A script for birth - an new revival,
libelled breaks, swollen structure,
a cupboard full of accidentals,
daubs this paragon with stucco:

Glowsticks prance on leveled stair,
canvas origami pads Negeb:
Counterculture's been declared!
'Metropolis' left in riverbed.

A crypt where all is fairly loose;
—deepened, glottal, breathened, size—
Saddled with this torment, you!
—ugly glamour pangyrized—

There's a lot more to fashion,
and a lot more, to forge;
Nothing keeps me in *******,
that would be too awkward.

And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide:
and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold …
GENESIS 24:63*

You remember, oh Isaac, the face of the bride

From the Genesis foothills of dreaming’s beginning

Arriving with dusk as the sunset was bringing

The camel-bells music, the end of the ride?

The nomadic return of a hope that had died

Like a riverbed flooding and suddenly greening

A promise fulfilled, flowing into the evening

The song and the rhythm of life undenied…

I remember the landscapes, the names, the dark faces

A golden Havilah of biblical places

the handclapping chants overcoding a mystery.

Timeless recurrence; eternity imminent

Israelite graves I beheld on that continent;

Songs of Rebecca: the morning of history.

have you ever felt a home in your bones?
safety in the way it cushions the weight of your moaning head
upon falling at it's thresholds
you want to know what tender feelings
you hold in safe places
but they
never question the way your severed vessel
still toes the shoreline,
roaming the foam licking at the crests
of crescent moons left in the remnants of crab shells
pressed into particle upon particle of scruples
unspoken in the weeks that forgot you

they rush ahead

and you stand stock stuck, still mustering
the guts of every animal they left on the beach
in the road, and you too leave them
for fear of that lethal touch
mistaking broken shards of beer bottles
for sea glass, some days you tried to remember
and forgot

they are savages
the agile hunger pains
gnaw at the bandages

but you still love, in nausea,
ad naseam, you study them, reverential
try to reference their satiation with fondness
still sunken in repugnance for your own likeness

you collect them like passengers
pieces of you and worlds unto their own kind
he says you are two of a kind
you think not, because he is one

each thrown to the riverbed below
becoming rocks filling up the moat
cranking down the drawbridge
over a river filled with sea glass
the true form of whom you have settled with
knowing you may never know

and in forgiveness you live with
the sickness of knowing nothing
and the sentience of understanding everything
and when you stand by the water
they tell you that your eyes have a brilliant glow
and you let them find you stunning
in a memory upon a time ago
you conceal yourself in the
minds of many

while the solecism in his praise
still rings heavy in your throat
two thousand
nine hundred
and sixty eight
miles away
from home

no,

i don't feel beautiful
but i feel dangerously effective

Sent: Wednesday, Mar. 23rd, 2016. 8:35 a.m.*

I thought of you for the first time today in
3 years, and I think
you know why.
That song about the River
that always brings me back to
your palms.
Winter's cracked mine to ruin,
ancient in its destruction, but
in some ways
I can see my veins
without consequence.
I've always been fascinated with
currents.

Vermont is too far from Chicago.
But probably a little closer to you,
somewhere off in the cheek of a mountain,
or the lips of a brook trout.
I've haven't eaten fish since you died;
the day after your funeral,
I bought a book on
reincarnation.

You are more migration
than memory.
I used to say I saw Mississippi in your eyes.
Nose as delta.
Mouth made of sea.
I hope you're still swimming,
with broad shoulders as fins,
and hands probing the riverbed, softly,
searching for fossils.

King wing nut fancied himself a fashion savant. No one was ballsy enough to tell him "you caahnt".
                                               He sewed a nice shirt from riverbed dirt.
                                              
"Wonderful sire was the obliging blurt.
                                               He stitched a cocked hat made from rooster
                                               Fat.

"Mahvelous sire was the rat a tat tat.

                                              He sewed wooden trousers
                                              to so many wowsers !!!

                                              His stockings were crafted from gobbledygook.

Superlative sire!! and "Oh goodness look"

                                              The Vapid sot laid down on a cot for a nap.
                                               He woke at two,recharged an refreshed.
                                              
He stripped down to the skin and proceeded to sew a suit from the thinnest of air.
He stepped to his throne from the twilight zone.
bemused and with hardly a care.
                                              What say ye now said the simplified oaf.

                                              All eyes drifted skyward as he strutted about.
                                              to applause and stifled guffaws.

"Your majesty has outdone himself".
"Leave the rest of your clothes in the closets and shelves.

                                              Nothing more needs be said.
                                              Gassed up and content with an over-sized head.

His long fingers clenched into their palms
His dark eyes were black with intent
Every elongated pause was an intricate harmony
gracefully accompanying the words
that tumbled from his cracked lips
He heightened himself and leaned in earnestly
Feverish want spilling into his rich voice
revealing the fear that had bloomed in his ribcage over the years
Fear that snaked up his throat and caught there
restricting his temperament
Fear that rose from knowledge of failure

Failure indeed lurked sickeningly
In the frosty air
In the purple autumn shadows
In the smell of hot cement
In the satiny pearl petals of the dogwood his mother had planted

He was a single smooth stone in an endless riverbed
Shaped by
the restlessness that flooded him
the desire that washed over him
the nostalgia that swept around him

Frantic to break out of the flow that was accepted by the crowds
Desperate for the peace that surpasses understanding

And in that moment
his finite experience and crooked path
meant less to her than the last of the cigarette she proceeded to flick into the breeze
Outweighed by her faith in the lighthearted boy trapped inside this troubled man's body

My nerves are dry reeds.
They cough his name in the lightest breeze,
they rub together.

Sparks or stars in the hot night,
we crackle like lightning along the riverbed.

The sun casts her jealous eyes down,
she turns the river to cracked clay,
and the wheat dries and dies in the fields.

She will starve us out. No haystacks
lining the paths home, the animals
have all moved on.

Our love is an empty barn,
with dust rising in shafts towards the light.

If the time ever comes
when human touch
is taken from you

(because you are
sick or in solitary
or castaway or...)

you will understand
how much
you need it:

your skin will ache
as a riverbed
cracks

for
want
of rain;

you will never take it
for granted
again

Scene:
The Number Ten, Wednesday Night,
Going over the Central Avenue Bridge,
Passes four MPD cars, one with a boat attached;
Five men in blue uniform huddle together, arms crossed, casually speak into shoulder mounted radios.
As their faces illuminate, blue shadows red highlights,
The passengers erupt in an echoing chorus:
     "Jump?"
          "Jump."

One little girl, thick braids framing innocent curiosity:
     "Jump?"
Her father, hesitating:
     "Sometimes the world is too much for one person."

     "Jump." "Jump."
The refrain continues the expanse of the bridge,
But has faded to no more than a whisper by the University Avenue Stoplight,
Escaped from your chapped lips:
     "j u m p."

Scene:
Two years prior,
You, finding yourself twelve hundred miles from home,
Face the Hudson River.
The surface of the water such a bright blue
But you can't see the riverbed underneath;
Nothing but a waist-high stone wall between you and discovering
Just how deep the bottom is.
Smoke a few more cigarettes while you keep asking yourself,
     "Jump?"
Two weeks later,
Fly back home, stand on the Snelling Avenue bridge looking over the train yard.
Here, it would be messy.
Here, you wouldn't disappear.
Here, you would create something far more beautiful in your death than you could ever be in life,
Organs splayed out across the tracks like a brand new ******* painting.
Take a picture on your phone,
Remind yourself of your canvas, save it for later.
You aren't quite ready to jump.

When I whisper in your ear your cheeks become red
Your sparkling eyes tell me with a taste to go ahead
Precious pearls are always found my love in riverbed
Most of love emotions are communicated just unsaid

My beautiful queen of world let me see you in detail
Being a sincere lover,my love I never ever want to fail
Breeze plays with your vale let my love chance to avail
Beauty takes over love and love is just ready to prevail

My sweetheart my love my heartbeat is ready to serve
You are so alluring and so enchanting with every curve
With your lovely graces, style and my wonderful verve
What a magical glance what I observe I don not deserve

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow

Kneel at that river bend

in supplication

in silent meditation

and hold fast to the quiet whisper that say

Drink

between heartbeats

in a slow lazy way

so that it curls around you



but you look at the water

and your hands are frozen

it is not clean



maybe there is another river

or faster moving water



you rise from the riverbed

you are afraid

of the water

of the current

you can swim

but you do not know if you can stand

at the riverbed


the current is fast and unforgiving

it moves around you

through you



it does not touch you



the river moves forward

rushing

turning

roiling



it will drown you



Kneel

there is another river

there is faster moving water



but still

Kneel

**Drink

Don't call yourself a river
- it evaporates leaving a stony riverbed fish skeletons behind
Don't call yourself a rock
- it is worn away with time into fragments, smoothed planes
Don't call yourself the sun
- get too close and burn
Don't deem yourself the night sky full of stars
- they are ancient echoes vibrating with radiation
Comparing yourself with pens, knives
- mere inanimate tools; their meaning only lies in their use

Call yourself human
Feel the imperfection settle into your bones
and own your identity
Looking for faint romantic descriptions in
non-living objects
is irony
don't you see?
This body of yours will decay
Bit by bit every part will fail you
Feel the blood in your veins, wearing away your vessels
Growing stronger, then weaker
You were meant to be embraced from the day you were born,
child of nature
You are the present, the now
Just as ephemeral
You are human- breathing in and out
Your purpose is always clouded

i think I want to go to sleep.
Drifting, Drifting,
Beautifly.
Softly.
Like nobody would even wake me again.
Like I would never wake again.
That's what I want.
I beg you.
Drift me to sleep, And never wake me.
Never.
To fly away, Slowly, Softly, Just bouncing on the waves of time
That's what I want.
I don't think they can feel anymore. I think they've come too far for that.
I guess I'll never know, because today, today is the day I drift myself off and never wake.
I like to think
that I might be remembered for something other than this.
That I might be remembered for my art.
Or the way I smiled at the birds.
But I know they won't remember.
They'll just say they're sorry.
They'll just say they wished they'd done something.
But that's a lie. I'd rather just drift away then believe that.
I pray to drift me away softly, Boucing on the riverbed.
I hope nobody ever finds me, I don't want to be found.
I want to be hidden away in the folds of the earth, to stay buried and blanketed by the world.
Without a distrupion in sight, I want to lay, covered by sound and time.
But I can't want anymore. And I won't want anymore.
It's time to do.
I think I want it to be beautiful.
I want to jump off a cliff, and for that one moment, to be suspended in time, freefalling but really not falling at all.
Soaring.  
Above it all, Above emotion and conciousness.
I just want to float in time, So they all forget about me.
So I can stay forever blanketed in the world's folds.
Just me, and whatever is on the other side.
Just promise you won't forget me.
Promise.

a satellite dish on the roof
of my grandfather's shed
sings to the stars

who will provide the countermelody?

i took you to a place on the beach
that my dad took me as a boy
to share these sweet things with you

it all means something.

there is a waterfall in the woods
in northwest indiana
where once the river ran so dry
you could look down into the riverbed
and see the roots of trees
gasping, begging for the water's return

we stood in the rain the next day
as the wind whipped petals
off the branches of the maple trees
and in the downburst
i fell so deeply love with you

will you sing with me?

there is no use in weeping
over things left unsaid
if they were better off
on the radio waves
bouncing down to the satellite
into the screen inside your head
to replay the crescendo to failure
in the moments before collapse

Find me as moon glides full
Crowning at the gateway of worlds
Eclipsed where creatures lurk.
I wade through dense thickets,
Unscathed and ethereal,
Self waxes and wanes
Until silted water
Runs clear.
Find me in a starlit riverbed,
Strewn on silent shores
Softened by darkness,
Aglow at first light where
Bright bodies camouflage
Constellations of thought and
Winking eyes.
Find me held, stocked on a shelf
In a catalogue of dreamscapes,
Snow globes, unknown worlds.
Find me in moments
Ripe with beauty,
A juicy morsel that feeds
Ancestors who linger and long for
Tastes of modern blood.
Find me traversing pages,
A neatly arranged
Expansion of a perennial
Universe within.

I stand on the beach,
toes dug deep into the sand.
The skyline turns fuschia...
Then neon bubblegum,
Then fades to blush pink...
The bones of our past
Gather on the shore
Like stones on a riverbed.
I cry.
The wind replies.
She says, "Dream."
"Sleep with moon,
Dance with the stars,
Rise with the Sun."
I hold my breath
and lose consciousness.
Your voice guides me
through my darkness.
I wait.
The Universe replies.
He says,"Be quiet."
"I will provide."
I sigh.
And all is well with the World.

words go dry
before they leave the mouth
the will to write has gone
the stories have left me
the minds distract
the heart, intact
no emotional ups or downs
no feverish laughs
no sobbing sounds
time finally learned to freeze
and the words go dry
in the riverbed of thought
a desert landscape
until a monsoon comes again
to drown it
in new metaphors

The rock lies forgotten under a
crescent moon, nestled in the
riverbed where dreams and
smiles flow and splash
against the bank

Glanced by toes
and dogs' noses
transitory contact

It has no name
but in its face is a wisdom
one can only find where
time changes nothing.

"Nou wie is jy?"
"Ouma, my naam is Siyasanga,
Ek is jou dogter Lalie se seun"
"My Lalie, sy wat in Suid Afrika bly?"
"Ja ouma, ek het vir ouma kom keur"

I watch on as the spark of recognition lights up her eyes
Happiness flowers through the creases on her face like fresh rain through a Namib riverbed 
Her brow furrows as if trying to keep this revelation prisoner
The Sun continues its long journey across the sky
Her brow relaxes, and. . . . .

"Hello virtel my, my kind,
Wie is jy?"
"My naam is Siyasanga Ouma,
Ek is ouma se klien kind.
My ma se naam is Lalie"
"Lalie, sy is my dogter wat in Suid Afrika bly"
"Dis reg ouma, ek het vir ouma kom keur"

The spark returns
The fresh rain flows
The love warms my soul as we embrace
The Sun once more takes flight

Taking respite from the heat
I watch as she shuffles and shimmies and shuffles once more down the corridor
To the foot of the bare bed I've made my haven
Words like spun silk spill from her lips as she asks
"May I sit here my child?
"Ja my ouma, ouma hoef nie vra nie"
She shuffles and shimmies and sits down to read
What a beautiful life affair she has with words,
Even those from a magazine,
Whose pages danced that day at her touch
A letter whose ink for 2 decades laid dry
The name of the man she loved preserved in his evergreen book
Both retrieved from the vault that was her purse
Oh how she loved those words, and they loved her
She turns her head to look at me
With that spark in her eye
"Jy is my Lalie se seun"
I smile, my face awash with fresh rain
"Ja ouma, ek het vir ouma kom kuier"

I want your dreams
& I desire to taste
the saline that fills
the riverbed
of your pretty spine.

For you,
you Dear Woman,
are the finest river
I have ever seen
& the contours
of your
beautiful countryside,
I want to follow.

The soul has as its sextant the ribs opened wide,
The heart its compass in fluid circuitous diatribe,
When each to zone the geometry of Greek sky  
With its powdery fabulism of centaurs and jars
From Aesop’s wine of words, the untimeliness
Of sundials to Charybdis’s bloom of giant watery eyes.

To know oceans by the dry riverbed of my pulse,
To scale only as high as the sparrow’s tomb of my heart.

Mourning dove chorus
Light soaks through petals
Revealing mazing veins

Softened riverbed
Replenished and fermented
Or so was whispered then

Bluesy morning drizzle
Opens mouths for dewdrops
The basin overflows

Mirror bears second moon
First tide does not abide
Both sink in metallic sand

Bellow thunder! Shudder ground!
Percussion ends discussion.

Lightning gaze penetrates and what was green is browned.

Sails sink for ascending sun.
Flesh breathes, "Shelter, please,"
But the earth bleeds barren dust.

Seeds surge through soil now and then.
Ebb and flow of rocks and roots.
Fruit snaps from wilted stem.

Everyone has a tell
     an insignificant twitch
     a slight change in demeanor
     a subtle physical distortion

Two dime-sized octagonal flaws
    flushed pink
appear just southeast  of my left eye
after the water ceases to flow
    leaving only a riverbed
    salt
    in its wake

Pulled together
Faking poise
    and doing it well
Those two **** dime-sized octagonal flaws
give me away.

the stubborn silence of mountains.

You are earthen. I am fluid.

As my soft May rain
kisses the willow's leaves
before falling into your warm soil,
the sweet breath of spring
and new beginnings soothes our tired, wintry pains.

The water feeds the root.

My head upon your chest,
a cloud filled lake on a patient mountain.

Memories of our moments,
rocks on a riverbed,
worn smooth and beautiful by time and silt.

Your lava burns a path,
a fertile home
where future fields of wheat will see no tears,
before finally,
with a fiery sigh,
you come to rest in the salt of my ocean.

The ancient root drinks the timeless water.

The mountains nap. The oceans breathe.

A moment,
a look,
a hand on a leg becomes
a small stone of your love
skipped once,
twice,
threefourfive times
before settling to the bottom
among a thousand other memories
polished smooth.

The willow branches caress the shore.
The lake rests in the mountains embrace.
Rain and roots, earthworms.

At last, at last.

Unbroken damsel of the water's edge,
poised as if she were living.
Weren't you crafted from gold, in the riverbed?

Never such a shining thing was born of mud:
Mirages for wings and clockwork for blood.

How fast did the moving hands that
tolled her final minute tick?
What eternal, turning clock
knew the second her wing-beats stopped?
And where’s the scratch that shows the place
death touched her glassy face?

She might have been a broach or pin
with diamonds on her silver skin,
who never had life in her hinges and bolts.

But there she lies
with twinkling compound eyes -