Red balloons* litter the floor,
Out numbering the pure ones before,
What once was *white now
Discoloured
Violated
Shrouded
Float from view
Each a moment of life
As the balloons once white
Now no more,
For all is stained red
Crimson,
Droplets,
Dried
Upon white like a tear,
It slides down marking
Before greeting the floor,
Expelled air, ruptured by the
Violence,
Anger,
Death
Still lingers, an after image
Of the life that was here before,
Red balloons float leaving their imprint
Splatter effect upon floor & wall
Cold eyes stare seeing both
White
&
Red
Balloons
Clinging around this fallen life,
Where white once was now all
That floats is the stench of death
Red balloons huddle around,
Each carrying a moment with them
When life became death &
White was scarred by crimson,
Life is static, still, for death  now floats above the floor

Ruptured heart does not want to in this heed.
You've already gone so far away
and even echoes have ceased to return
my deserted screams .

I'm reduced to a trip to Tabula Rasa
and back with nothing, nothing in between.

And if my slate could be wiped pure and clean
you still to me would more mean.

Oh, what agony!          Oh, what pain!

Do you think you could forgive me
for letting you break my heart
again?

Lou Costello’s
bronze semblance
dipped and danced atop
his granite pedestal
spinning miasmatic tales
of enigmatic hope and
resplendent labor

“the sweet
unbounded
expectation of
hope once
surged down
this city’s streets”
... said Lou

"I was a self made man
until someone thought up
the idea to cast a bronze
caricature of me and
bolt it to this grand rock”

nostalgia
is the boldest form
of fiction
culling from the past
the things hoped for
in the now

“growing up
here
I clipped school,
played ball,
rolled drunks
and fought
nickel ante
prize fights
to get my
daily bread,
I literally
punched my
way out
of this town”

a smith smelts a
batch of liquid bronze
pouring molds full of
a fervent wish
a madman's delusion
a priestly promise
a Pollyannaish illusion?

baskets overflowed
gushing hope, offered
at the holy altars by
honorable workers

it was said that
a morsel of labor
could feed 5000
starved families
breeding hopes as large
as a half cup of water

hope
the size of a
mustard seed sparked
recovery of 1000 sick children
dying from the Asian Flu
at St. Joe's

hope
willed an end to war’s slaughter
which ironically was bad for
Paterson's war profiteers
forcing layoffs
sparking labor actions

hope
ignited conflagrations firing
the resurrection of dead industries
lately there is a lot of hope
circling this one

miracles spring
from the pronounced
lips of trembling hearts

the hopeful amassed
slogging forth on bloodied toes
along razor thin slices
of expectation
hoping to begin again
eager to build anew

new starts sometimes
grow old fast soon
hope expires
winging back home
on broken wings of
misspent labor

hoping for the snow to stop
a lump of coal to last
the labor of a budding crocus
rewarded, breaking through
the hard crust of winters end
blooms for a day then expires

hope is a beggars wish
gods give yearnings heft
prayers earnestly chanted
willing paradigm shifts

prayers of absolution
play the angles
calculating odds
of probabilistic mathematics
a sure thing long shot
the prayers of the
righteous availeth much

we hoped for jobs
we hoped for leisure
we hoped for love
we hoped for labor
we hoped for rest
we hoped for luck
we hoped for a life
wealth health blest

laughing at our follies
crying over defeats
our city a tragic star
a comedy of schemes

our
hope and labor
is the keystone of
our self construction
cornerstone of
a grand city’s edifice
its negation our
deconstruction

tragedy and comedy
invested and spent
falling and laughing
foibles and faith

belief trumps evidence
happenstance slays surety
horror and beauty
compose a life's mural
nothing happens
by mistake

learning and ignorance
fate and chance
the risk of randomness
expiration dates arrive fast

predetermination a bold
conviction, suspicion,
intention a splendid  
kismet  

banality becomes
sublime  
laughter is ******

...the mystery is in
the loam... says WCW
...the finished product
is what I’m after...

“what the
**** are you
doing here?"
the bronzed Louis
gagged

"Hey Abbott
look at these clowns
in the yellow plastic
garbage bags!

bobbing in a sea of
midnight mist

a posse of
neon clowns
donning glad bags
on the most dismal
night of the year

twinkling under the
gloom of my playgrounds
faltering streetlamps

“twinkling targets
easily tracked,
a trained eye,
a steady hand
could pick you off
at a thousand paces
what gives?

“what the **** are
you doing here?

“what the **** am I doin
here for that matter?”

“the second question
is easy to answer,

“I’m Paterson’s
finest son....

...“Wherever he is tonight, I want him to hear me," and went on with the show. No one in the audience knew of the death until after the show when Bud Abbott explained the events of the day, and how the phrase "The show must go on" had been epitomized by Lou that night....

"Mr. Bacciagalupe
he use to live on
Cianci Street

“who’s on first?
what’s on second?
I don’t know is on third?
was a riddle one recited
to get into his speak

“his Ginnie Red was legendary
and no one was ever known to
die from drinking his bathtub gin”

the old world ways
are made new
by the arrival of
new old worlds
supplanting old Italiano

“where is all the goodwill capital
we invested in this place?”

successive generations
thought it best to export
the capital of the
expired generations
elsewhere

it was ferried
across the river,
crossed the
city boundaries,
leaving for Wayne
and the fairer lawns
of Wyckoff and the
greener grasses of
Franklin Lakes

all the old wise guys
died off or were sentenced
to life by their children,
some still doin time in
old age homes in
Rockaway

all the sport clubs
boarded up but their spirit
lingers like an espresso
ring on a post slurp
demitasse cup

“hell my body is buried
in Hollywood but here
I am, holding court in
Costello Park
talking with you
knuckleheads
a baseball bat
my royal scepter
a brown derby
my crown, truly a
King of Nothing,
Lord of All

“the soul of my city is
eternal,  like the comedy
of tragedy or is it
tragic comic?

“here I remain
omnipresent,
spinning about
frozen forever
in a magnificent
bronze age,
erected to my likeness
beholding me
to stand witness
to this litter strewn park
decorated with corrugated
Big Mac boxes, plastic
Big Gulp tops and discarded
rubbers bagging the ****
of this cities arrested
citizenry”

never actualized
never naturalized
citizenship denied
at the commencement
of ejaculatory flows
of joy

unfulfilled spirit
of citizenship
never to experience
the splendor
of yesterday’s
modernist
metropolis and
Lou’s stand up
routines

“look at that John
over there, that guy
wheezing like a
ruptured blacksmith’s
billow, pounding away
laboring to get off

“the poor little
******* just hopes it
will end soon

it does
**** he’s done

I” knew that guys
grandfather,
getting off
runs in the family
and remains one
of the few things
that draws the progeny back
to the old neighborhood

“you can still glimpse
snippets of the old ways
rising in new ways

“an Armenian
sports club
around the corner
is a new
incarnation of
the old Neapolitan
social clubs that
once demarcated the
neighborhoods

“these days
great grandsons
of once proud
Sons of Italy
come back to the
old neighborhoods
begging for hand-jobs
from crack ******

“welcome to my
burlesque world

“since the Gumbas
moved to Franklin Lakes
the wannabe wise guys
became ***** whipped
dumb *****
making ***** of
themselves with
their painted ****-job
Jersey Housewives

“they ***** their families
out for a bit parts on
MTV and a free lunch
at the Brownstone

“their grandfathers
labored long hours
to assure the well being
of their families in the expectant
hope of a better shot at life
but the children squandered
the hard earned bequest lovingly
bequeathed by reverent forebears

“in the wee hours
one can sometimes hear
a weeping chorus
of concrete Madonnas
musing melodious lullabies
to the sleeping
Lombard's lying
in uneasy repose at
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery

“they twist in their graves
dreaming of a last dance with the
Lady of Unending Sorrows
at weddings for unrepentant
wayward daughters and prodigal sons

“its small
recompense for a
lifetime of an
honest day’s work”

the dashed hope
of squandered labor
begets a city of ruin”

at the
parks northern corner
the Salvation Army’s
rumbling bivouac rests
in a dreamless sleep
its residents
patiently waiting to
inherit this city
abandoned by
nuevo wise guys

this tragedy
is all comedy
the comedic hope
of tragic labor
buried snoring
the millenniums away
awaiting resurrection
day

Lou was getting ******...
“get outta my park

“the artists
in the rehabbed
factories across
the street
are resting

“nothing much
going on there

“if you're hoping
to find some
homeless slogs
head over to the river
you should find some there”....

Music Selection:
Frank Sinatra, High Hopes

jbm
Oakland
3/26/13

Most urgent:
First we debase this worthless currency,
To usher in impending new world order
Imprisoning the globe
Then bathed in ignorance
(Fluoridation* retarding cognitive development)

More the merrier but I transcend borders
because my mind has no barriers
Spinning diction with volatile volition
Enchanting your brain into submission

A cheese-grater to the pineal gland
Inhibiting ability to dream,
Impassioned creativity &
inquisitiveness at an impasse,
Expertly contrasting
Inquisition with inability to produce
dimethyltriptamine
Because the pacified sheep
can't sleep away their passiveness
Mass devastation for the kids & family!

Slam it down with a gra(in/m) of (bath) salt
Better yet, sugar and McDonald's
Let Ronald wash your mind in city water
Dang, there's nothing outrageous
about meandering naked
Lusting to eating someone's face
these days, is there?
(Passed out on the asphalt)

Who bares the fault,
Who cares the most?
I know you planned it Mr. President,
take your nuclear launch codes
Atop your throne with your Zionist cohorts
Fake a breath, then flip the switch
Now you am become Death
3.  
2.  
1...
Default the planet

Where's your ******* conviction?
Digest my words and eat your fat *** to death Amerika

Mind your fate
The Devil's gates
Just a step away

So take the chip beneath skin
6 6 6
Pick up sticks,
Gather a whole bundle
& Light yourself on fire (******)

Crackpot conspiracy
How can you not see
Our country's interests inherently
sit in the pockets of Nazis?

Don't even get me started on television;
hypnotized sheep
mass-media gives me aneurysms
Is the Lord truly your shepherd
or do you always stumble so blindly?

Military-Industrial-Machine
Gobbling resources at breakneck speed
CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME
FAT CAPITALIST PIGS!!
You make me feel like vomiting.

Simply waiting for the bomb
to come bump uglies with the ***** of Babylon

NOW WATCH ME GET
~ULTRASONIC~
AS I DROP
ATOMIC ELBOWS
FROM THE TOP ROPE
TO THE THROAT
IN HOPES YOU CHOKE

Leaves a bad taste in your mouth,
did I tell a ***** joke?
(Haha-ha)
GARGLE SOAP *****,
YOUR LIFE'S HOPELESS

If you like beer & NASCAR gimme a hell yeah!*  (hell yeah!)
If you like bacon & pole-dancing gimme a hell yeah!

**** THIS REPUBLIC
DYSTOPIAN,
FLOWING WITH
NECRO-DESPOTISM
A COY ACT OF VENTRILOQUISM,
ON THE WORLD'S STAGE

Tangled like a marionette in its strings,
An insect in spiderwebs
Festering infection
Just keep using band-aids ;)

Take these cocktails
of famine, death, pestilence + plague
Questionably mixed with a little apathy
and self-delusion it's all the rage

The miasma of death
Clung and hung to their silhouettes
like cigarettes
The hands of the clock
tick-tocking away the seconds toward oblivion
In which I carry, reckless abandonment

*insert some wrath of God,
explosions of nuclear & biblical proportions,
then apportion some cataclysm
Sit back,
Listen to the wailing screams of panicking children
******* lay waste to this rock already,
this organic prison
And each and every organism
that dwells within it's ecosystems

All this to bring
A radical new utopia
not for you & me
but them, the Elite
and their heathen families

Behold a new dawn;
On the verge of 100% synthetic conversion
Mind, body, & soul as pawns
Data corrupted, perverted by total divergence
Illusion of free-will ruptured and gushing,
until microscopic then atrophied

Misanthropic singularity
Quantum computing
and nanotechnology
Existentially creating cyborg zombies
& Making gods rise from machines
Kinda deus ex machina style,
But nothing Isaac Asimov could machinate even in his wildest dreams

To me, a fitting end to humanity
The Great White Ape silently weeps

a future promise
a ******* like bundled gym socks
in stuffed blue jeans

a future threat
a shriveled phallus wrinkled obsolete

she remembered fondly
being beaten drum chatter
and seized like slow roasted
fall off the bone pulled pork
****** raggedy Ann
catapulted beyond Euboean heavens
ravaging scrotums Gordian ******
with her wild fiendish mouth
drinking a river of
haloed golden showers
spit and ****
in a runaway hot house of glistening pink
buttery spires
engorging her macerated orifices

half eaten radish
chocking on hordes
of big do do *****
a ****** face; cross eyed
Babylon abalone
bashed Ashly mashed
begging for
a face full of swinging *****
like caped chandeliers
trotting faint giggles
in a constellation
of ruptured arteries
and thick sparked ****

on her knees
milk glitter faced
scared with happiness
she counted one smiling bruise at a time

her badge of calamities
black and blue silhouettes
grinning invitations like party favors
without a crease of shame

her skin rapturous
spackled patchworks
bled like torrential fountains summer tide
while every body had  fizzy red ice phlebotomies
and steamed through her drooling tumble pie

lust ***** totem
house of winding labyrinths
honey pumped transfusion
flush on blush
opera of tangled limbs
red pulse wedding flowers
slick ***** palace
blood tongued orchard
caressing knotted mooned
**** spill

how many ways may i undo you ...
each sublime
i crave your vermilion waters
copper gilded plush
falling to my hungry naked mouth
drug euphoria
drooling ***** toy
as i stroke your ankles
with tender fingers
and brush your delicate feet with my lips
before i lift you
floating girl
and you lose yourself
thanking God
for the inconceivable pleasure
of unbearable pain
as you are split and ruptured open
oh pink flowers splashing
in a stained tub
of
blood like a blotter

sanguine perfume
mouth melting kisses
heaping *****'s detonations
adorations petition

am i not vulturous
holding you in my warm arms
while i whisper in the caverns of your hollow breath
that you mean the world to me

i drink rain storming from torrid gates howling
from your cleaved ******* and unfurled belly
your eyes
moons trembling
immersed in your fathomless yawning soul
as you take your last breaths

tell me baby
is it tender cruel
are angels kissing you yet
are you caressed by powder pearlescent clouds
are you butter on the lips of God
while dark curtains flutter and shut
while i weep and convulse
in heaping waves of ecstasy

there is only you
like
heavens  thunder

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

if I stay.
decisions to take, make up my mind. again.
end of this story from my point of view.

dying is easy, living is hard. guess I have to live like that?
scream, desire to ****, emotions to not feel.

If I stay, my mind is on replay.
remembering everything before my swollen eyes
with broken limb, collapsed lung, ruptured spleen
life I lived, people I hugged, music I played
lips I kiss, brother I start to miss
parents I was rise.

Enduring agony is too painful.
don't give up! why he doesn't stop to talk?
love never dies, it never goes away.
I don't want to hear what he has to say.
please Adam, go away.

sick body, with broken heart, wondering:
where it will be the place for love?
I don't want to wake up in a world where I don't belong.

If I stay** has a lot to say
certain ideas and themes about life itself,
beautiful family life, life near a best friend,
life with a boyfriend and not at least
life with joy and music.

later he will ask himself
where she went?
and all I will say:
I choose to live this way,
far away from my former life. which ended in that day.

fragile heart she lay ruptured in my lounge chair
grey faced i mumble a few parting words over her
before i lay out the finest bone china
all the makings of tea and biscuits
all the fixings of ******
with the sounds of the snapping of necks
sharp wet sound fresh on the air
she was here to mourn her lover-boy
gone astray
i was here to see the deed done

i was the grey faced hangman
come to get his pennys
in my song you can hear the rope snap
in my heart you can feel the fall from the gallows
and my hangman's noose swinging in breeze
has its own peculiar creaking sound that sounds
like love to me
i was the grey faced hangman
that knows no sympathy
come now you wicked ones
sing my song with me

grey faced i lead the procession
up the graveyard road
the overgrown and thick summer feel to it
claws at the senses
but i keep walking stiffly
with the sound
of snapping necks ringing in my ears
its my song

he had cried like a child as they carried him to the gallows
he had begged and wailed
but my hangman's noose had claimed him
cold comfort awaits
to the tomb they cried out with joy
to the tomb with the scoundrel
while she lay weeping her lost lover-boy
and while grey faced i cleansed the world
of scoundrels like him
while grey faced i silently mourned
for i had run out of rope

I didn't know her
In the coming hours and days I will
I will know of her travels her dreams
Her passions, her brother her, sisters
Her mother, her father and her best friend
Her boss her colleagues.
I will meet you all,
In turn

You see I don't know her
Though now I'm her only counsel
An honoury counsel if you will
A go between, an artist in some ways
I will paint her picture
I will paint it without compromise
It will be a "still" life not impressions
I will give it my all
I always do

We met only a few hrs ago
The bright sunlight in your flowing hair
Eyes fixed in a warm gaze
A smile, yes a smile
Perfect teeth and jaw
Lips the envy of any model
I never heard your voice
Just your last lost breath
Gone now

I don't know you
Yet now your laid bare before me
In the bright light it seems irreverent
You clothes gone your body cold
Why so young, why on a beautiful morning
Why at all

To work now
The attendant comments "You alone?" he is here
As the pathologist enters my colleague arrives
All here ready to go, and yet each of us I swear pauses
Is it respect for her or shock
So young

I know now
I mean I know the cause of death
I've scribbled dozens of post mortems
As has my exhibits officer, shes the best
The drink drivers, the druged the racers
The limbless the headless biker
All have a story, a reason when flesh divided
***** by ***** the answer presents
This time no different a ruptured aorta
Yet different

Ok done
My notes go to be transcribed
We wash, dress. Hungry? Yeah ok
The pathologist joins us for breakfast
He jokes about a fry up "it will be the death of us"
We eat on, it's dealing with it I guess
A last supper for them in a way
A black closure

The picture? Oh yes
Death by rapid declaration. Not a pretty one
One side perfection the other bones exposed
None of them will see that.
The attendant is a seamstress a consummate professional
They will see a friend a daughter a colleague
Not what we see or how we answer their questions
So many questions

I now know more
An amazing daughter, fabulous friend
And a lost lover who worked late
Partied early but didn't drink
Emotional after a romantic split
Fatigued tired out with colleagues
Tieing one on to forget. How then?
You drove home In the mornings sunlight
Radio on you went a little fast only forty two
Miles per hour that is.
At thirty you may have survived
But not today

Now goodbye
The coroner's verdict accidental death
Tired, fatigued you simply fell asleep
Drifted and weaved, you couldn't see his Uturn
You never saw anything again
It was your turn, my job is done
No other to blame all the canvas used
The full picture painted
I never knew you, yet think of you often
Some you simply don't forget
The needless
The good
The honest
Sleep now