"prisms" poems
The burning flowers underline the sunset and
Dash before the fire (k)night catches them.
Ripe berries cheaply
tremble
but hopefully their vitality won't burst the pulp pulsating
beneath.
Crumbling flowers
crumb the floor
And Prisms of catching silver refract rose quartz and petal
and crimson
dust.
Bejewelled in Scarlet,
the air,
as the (k)night approaches, grows colder,
Unsure of whether he will bring
solace or strife.
In his chariot
he flies faster than the bees which buzzed around the fruit flutes
in the morning and among the trumpeting bluebells.
Stars fleck the (k)night
like freckles
and the milky ways resins stain his spouting steams lovely.
The (k)nights kind onyx reaches his crescendo and the floating moon danced drowsily through the cloud's spiralled tendrils
Which diminish as dawn
approaches
so their Tentilcles
droop to crinkled tissue paper sheathed in pink.
And so the (k)night
rides on into
The frivolous sunrise.
The lowing, glossy calves
in sage beside the ***** fields
cast a beloved ambience
As though
we are safe
in the knowledge
that the sky will remain
forever
topaz and the leaves
forever emerald.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 4:05 AM UTC
O Geometry,
How I loathe the,
with thy prisms and proofs,
and thy figures and formulas,
and thy compasses and conjectures!
Why must thou require such mental strain?
- Wait,
What's that you say?
Calculus next?
O my dearest Geometry,
How I adore thy common sense and logic-based nature!
How I dread the day when we shall be forced to part!
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 10:12 PM UTC
Funny the things we recall.
Images that flash through our brain.
Some most vivid for me were of an old man.
Skin like creased parchment paper,
Lined and yellowed with age.
The veins visible just below the surface,
of a thin nearly transparent veneer.
Liver spotted flecks of red,
Charted paths from the toil of many years,
Palms callused forever from a life time of labor.
Big fingers knotted and misshapen,
The two inch tip of one gone missing,
Saw taken, at age sixteen.
Looking at those old hands, one could hardly guess
That still there remained gentleness in their caress.
For an old dog, or a little grandson in need of some
Companionable affection or parental love.
Those aged hands could also make things,
Toy sailboats, and wooden trains,
complete with caboose,
And guard cow catcher.
A cool flute whistle that actually worked,
He said it was like the Indian’s made,
Out Oklahoma way.
And he would know,
He cowboyed there.
His hands taught me to tie my shoes,
Open and close my first pocketknife.
Those same hands could become birds,
rabbits, butterfly's, all sorts of things.
When projected up on the wall,
Silhouetted by a naked back light.
His hands knew magic too,
Pluck silver coins right out of my ears.
His tired face matched his hands,
visual weathered, creased and
wrinkled road maps,
Of 89 years of rugged roads traveled.
Yet, his lively pale green eyes remained
forever fraudulently youthful prisms,
Eyes and spirit of a much younger man within.
But it is his hands most of all I shall remember,
Their imposing look and their reassuring
touches of tenderness.
I shall never forget my grandfather’s hands.
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 3:12 PM UTC
Her Imperious Canticle rewarded
From the butterflies of monarchy
Mermaid scales are her bouquet
An ombre is the debut
Crystal corals are the stars on her face
Below pink rings that scale a tune
Which the winged beauties will charm in too
An amazing debut for the see through
Of a dynasty that glows in the prism moon.
Feb 24, 2019
Feb 24, 2019 at 9:13 AM UTC
Morning Rainbow
Myriad prismatic crystals,
refract the morning sun-streams -
painting layers of spectral arches
across the misted horizon.
Eyes turned to the western skies,
we suspend our meteorological selves
acquiescing to miracles unveiled before us -
un-beckoned and scarcely earned,
proffering thanks for the radiant epistle
of healing, hope and promise,
artfully encoded in transfigured light.
Synthetic Refractions
A luminary ballet takes center stage
when synthetic refractors come to play:
crystal pendants bathe our foyers
with dazzling swaths of color.
Hazy coronas encircle streetlamps
discovered by headlights through the fog.
A science class prism slices light rays
into pre-ordered spectral strata.
If the sky denies us a rainbow,
we can always fashion one of our own
and we do!
Spectral Sound
Before there was music,
bird songs brushed our souls
and the murmur of woodland streams
held us captive by their banks.
Soon we learned to sing and tint the air
With prisms of wood and wire and metal
and to color soundscapes in our spirits
With songs of wonder, joy and longing.
Before there was music,
bird songs brushed our souls.
Robert Charles Howard, 2019
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 1:14 PM UTC
Sprinkling crystals dipped in glass
ray of prisms breeze my eye
sunshine rhythms hide in grass
floating sugar on the pie
Neon lights pass to scroll
while purple midnight breathes
jacket goosebumps stockings stole
four-wheeled lion grumbly seethes
Honey nectar slumbers my eyes
whitewashed lace tangle my face
gentle buzzings of pastel sky
as cotton candy sank with grace
Open heart box standing in the rain
cries diamonds for to call her name
the poetry train caught riding to Spain
set carnival dewdrops on red flames
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 10:07 AM UTC
Matter is a conduit for Consciousness;
Your Body is a Prism for your Self.
Chakras are sub-prisms
each tuned to a specific vibration
a specific state of being
a specific aspect
of your specific being
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 8:21 AM UTC
Liner runs thin
as I examine the skin
where I look for a tell-tale mark
Left of a ring that would prove
I'm not alone.
(it's not there)
My back arches and
my body quakes
as deep inside
Infantile sexuality wakes
as my lips let fly
assumed and guessed sighs
of fabricated pleasure
(whatever that is)
They did not teach me these things
I was left to assume
as hearts often do
when they are kept in a room
and ushered away from the pains and joys
of Love
I stare into a mirror
and I stare back
Until all of a sudden
my smile cracks
and I'm left to stare
into the eyes of one
born to lose.
I hug warm pillows
and stroke my own hair
Until I realize he
is not
wasn't
and will never be there
and I'm left to assemble
a Shattered Glass Heart
with nothing but hammers for tools
But then I see myself
beauty and flaws defined
and at this point I know
the only glass heart I need
is mine
even in pieces, it retains it's strength
and waits to be whole again
So dormant I sit
mesmerized by the prisms the pretty pieces make
as I wait
for a true artist to come
and give this
Shattered Glass Heart
new form
with the heat of reassuring and shared existence
and the grace of gentle words and sweet kisses.
Jun 27, 2011
Jun 27, 2011 at 12:03 PM UTC
Twice the fool is the runaway
Who hides his trail, as he hides his ache
All bottle and pills, temporary sleep
Insomniac daze and cheap dinner meals
Static lies on a stationary screen
Radio chatter can’t feed the famine in me
The world is aflame
With no one awake
Sunrise slumber
I fall unconscious to the restless on midnight pavement
Breaking bones or breaking bottles
Selling skin or dealing dust to lost souls
Hearts tucked and folded from the cold
Future oblique
I dare you, predict my dreams
Late riser / never bloomer
Packs a bag, a change of clothes
To deadbeat joints, and dead end posts
Been as many years gone as daily cigarettes smoked
Bloodshot symmetry eyes
I see in every passerby
Like the whole city gone up and left their troubles behind,
You and I
We’re cerebral projections
Locked into motor whirs, recursive disintegration
Status acknowledged, clean cut
Black and white since day one
Mould breaker, you’re told you’re out of line
Gutter graves or veins, stay your place or fall behind
The only constant is the throne
You sit upon or come to view as your body’s own
The red light stare, blue flicker flares
Blare on your skin, like prisms, colour wear
Better to fade to grey than know yourself
For what you truly are, just a shade of catch and tell
Dire straits
No deviation
Full advance
Or desolation
Empty eyes
Golden restraints
I don’t want wealth
I just want change
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 8:51 PM UTC
what happens when you are so in love with a thought you could never dream.
not like being on a timeout, or friend zoned.
like wishful thinking of a perfect scene, or being.
Can most of us say that we ever truly fell in love at first sight, i can.
i can tell you how the sun shines for the birds and blooms. i can tell you how the diamonds are hand painted into the night sky and even have their own stories.
i can tell you all the angles of the prisms, in the colors of a rainbow.
i can describe in perfect detail sculpted cheekbones and a smile so warm everything
melts inside.
i can say how my heart aches to even be known. in the world, in the universe,
in the front of someone's mind. not just known but really, and truly known by something, anything, anyone.
i can tell you that my soul aches for more...
i can tell you how my life essence is tied to more.....
after everything so far.
i can also tell you that i doubt if anybody even knows my name.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 2:03 AM UTC
something stirred and alive came forth
out of my own heart it spoke
*all creation is of equalities
sister brother relations
here is truth*
not to let it pass untested
i made an agreement
with belief
*blade of summer grass
teach me
dust speck
gold starshine
water droplet
prisms
fortuitous spider
i hear your messages*
spider moved in her sun-sparkled circle
she threw me spider kisses
but when i gave her kisses back
some voice came booming
*humanity is the golden crown
of god's achievement*
and the spirit of these words then took flight,
transversed my landscape,
crossed an ocean's width of time
and dropped under the waves
with the natural weight
its distorted truth
practices of superiority
of ********** of killing exploitation
rose from the collective--
flashed their white lightening
but struck counter--
diluting dissolving disarming
greediness and favoritism
manipulation and lies
expectation of privilege
so called divine right
a voice it came again
so that greater love
may have heard itself
*all creation is conscious
all is alive all are equal*
*none is better or worse
than another*
remember this
to practice
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 3:48 PM UTC
You at least went.
so that meant the party could finally be awkward.
that's homeroom
at your personal Harvard
your low self esteem was the head dean
[ claimed you had promise ]
then promptly vomits
but you promised to maim
your lollipops with hot topic's
most goth night-shade of hemlock
iron-on, henna tattoos
for your thin lips.
like two gates
to a birdcage
where you keep
ravens...
pecking the tip of your tongue
where your brave words die
for lack of oxygen... pecking
the flesh off the skeleton key
to the heart of your insightful
comment,... stymied -
a black raven
savors the succulent eyes
of your hurricanes, so
braille maps for blind rage
fly off the shelves... fly like
led zeppelins to
fresh hell.
you lose your window seat
on the wing of a prayer
to Charles Bukowski.
now you're scowling a gilded smile
at all the Ed Hardlys'...
good thing you brought Jello Biafra Shots
to the shindig... cubes of gelatinous absinthe
each with a sugar box
lodged in supermax insecurity prisms...
fey emeralds.
monochrome rubicons
you pop
when cross.
like wainscoting the panic room
that came with a deejay
who thinks you're
a boy who got
lost.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 7:10 AM UTC
Saffron, delights, rubies and gold
Crushed silvers from the shores
Cornish tin, copper green as mould
Heathers from the mauve moors.
Buttercups and daisies in an English lawn
Red and white spotted fungi in the wood
Hedges laden with gems stripped and torn
Smashed diamonds embedded in the mud.
Little gems sparkle like prisms on the twig
Fat with juice, brimming with good
Good enough to eat, best to swig.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 4:16 AM UTC
his essence
cascades across
the grain of my frame;
as his eyes dilate,
imbibing in the beauty
of motion teasing the lull
of moonbeams as it
dabbles
against the infinity
of our minds
beholding
our reflected image
in mirrored composure,
as our delicacy of want
pushes
towards an edge
of lustiness
entwined within
warbled notes
of rock wrens
singing love songs
as they dip
their wings
on early
summer
morn's
my eyes close
as softness of
lips touch upon
mine own; sending
thoughts to lucid
stillness of serendipity
bathing our contoured
frames in dulcetness
aligned within pouted
hunger tasting one
another in unity
kaleidoscopic prisms
alight in our eyes
as the lull of the moon
pulls the ebb and flow
of the ocean's current
as our bodies move
in rhythm with its
motion of each
cresting wave
crashing against
the shores of
our soul's fluidity
burbling in ecstasy
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:57 PM UTC
Her voice is green
growing old
rekindling
nature’s
minty breath.
His voice is grey
dull and diminutive
diminishing
our white light.
Splitting the prisms
by dismissing good wisdom.
My voice is diaphanous
blank slates
silver screens vanishing
nature retreating
beneath the fury of the unknown.
Skin scraped deeply,
wound stinging.
Until, it is naked and raw.
Nov 2, 2016
Nov 2, 2016 at 3:24 PM UTC
Slowly , slowly the sun awakens
Lighting the soft,dark ,velvet night
Blowing out the stars like candles
Dimming the light of the silver moon
Gently waking the birds from their slumber
To sing their joyful morning song
Shedding its light high over the treetops
Beckoning to the flowers below
Shining on the dew laden grass
Glistening like a carpet of diamonds
Like millions of prisms catching a rainbow
Such beauty to behold
Spreading its light , spreading its warmth
Turning the sky to azure blue
Casting its rays to light the day
It's morning's work is done
Slowly , slowly the sun dips down
Heralding the end of another day
Gently stroking all life to sleep
Beckoning the soft, dark, velvet night
Feb 25, 2011
Feb 25, 2011 at 6:14 AM UTC
Come walk with me a mile...
Walk on without our burden’s weighty shoes,
warily trudging over the long rocky pathway
a lifetime in my soul.
A final edifying voyage to freedom.
The winds of change are blowing briskly
as we walk charily over the long and narrowing
rock-strewn passageway.
I shed these boots and skin, no longer fitting
my scared, blistered and callused soles.
As time slowly passes,
this craggy passage has evolved
from a two-way trail,
into one-way jagged forage…
Standing barefooted and naked on rocky ground,
dark sunken sleepless eyes scan
the rolling vista as the wind blows
dust from the halo around the sun,
blurring the delicate wispy cirrus clouds.
The sun’s radiance paints frozen ice crystal azure
into a vivid aura of prisms’ brilliant corona.
Kaleidoscope rainbows adorn the closest of solar stars.
There's something in the ethereal air
that leaves my soul unsettled,
grasping for an evocative stability
trying to understand the silenced voices
crying out within…
The pain and suffering has vanished
as if the body and soul have separated,
numbness from the ache of longing,
severed nerves, callused fears
ruptured on serrated rocky edges,
deadened useless flesh cut to the bone
by misjudged obstacles encountered enduringly.
The barefooted spirit courses on,
suffused in the solar spectrum’s dust;
yearning, longing to saunter
above and beyond the bloated feathery pillows;
cumulus clouds finally resting at peace.
Dipping heart's lesions and these benumbed toes
into a healing balm
from the bowers of bliss..
An unfinished life
an open ended dream,
reluctantly waking to take the last ,
surrendering steps beyond the threshold...
A long and winding rocky journey’s destiny
draws near
The halo around the moon
illuminates an understanding firmament;
the celestial sphere’s
pending imminent soulful rain awaits
the metamorphosis at the brink of dawn.
A shower of heaven's rain
shall mourn the loss of flesh form
as the spirit of an untamed soul lives on,
barefooted,
naked and free
like the dust in the wind
absorbed eternally...
2011 © harlon rivers
all rights reserved
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 11:16 AM UTC
I - WORDS LIKE PRISMS
The crystal awaits the perfect slant of sun.
The world turns just so and refracted light
Hurls a color blaze against the wall.
So it is when a long awaited word
Forms on the lips of the wise.
II - WORDS LIKE FLAX
In the fire of conflict,
Words fall to the floor like mounds of charred flax.
Red–faced saints gather clumps to themselves
To spin into finest thread for self-flattering raiment.
III - WORDS WITHOUT WORDS
When pain burrows deep in the marrow
Where words cannot assuage
A gentle touch can bleed some out
And channel hope back in.
No words can spell a kind caress.
IV - POISON WORDS
Beware the charismatic
Carrying a jar of poison pills!
Cover your glass when he passes your way
Or he’ll slip one in unawares.
V - LAUGHING WORDS
Absurdities and failures are the stuff of jokes.
Long live non sequiturs and double entendres!
We love a clumsy tumble into the drink
As long as nobody drowns.
VI - WORDS FOR BUILDING
Of course you can!
I place my total trust in you.
VII - WORD PAINTING
Mister Frost's words never made a wood
Or caused a harness bell to shake.
Even so I’d travel many miles
To see his imagined snow accumulate.
VIII - THE GIFT
My cat, Zoe, never says a word to me!
He doesn't have the tongue or lips or larynx for it.
He cannot fit his paws around a pen.
His brain’s too small for metaphors.
The gift belongs to us alone.
To craft words to build or **** or heal.
Forgive us Zoe for doing little with so much.
July, 2006
Jul 30, 2013
Jul 30, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
What the Tide Knows
—a Sestina of one night shared with our sister moon
Night’s first blush leans low against the tide
that licks the sand; moonlight unhooks the darker seams of our skin.
The air stings sweet, crystalline breath of salt.
A feral moon, she leans close—silent, luminous, wet.
Her ******* dip the water; the water dips us—oh…slow pull
after slow pull—silk unraveling into constellations—we are, at last, bare
bare-foot, bare-hearted, bare-assed—every hush of fear laid bare;
satin chill a caress, sliding up shins, over knees, exploring the secret tide.
Between us, dampness trembles—a harp-chord plucked across our skin;
notes of brine flare and fade in the hush of moonlit salt
Desire itself echoes each pull she tightens—loosens—tightens again in the moon’s slow, intimate pull.
Night after night we bend to nature’s lust—its intimate pull
a deep, slow kiss—honey for dreams, our spirits once more bare
on a starlit shore that forgets and remembers the faithful tide
that knows each breast, each soft fold of skin
until our footprints shimmer, then vanish in a tidal pool of salt
while water’s slow tempo keeps time beneath our same bare-breasted, sister moon
Brine prisms drip between our thighs—soft, shimmering salt
as we sink into sand—breasts and breath—utterly bare;
above us, the hush of waves keeps time with the tide
while our sister, the ****** moon, unbuttons herself—O luminous moon,
her silver hand wandering, circling, stroking her own pale skin,
her gasps spilling down to embrace us oh so tight into one, shuddering, pull
Dawn’s silk-white wraps moon-bruised ******* gathering the last flecks of salt
that cling to lips—a hush of spent sighs riding every slow pull
of breath. Ocean-wet, sunrise-warmed, we rise wholly bare
beneath a sky tinted with our spent, satisfied sister moon,
and wade until cries of ecstasy between waves swell, matching the tide
washing footprints, sand, and shy shimmers from our glistening skin.
We become as one, a shared pulse—wave after wave pressing into skin,
A sousing of honey and ocean on lips—sweet with salt,
as night’s last breaker swells, arches, cups—one unquenchable pull
before it raptures. We bloom wide, throats singing, utterly bare
of nothing but vision of her white-hot spasm, our sister moon,
dragging us under—flinging us back—gasping—embraced by the heaving tide
O sister moon,
embrace our last slow tide,
your gentle hand forever filling our dreams, forever caressing our skin
Sep 1, 2025
Sep 1, 2025 at 6:01 PM UTC
captain kirk ate kittens. the azaleas
marched in the dark
and no moon wept snow.
it was that
dark.
all quiet rot, healing now...
we clay inside but dis-urn
we have no kiln. no kin.
we move
like a dreaming fetus
in the womb of all prisms.
like lightning on
a pin.
we have ever been
the king's
vassal.
star chattel in the manger .
happy mad
hatters.
Nov 17, 2012
Nov 17, 2012 at 9:50 AM UTC
ever been a ***** or a ******
i have. and other names
mostly given.
ever been a scapegoat?
i have. been a toy
to the hatfields and the mccoys.
any ink of brain leakage
taken to the sawbone
stitches over stitches
on my lips sewn by my own hands
the sands of time have passed, slow
as they can fall --
blood from rips goes on the walls
smear memories on the old ****
to make a little sense of the prison
in which i was living
make a little bit of sense of my enemies
apparently, i choose to ride the prisms
of a prison to the coffin, as i'm better use dead
but what kind of exit is a bullet to the head?
tell you, it's a mess, what it is
Aug 7, 2019
Aug 7, 2019 at 5:37 PM UTC
little saporous pretty prisms
dragged through ashen bones
to place your cloying melt
on my shivering paper skin:
your sticky face,
tongue stripping strangling,
char-chipping my caramelized blisters
from the burning maraschino hum.
Bubbling up whiteness
like our eyes unfocused,
hands moving unaware
spread the chapping numbness
over our senses, succumbed.
May 7, 2013
May 7, 2013 at 6:29 PM UTC
They've sold their souls in the midst of humility
and super-pervaded occult, they've sacrificed
people just to get that fancy car, and that
mansion like paradise, and all that glamors on the
face of multi-universe, they are living in the era of
self-aggrandizement, and more doubtfully
contemplate christianity, they moved a step
further to promote atheism, the concept of
humanistic thought have been overthrown, and
decisions made under the philosophy of
postmodernity, depictions of reality are mystical
and emanate from the dark prisms, their
conception of glorification is different from the
society's, therefore I'm hateful and watching as
the world slowly chokes itself to death.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 4:09 PM UTC
Accepted clarity
Muddied only
By half-truths
Perceived as real
A contrived conscience
With volume control
Lowered by convenience
And narcissistic survival
The retail outlet
Of self-patted shoulders
Selling in real time
One's own significance
Safety in numbers
A comfort of thought
The inclusive community
Of light
Through fractured prisms
Individuality
Sought in the scope
Of a petri dish
Hopefully,
There be an artisan
Peering through the lens
An expert in restoration
Aug 3, 2018
Aug 3, 2018 at 7:21 AM UTC