"rapids" poems
He's in too deep.
He can't seem to think.
Just how low
do you think he will he sink?
Caught in the undertow
of the current flow.
He treads
Slow
It can make or break what you knew
if you ride the rapids threw.
Will they take Scuba Steve too!?
He wont swim for the shore.
to avoid once more
the beauty in store
Only to find...
That he always wants more.
he learned from the past
but his oxygen can't last
and his air
Is depleting fast
high in the speed
and the passing sea ****
I heard Scuba Steve plead
I'm in too deep
and I can't seem to think
Just how low
Do you think
I will sink?
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
seductive decay
on summer days we
rode down the river in our ripe age,
careless if the rapids swept us
into their deadly dustpans,
the black hole of water,
the possibility aroused us,
perhaps because it seemed so far away.
and next to the river,
the appalachian townsfolk wandered the deep grass, they
gathered here to see the circling folding-tables,
buy the spread of goods,
the goods are masks.
the masks are of old folks’ faces,
cartoon-like, goofy comic characters in the funny pages.
masks of rubbered wrinkles, permanent,
bulging eyes, whiskered ears that never stop growing, with
an elastic band, you can become an elder.
old age attracts the crowds,
i have a fascination with it myself,
picturing all the stories that have
taken elders to the present,
it’s hard to fake being wise
when you’re forced to think for years.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 11:36 PM UTC
My Little Black Bear
Down by the singing river
Dancing with fate
Little ducks take to the rapids
Away from your dinner table
Off to the banks
You stand your grounds
Tall as you are wide
Your initials in the terrain
Cursive is the eye tooth that reigns
I see you
Posing with the lilies,
Elves and dwarfs
As the western sky looks down
Casting whispers
Is your closet filled
With both helping
The meek and sustenance
Under the skirts of nature
You're having an ****
Robbing all the salmon
And berries
Then slumbering under a tree
Tummy full
Those big black eyes of yours
Catching shut-eye,
a couch potato, a game of the week
Your wide open mouth
Catching a bee,
A refreshment
That long smile on your face
Backpacking a dream
Mama and her cubs having your back
In some ways
My little black bear ...
hear, here
I see you, in me
Logan Robertson
8/08/2018
Aug 8, 2018
Aug 8, 2018 at 6:50 PM UTC
*The Road to redemption
Is a daunting path
It’s an uphill battle
That is slippery and steep
It goes against the current
In the frigid rough rapids
With rays of blistering sun
A jagged wall of obsidian
And a sea of sand
There are no shortcuts
Only cuts, scrapes and bruises
What you did in the past will never be forgotten
But what you are remembered for will have changed.*
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 4:54 PM UTC
The sea was once our prehistoric home.
O how we adapted to its dark currents,
to its India-ink infinities,
chasing seaweed, driftwood and coral,
before belly-flopping onto dry ground.
Now, the sea threatens our ancestral home,
the sea that falls from the angry skies
with their charcoal-smudged infinities.
A swelling flood, chasing red alert,
destroying houses and lives; raining grief.
Once sea-bound creatures now drown at home,
ill-adapted to meet the flood's malevolent intent:
to purge the Earth of all who cannot resist
the rushing, rising mountains of waters,
before proclaiming its final conquest of India's ancient lands.
Now, only prayer will be our home, built on deepest despair.
Now, only God's omnipotent infinities
circle the mud-brown rapids of sludge
choking all who helplessly cross their path.
Only God can make Kerala and Tamil live again, as one, on dry, holy ground.
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 11:41 PM UTC
Beautiful eyes
Little lies
I've tried to help you
God knows how i've tried
Strong friends
Sticking around as the river bends
But I lost you in the rapids
and I sighed for this is how it ends
I found a song
It was for you but it was too long
The words I wrote no longer apply
How could I have been so wrong
I burned it
Along with a shirt in a fire pit
I tried to save you, I really did
But you left me in a dangerous fit
I tried to save you from this danger
But my mother said "You can't change her."
And we took different paths into the dark, my friend
I gave up, and now you're a stranger
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 8:45 PM UTC
Sometimes, it takes a rope with split ends,
steep foot holes and time limits.
Red earth worms and a speech- I listen; I [do] not understand
30 second pulses and a swinging braid
always fall for waves of fog, lost in forced discovery
each shoe string is reminiscent, touch opaque cracking
dissolved into the rapids rapidly refreshing moss wigs
heels pressed against soprano rain water
shaking ripples, this swelling log has the answer
I could have made it up the hill
I could have found my way
I could have chosen
differently
Apr 25, 2012
Apr 25, 2012 at 4:15 PM UTC
The paper boats sail
upon the stream.
Curious like vagabonds
questing for dreams.
On they float
through bends & turns,
Over silt mountains
& valleys of fern.
Glide with butterflies,
Caper past toads.
Not a clue where
leads the watery road.
Caressing the earth,
Savoring the rain,
Drawn into the rapids,
Broken free again.
The tempest, the calm,
All the vistas unknown.
Horizons they cross.
To beyond, they've flown!
A paper boat I hold
Only one to spare
Place it in the water
A small white corsair.
She kneels beside me,
on a bed of grass.
Points at the boat
& throws me a glance.
Smiling, she asks,
"Leaving? Where to?"
"Let's find out", I say
"My boat is for two."
Apr 8, 2016
Apr 8, 2016 at 1:10 AM UTC
When I write,
It is like I am on an adventure,
When I am happy I am drifting down a lazy river,
When I am full of anger I am raging down dangerous rapids,
Crashing into the jagged rocks of my anguish and anxiety
Until finally I reach the river bank and I can rest.
It is like I am scaling Mount Everest,
Each level of creativity is another 100 metres into the sky
Until finally my imagination is at the peak
And my freedom is limitless,
stretching across to the farthest reaches of the horizon
It is like skydiving,
A rush of adrenaline as I plummet towards the ground,
Completely weightless and my mind is racing
Like the air that brushes over my skin
Until I pull the cord and release the parachute,
Safely land on my feet
With a new idea.
It is like a drug,
I am on an all time high,
Hallucinations of what could be,
How something that is far from tangible
Becomes existential,
Then during the come down
I make that dream a reality.
When I write, I feel like myself,
There are too many possibilities
That are still left unmarked on the map of written art.
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 2:35 PM UTC
What has become of us
Amidst the hustle and bustle of city life
When did evolution condone us to regress into a state
Of uncalculated caucus
As we meander our way through the rapids of life
Rapid
Is hardly a best-fit descriptor
For we are past the point of speed
We mill around like headless horses
Buzzing bees
Stinging roaches
Fallen leaves
Roaring lions
Try to lead
But fail
Like cottons fighting breeze
Is this all we are?
Is this what we were made for?
To quickly climb the climb
And await the graceless fall
Parachutes prepared for praise
But our pride prevents and prevails
Till the day I climb the ladder
Shall I not attempt to see
What the view at the top might be like
I fear it enthralls me
But then reality strikes like a maddening blaze
And suddenly I see
That I'm well on my way up the hill
As I swing from bridge to bridge
Is this the way to live?
Uncautious steps with kleptomaniac ease
As we take what we desire
From our capitalistic divider
Though we hate to be the same
Not at all do we differ
Are we not all blinded mice
With a tetra-human vice
Spiders apt at spinning lies
Banking life on Friday highs
All around me boring beasts
Lost to whims, to say the least
What I fear most is the day
I give in and join the race
Is the day I eat my heart out
Just to enjoy the highest gaze
Till then here trapped in the zoo
Enclosure encasing truth
Finding fault with every human till the day I conform too
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 8:12 AM UTC
Life can be painless
Provided there is sufficient
Peacefulness
For a dozen or so rituals
To be repeated simply
Endlessly
Your genius does not fail you
It allows you to understand the
Truth of the situation;
Which makes you--at times--
more tragic than ever
And your genius,
like all geniuses
Suffers periodic fits
of monumental
naïveté
Hi-ho
Listen:
Where is Grace
When milk and blood
Are about to be added
To the composition of the
Stinking ping-pong
***** being manufactured
In Grand Rapids?
Schizophrenia
The sound and appearance
Of the word fascinates
It sounds and looks to me
Like a human being
Sneezing in a blizzard of
Soapflakes
This much we know:
You made yourself hideously
Uncomfortable by not narrowing
Your attention to details
Of life that were immediately
Important
And by refusing to believe what
Your neighbors believed
Hi-ho
Let your imagination continue
To be the flywheel on the
Ramshackle machinery of the truth.
But not the ‘awful’ truth
The ‘beauty’ in truth
Because we are a part
Of a system that is very
Restless,
With people tearing around
All the time
Every so often,
somebody stops to put up
A monument
Ours is a country where
Everybody is expected to
Pay his own bills for
Everything,
And one of the most
Expensive things a person
Can do is get sick
Grace:
Because if we stay here
We’ll do one of two things
(or both!)
Build a Commune
Or do like Collin Heise did:
Make the main thing that we
do be this:
Move seventy-eight
Thousand pounds of olives
To Tulsa, Oklahoma
Even if we can’t
Improve the quality of our surroundings
We’ll do our best to make our
Insides beautiful instead
Piebald Roadtrip-writing, baby
Hi-ho
You are the turtle
able to live anywhere
even under water for short periods
With your home on your back
A particular comfort in
Realizing that it so often feels
There is no order in the
World around us
That we must adapt ourselves to
The requirements of
Chaos instead
Remember:
We are healthy
Only to the extent that
Our ideas are
Humane
To you
To me
To ourselves
To We
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 9:05 PM UTC
We are trapped in our own river of Time
being pushed forward faster the longer we live
We can see behind us to where we have been
before us we can only guess what will come
There is madness being thrown into the rapids
confusion and disorientation fills my mind
as the cold feelings fill my lungs and heart
I long to sit in a steady pool of water
a lake of peace or an endless ocean
anything to stop this maddening journey
I cannot keep up with the speed of the water
everything that I was has washed away
I am drowning in Time, the present does not exist
constantly moving forward, nothing is now
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 1:23 AM UTC
Breathtaking beauty settles before my eye’s
Palpable is this peace in a land where air is thin
While beaming brilliance, lights the skies
Rage is visible in the irate tides
Of the Rocky Mountain rapids crashing by
Breathtaking beauty settles, before my eyes
With a scent of bristlecone pines
Drifting on wistful winds
While beaming brilliance, lights the skies
Over the ridge valleys rest in dark disguise
As shade is thrown down from heavens above
Breathtaking beauty settles, before my eyes
Eager for this moment to last, time I do despise
As stars align in a language read by gods
While beaming brilliance, lights the skies
Omnipotent powers string these patterns
That rest above great valleys in masterpiece
Breathtaking beauty settles, before my eyes
While beaming brilliance, lights the skies
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 5:46 PM UTC
All the passions of my long life
Are dust in the road behind me,
And all of that precious dust
Was nothing more than foolishness.
The trees around me
Have no names,
And the wind I feel
Blows from no direction.
The river I see is just a river
That stirs no memory,
And I know not where it goes
Nor whence it comes,
And I know not that I know not.
The rapids roar,
But they say nothing,
And I hear nothing,
But the sound they make.
I know the ones I love and loved,
And love comes flowing back to me,
And love is all that matters here,
By this river, under this tree.
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 10:45 AM UTC
Look at us, I'm carrying a basket made of trash
and you're carrying a mouse, well
the dog chewed up your glasses
but you're still rockin it
you have a single drop of coffee on your nose,
we're ready to go to D.C.
I had another where-are-we moment, it was fun.
Good, that's downtown Baltimore right there,
****** capital of the world.
An elaborate mural graffiti.
Wall after brick wall.
A rustbelt city like Grand Rapids
Detroit Cincinnati.
Did you sleep well?
Yes I woke up feeling like a clam in a cocoon.
A sea creature inside of a forest insect, okay.
I've wasted too much time on both desire and regret.
Yellow bridge.
Blue-green supports.
Singer on the radio saying, we're young right now.
There's a healthy and an unhealthy way of dealing with pain,
I'm sorry for my selfish behavior in the islands.
I want to go back and leave a better legacy.
'Word.'
Last night to come see you I drove I-95 N, the overpass
and though the rest of the city was really moving
I was all alone up there, it was like
driving in the sky.
We pass signs saying: Icy Conditions:
bridges and ramps freeze first.
And a billboard: Learning Kick Flips
Takes Work, So Does College
We listen to our favorite island song:
love the islands, love the islands, oh.
You look like a rasta snowboarder girl
There's something really right
about having you in this car
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 1:31 PM UTC
The river has no purpose,
no life or feeling.
No meaning, no dreaming,
Nothing with meaning.
What then is the point of this river that trots,
Erodes rocks,
Splashes rapids that flow to a stop?
The river moves.
No do, no see, no be.
The river moves.
No different from you or from me.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 10:11 PM UTC
I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers,
Borne by the channel of a green stream,
Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains
On a journey of less than thirty miles....
Rapids hum over heaped rocks;
But where light grows dim in the thick pines,
The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns
And weeds are lush along the banks.
...Down in my heart I have always been as pure
As this limpid water is....
Oh, to remain on a broad flat rock
And to cast a fishing-line forever!
2.9k
The 1st time rafting
Wear the safety vest
A helmet in case a person falls over board
The rapids tak you for a ride
Water much colder than anyone could imagine
Basics are taught along with safety rules
Use the paddle to Guide the raft
Paddle enjoy the ride
The sun shining beating everyone down
Battling the water to keep things in motion
Mountain view and nature site
On the journey experience the outdoors to the extreme
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 3:02 AM UTC
Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites
of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal
pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark
on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.
~~~
Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of
mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows
splash, re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at
gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?
~~~
Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer
cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless
flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.
On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble
over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze
over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole
song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -
coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined
existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.
Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 8:13 AM UTC
*The knifes are in the water,
there below, just beneath your feet.
The river flows with blood
of the sweetest innocents.
A mermaid escaping up stream,
against the current of the most importance.
So, where does this bottomless journey end?
This lost channel of endless hoping.
Two bodies of water,
intertwining into the everlasting waterfall.
A voyage down the rapids,
Falling...
Falling...
Falling...
Falling...
Down into the pits...There just below the waters.
Where I can rest my weary head.
Fin.
*
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 2:39 AM UTC
Sweat brow perculates,
unmastered tongue erased all evidence,
moist palms dripping anxious thoughts.
pursed lips crackled and dry
flow words like rapids,
blink open eyes crusted by innocence
each scar buried in rock,
fracture and fault.
heart uplifted bent in regrets,
memories unconformities,
missing from sight.
flash to love, metamorphosed in time
growing, blending to crystals born.
layered finely touched in pain,
like grains lithify
ossify,
remain untouched, preserved
in stone jointed connections made.
meandering tears entrenched down-cutting
cheeks, bone exposed to roots.
once deposited feeling, now eroded to nothing,
blown by winds unforgiving
these days pass like eons.
Jun 15, 2013
Jun 15, 2013 at 4:13 AM UTC
Green chain fence on either side
Concrete path for bikes to glide
Rapids churning far below
****** Bridge is were we'd go
Spray can pictures on its span
'Ozzy' spelt in mangled plaid
'Iron Maiden' painted red
To ****** Bridge and then to bed
Tired laughing, crying fits
Flashing censored body bits
Gladiator crayfish fights
****** Bridge on summer nights
On this bridge all kids would go
To feel the sun and swim below
Now it stands all alone
To ****** Bridge I'll always know
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 12:21 AM UTC
There once was who a Man who fell into a Cave,
and although it was dark, he tried to be brave.
With no light which to guide him, and fear right beside him,
he tried to get out but his hopes were in vain.
Further into darkness this man would then wonder;
no knowledge that all of his efforts would plunder.
As the passage grew tighter, he wished to retire,
but brought forth all the courage his heart could then muster.
A roaring of rapids he heard up ahead;
still fighting the fight yet succumbing to dread.
Then the tunnel grew wider, his worry seemed lighter,
as he dreamed that he'd one day return to his bed.
As he climbed from the end of this funneling hole,
and stepped further in darkness he fell to below.
What felt like forever, was the length of a feather,
now this man had to wade in a water so cold.
He swam although blind, first left and then right,
then down and back up he tried with his might.
He felt trapped in a world, with no diamonds, nor pearls
till he scoured the wall and found a pinhole of light.
This man of great strength then took one last dive,
and low-and-behold a new passage did find.
He followed it through, away from this pool,
and came up in another yet barely alive.
He was freezing, and shaking, his head it was aching
from fright and unknown during this undertaking.
Yet this brand new room, was filled with a jewel;
a jewel of which this man had no mistaking.
It was filled with light of the same glorious day,
a hole in this cavern overhead did lay.
He tried climbing the wall, only down did he fall,
but this did not stop him or keep him at bay.
He tried once again to still make it out;
climbing and jumping, and thrusting, about.
Till he reached the top, but still did not stop,
until he lay on the grass, no longer with doubt.
The warmth of the sun encircled his body.
His soul intact, yet his head was still foggy.
Exhausted, befuddled, arrested, and muddled;
he began to walk back yet fell into a copy.
Of the same devilish cave he had once been,
and it was up to him, only him, to climb back out again.
Jul 23, 2013
Jul 23, 2013 at 7:43 PM UTC