am I not unlike Cinderella?
For whom would she be if she had not received the night of her life
As carried upon the fragile spurned glass of her magic slippers
For whom had reunited her with her love, the foot fetishist Prince;
Lovely lady of ashes would be just that: lady of ashes,
Worked to beyond the bone; dressed in rags, head in clouds,
Dreaming of opportunity squandered in her slippers of magic glass

She would be like me.
She would be like me, contemplating her toes in birdsong prose
She would be like me, wondering when she would feel as refined as a classic artwork
A beautiful timeless painting with grace and poise without rival supposed

If I part with these worn soles which have born my souls cross
My journeys long, will I ever be at loss
Over mine own image rendered beautiful: my own body rendered beautiful to my eyes?
How can such skin-deep bliss exist without my black ballet flats?
How will mine own eyes recognise my beauty
If it were not for dainty small feet slotted into impractical, magical glass slippers
In want of my dear and precious black ballet flats.

Commanding the 'Crows Nest' in search of submarines on Panama City Beach
Our curiosity in real time demand , blanket oceanside Admiralty
Mariners were towing the ocean yachts into portland that day
Tales of Neptune , ambergris , running *** and rough sail
Riding the easterlies , filling our shell pails                                                        
A prize for gifted imaginations indeed , sand dollars and -
cirrus clouds above the warm turquoise Sea* .....

True as the oceanside bonfires ..
Embers that parlay their very existence ,
at mercy of Poseidon's petulant expanse ..
Gale-borne , maritime id ...
Devout seafarers in perpetual , celestial
navigation ..

I can be your better half,
You can be my main squeeze.
We can keep this light hearted
And go with the salty breeze

That blows along the oceanside;
We'll flow like the waves flow free-
Come be my main man,
Come be my one and only.

I'll be your balancing act,
You'll be my rationality,
So long that it includes you-
Together is how we should be.

We can stay in or go out,
We can go anywhere actually,
So long that you're coming along,
Promise you'll be right next to me.

Come be my main man,
I'll be your main squeeze.
You're the perfect fit, you see-
We fit together with such ease.

Come and stay awhile,
There's no rush to leave.
We look so good together,
To this I believe.

I didn’t want to go in but you convinced me that it was a must.
We live the essence of the shop; we are the year-round tourists.
The aisles were too close and you weren’t enough. My sunburnt
shoulders touched hanging cotton and beads and masks and I tried
on that skimpy sequined top that made me look like a popstar. You
said, ooh la la. You said, say something to me in French [Je ne t’aime
plus.] Then laughed, wandering toward the snow globes. You held
it with such care and I wanted to be kissed in one, one that you held,
precarious, in your goofy hands. With cuticles I always try and
push back, like you with the wisps in my face. But why, your eyes
are the oceanside town and I want to put them in the snow globe,
you said while watching the fake flakes fall.

There once was a woman from Oceanside,
Who took me to Heaven,
     though I never died.
Like an angel she sings,
     though I've never seen wings.
In all the times I've examined her backside.

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There are days when the rage I prayed to dissipate somehow finds its way from the deep secluded corners of my brain and throws itself violently onto the blank pages of my notebook.

It's always on those days when I hear the Oceanside call my name but I refrain from seeing her because I am far too occupied with chipping myself away at this deadend job that doesn't provide the way that I need it to pay.

It's always on the days when I can't reach her shore that I ***** myself to this imitation of peace. To all the things I want but know it will never satisfy the need to feel that cool ocean breeze, the smell of seaweed and that saltwater against my feet.

There is no place in the valley for a boy who fell in love with the ocean and left his heart at sea.

Like can't you see that the only time I feel whole is when all the broken pieces that make up me is standing on that cliffside. Apart from filling out my blank pages and pouring my heart out onto these stages, that cliffside will always be home.

There is not a day that I'm away that I don't sit and think about the power of the waves. Do you ever think about the power of the waves? How they come in, crash and carry all of my burdens, pain and frustration away. God I just want to get away.

I will always sit up on that cliffside in a mystery as I gaze out upon your vast deep blue see and wonder how in the midst of my chaos, that you are somehow my peace.

so much

remember how we got really very lost in st. augustine, and ended up finding somewhere beautiful on unfamiliar beaches, smoking a bowl next to a oceanside bar dimly lit with christmas lights that was playing one good song after another?

remember how you looked at me the first time we intertwined, alone, laid in big fields, and i noted, how your eyes looked like the freshest honey? the air was full of blossoming love

last night i rolled into you and my head fit right into the nook where your arm meets your shoulder. i said, you are like markham park in the winter time. seeing you is like seeing the excitement i had when i first saw snow, and oh how i expected it to resemble big asterisks falling from bloated clouds, because i live in florida, and that’s all i’d seen.

the bitter cold that settles into a comfortable warmth once you slip on another layer leaves me in a satiated daze. my eyes well up with the thought of you. memories of our shared existence streak past my cheeks and drip off my jaw.

we were laying on the floor.

i jolted and you embraced me.

it was night, and i rubbed your nose, just like my favorite song said to do.

I have an ocean in me.

Violently crashing against my bones,
Turning in my stomach.

I have a full scale hurricane in me.

Do no try to walk across my shoreline
Or ride my waves.

My water is toxic

And you will drown before you ever try to...

I wish up the falling mountainside
scree rolling      past in foams      a tide
wishing down      against
as if my purpose was      the act
to counteract

or along a barreling oceanside      in
frost and high noon
above      a relinquishing patchwork of sky
me      harvesting shells      drinking rain
                      walking until

the dive into      whatever else      which is
not art      nor love-song      nor peace
but for all     their origin      before they became
word      and I      this quiet man
                      *inexpressible desire

I'm thinking of a week
you and I
on a sugar beach
where every thing is sand, or sways, or blue
except you and I
making love on an oceanside lanai
where the only thing we are denied
is a phone call from home or office.

Eyelids lower,
the world turns dark;
breaths become slower,
an evanescent spark.

Thoughts fall like raindrops,  
I hear them bouncing off the roof.
Winds pull mist round mountaintops,
our hearts are not shatterproof.

Our minds are mirrors,
they reflect what we see,
a silver fragment of Reality glitters,
a broken image or a broken me?

Our souls swim in wanderlust.
Blood pushes in and out like a noonday tide.
From us our bodies turn to stardust,
a Heaven forever by the oceanside.

You are the Infinite in one being;
a dream with no beginning and no end.
In the lake between sun and moon sleeping,
stars float like lotuses to the riverbend.

Wake before the sunrise,
wait for colors to wash the sky vast as our love.
From fleeting darkness Light meets new eyes
painters dip  brushes into Endless Undreamed of…

Breathe the morning in,
my longing for you has eclipsed my heart.
The kaleidoscope sun warms my skin,
Every day we restart
...
Use my creation to start yours,
kundalini is the force.
The universe expands when every breath swirls,
earth and art born from one source
...
My hands have begun to shake,
like constellations all of us are connected.
If I happen to lose my grip we all will quake,
ripples of world within worlds are reflected
...
I will remember you in my glass mind,
crystallized and refracted, a consciousness clearest
Elements fade as nature undoes time,
in death be unified by mystical spirits
…

The fire crackled oceanside,
sent sparks trailing
up into the summer skies
as we sat together,
counting the stars
one by one.

O Darling, it seemed
we were the only living beings
in the entire universe
& for that precious moment,
we were, two lovers
kissing inside our dream,
alive & touching heaven.

A crescent full of impurity.
A mind Full of thoughts and plasters made of monogamous beliefs.
You never once told me about the Martian moon
Look how it hangs like an eyebrow
Contrasting our duo souls into these drinking lips.
It felt serene, and necessary.
Incomparable with any waterfall
I have ever drank from before.
Oh but what a nightmare it is to fall in love and bathe in the supremacy of our lord and savior Kermit the frog.
Tonight I belong to all the wisp wishes left On your Oceanside cheeks. As I number this state of confusion, my homage goes to the dandelion blower.
May you forget me.
And may we both find strength and peace in this destruction.

That morning Glory
Which children spread.
Over earth and sky,
Lingers like secret sunshine.
Permeating a multitude of roofs,
A multitude of rooms.

On oceanside grey,
Their precious feet tread.
Bringing refresh of light,
With every laugh.
I gaze at the sand,
With remnant proof that
Children of light walked here.
When I am still,
The Wind brings me
Whisper of their joy.

Giggling brooks,
Shining stars,
Vibrant flowers of the field,
Cannot compare
To the sweet music
Of Child's contagious laughter,
And the light God gave them,
Shining clear through their eyes of bright.

Tall boys and xanax bars
Days blur and summer sun rays fade into
Rainy Vancouver-Seattle apathy

Wake up to drizzling
Mild & tired (slow burn)
With vague self satisfaction Oceanside
Pacific west coast Canadian paradise

I'll tell you when upper Eastside vibe
Subsides back to parliamentary
Green city Ottawa grandpa
Sleeping anyway

A blue meridian gulf sunset lifts the veil of Venus beside a pearl Moon
Red beacons search far out to sea with amber harbor lights panning the white , wailing , crystalline oceanside , revealing her nighttime ferocity* ...