"travelogue" poems
That workaholic lady who's always on call,
keeping up with the market fall.
That newly married lady with chunky red bangles,
returning to her father's big castles.
That person who's scared to get lapse,
so stays active on the google maps.
That person who swings like a kid at the back door,
Or the one who perform calisthenics on an empty floor.
That next door girl with a red lipstick,
flicking her shinny hair & gossiping with her clique,
That dreamer gazing outside the window,
That overworked soul dozing on his elbow.
That 21st century kid,
listening to Eminem & playing video games.
Or That 90’s kid,
listening to Jenga Boys & playing outdoor games.
That banker with a big fat stomach,
filled with his beautiful wife’s love.
That lady who eats like a thief,
in her big fat bag hiding a beef.
That old man who can’t stand Bombay's winding turns.
That granny spotting & criticing every fashion trends.
That man who has Raju Rastogi’s concerns,
thinking & chanting for earns & returns.
Those kids who believe their job is to fill the voids in a battlefield,
in the still crowd surpassing like electrons into a magnetic field.
That lady sitting under cold seat like a glacial,
than standing with 7kgs in a crowded central,
& tryna stay sane listening to George Michael.
That geek who switchs from Linkedin to Arjun Reddy,
when the masses flee into the scenery.
That trader crunching numbers so rapidly,
when the stock prices go down hourly.
That person on the last seat,
diagressing from work & gazing around,
soaking in her pashmina, with a career newfound.
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 1:35 AM UTC
#(a travelogue)
He stared down through
the unbroken silence
lapping the shoreline
Water skippers dart around
the rocks and windfall driftwood
settled juxtaposed in cattail reeds
and emerging broadleaf sprouts
A petrified heartwood timber
lie fallow waiting bare barked,
hushed like a pining lover’s
timeworn love seat,
rubbed smooth as
the crystalline waters
of half-moon lake
Lingering for a while ―
like a hidden stalker,
a perched wildcat waiting
for the full moon’s
swooning spell to saturate
the thickening dusk quietude;
arousing the urgent
call of the wild —
exhaled from the held breath
of the wilderness nocturne
on half-moon lake
The stillness was scattered
with the soft downy hairs
of the sleeping cattails, and
the newly shed catkins
a spring gust bestrewed
from a tall resin birch tree
nigh the Sitka willows
He sat quietly ...
time out of mind ―
tossing his eyes up into the sky;
taking the time to read the stars ―
catching them each again
as they fell into his gentle hands,
to show him who he was
Seeing their sparkly tracers
trail-out above the cattails,
from a distance
they resembled falling stars
unable to perceive their own renaissance ―
plashing lightly upon the still-water
on half-moon lake
A lone shadow glides stealthily
near mid-tarn,.. swimming
enchantingly with the grace
of a blackswan
Appearing to glance shoreward
at the glowing low stars
rise and fall, as his eyes
twinkled skyward over
the moonlit lagoon ―
heavenward of its moonlit ballet;
the lone sleek dark shadow
slipping through
a faint circular ripple
stirring the smooth as glass waters ―
disappearing like a fleeting moment
waning deep aneath
a subtle silent wake.
When all the clear lines blurred,
he knew it had been so long ...
but hearken !
… an interceding
long drawn out wail
echoed a feral ache
across the stillness,
breaking the silence ―
as the shadow reappeared;
his tears surrendered
to the undulating call of the wild;
he felt the spirit of the sole Loon,
as black and white
as the moonlit night,
stir deeply in his wanting heart ―
lay bare the silence
in lengthy yodeled psalms
to the god of the moon
Diving down deep yet again,
keeping the light he’d been given,
vanishing into the lifespring
sanctuary of half-moon lake
harlon rivers ... May 2018
travelogue: 4 of some more
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 2:36 PM UTC
You are glancing out of the window
Taking a look at nature's creation
Wisps of your hair gently stroking your face
Feeling a cold wave against you
Walking slowly amidst the misty clouds
The endless curves of the mighty mountain
Spinning your head around
Deep down there lies deathly valleys
Defining life beyond explanation
All you can see is plush green colour
Ranging from warm to tender
While I travel,I try not to grasp at people
By their devotion towards work
An independent river flows curvily to reach its destination
Given much ore of its freedom
Captivating nature in just one go isn't enough
You have to soak in as much as possible
Sure one becomes perplexed at the first sight of the beautiful sunrise
And I bet the day couldn't get that better otherwise
The air had its own charm,its own charisma
While the chants and prayers of monks completed the atmosphere
I smile as I currently jot this poem down
Words fail to express my happiness crown
I say to myself-" This isn't imagination,This is reality"
Confused, are you reader?
My heart beats and quenches for the aroma of green tea leaves
Hmm,I'll miss this heaven on earth,
This place,these people,their lives,their struggles
Their homeland.
Their Birthplace.
So this is my travelogue
And currently you were into my experience
My "Darjeeling Experience"
And not a dream,or a part of paper
Cause its far more than your mere imagination.
Mar 13, 2015
Mar 13, 2015 at 5:36 AM UTC
mittens on the forepaws of a dead wolf.
one must be serious
about art
but also
flirty.
I will raise you as my own.
I will make two parts
of your mother’s
passing.
she will live in childbirth.
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 12:19 PM UTC
The Doctor has a Sense of Humor!
<|>
give a surgeon a scalpel
and an excuse,
and the artist emerges,
for creativity is a good surgeon’s
natural habitat
Sure, sure, there’s a plan,
with best and acceptable outcomes,
but when messing with a real heart,
a sly ***** with numerous deceptive guises
at its disposal, you never for sure never know,
despite all the advanced imaging techniques,
exactly
what you will find once you go
spelunking
in caves of life and death
so, he takes a bit from here,
and a bob or two from there,
there a cut, here an incision deep,
Old McDonald provided a body,
or a canvas, and the Doc
is happy.
So I uncover holes where he
probed, redeploying the healthy,
like a good designer, Doc rearranges
and repairs, a travelogue of splicing and dicing,
his handiwork
Now standing over you for many hours,
can get tiring, though each ***** be
different, unique even, but leaving
a little marker, a stylized signature,
is well, is the rightful discretion of the artiste!
So you can imagine my surprise
when the tubes removed (ouch!)
the bandages ripped off in a
signature move of a delighted nurse whose
loves seeing grown men cry from lesser trivialities,
you cannot imagine my surprise
when I discovered my new tattoo,
upon my chest front and center!
*Herein please find your heart repaired,
and revitalized:
Please Note!
We guarantee our work for minimum 15 years
(Aug. 3, 2038),
but our disclaimer
we assume NO responsibility after that
if you should
happen to live for 30 YEARS or more*
Dr. P.
Sep 21, 2023
Sep 21, 2023 at 7:58 AM UTC
~
not a fan of reality TV,
plenty of "unreal" episodes
of my own direction stored,
available for further review
in the storage units of
neuronic black and white prison brain cells
which is why I have free~will chosen
to enumerate my poem~videos;
for easy retreat retrieval resurrection
of the travelogue of mind own insurrections
*a garage of mobility devices,
car, rollerblades, cross country skis plus,
a potpourri of escape methodologies
that by definition are all round trippers,
returned to their storage unit after use
and I count them Noah~like,
two by two, as they come on board,
and when they disembark for days of
rest and recreation*
this one, #4,
is born
among headstones,
just anther memory storage unit
specialized,
flag decorated,
but different
This is a one-way,
no return,
unit
but
it can be viewed at anytime
by those who care to be users,
by speaking this:
*Read to me poem number four,
on a day we celebrate,
about free men of every color and persuasion,
who are calling out to
open the door to storage unit four,
so we to can perform
our once-a-year
Tour of Duty
to the those who called,
and answered with limb and love,
for by their glory,
we are
free too*
to remember in any way we choose
~
May 24, 2015
May 24, 2015 at 5:18 PM UTC
tattoo ourselves in electric ink memorializing calendars,
diaries of observantional digits, black on white, no gray,
birthdays, anniversaries, dates of passing, starting lines,
occasional achievements, departure dates, even glaring failures,
sundial mundane records of diurnal habitude…even
defining self by, bye, byte marks upon flesh, upon our calendar
*not my first trip-tracking, he ruefully rues, wry smiling,
many voyages of indeterminate measuring length,
leaving litter of arrays of hopeful estimations & destinations,
each unequal, any or all possibilities, each day notated,
without critique or commentary, the numbers are the
gaols (jails) of goals, target, indeterminate determination,
terrific, horrific, introspections, inverse images resolve, resolute*
a year ago, +/- a few days,, new travelogue commenced,
notated but not annotated, just numerical truths,
(sans comments for the divine nature of numbers don’t lie)
and today my calculator app informs, that I am now
19.4 % lesser, but that clarifies less than expected
naturally this provokes a natty,
spirited, self-inquiry, lessened,
lessor, for better or for worse?
have the physical alterations
accompanying this reduction
mean exactly what,
if, it should be, a greater lesser?
here is the hard part.
your have always been a mirror~poet,
laughing, bemoaning the unvarnished, unshaven
AM sightings of a human perpetual dissatisfied,
the external never denying the interior “less~than,”
a J Peterman catalogue of weathered ****** expressions,
counter-parted by multiple Venn diagram intersections,
of experiential labeled bits & pieces of emotional empirical
less than good, not even close to perfect, so now that I am
*gaunt, spare, lean, grayed, narrower, again ruefully rue,
the even more visible truth reflection eye~hidden:*
I,
am the sum of the weight of my history, my deeds,
my disbeliefs, murderous deeds, weak choices
and that hasn’t changed nary an ounce, no matter
many times examined, indeed I am forever a lesser man,
there, internal infernal
too…
Apr 9, 2023
Apr 9, 2023 at 2:12 PM UTC
Three thousand miles
navigating a storm
without drop of bad weather
Abacus odometer clicks
rotating forward ―
spinning with the
world go round
Circling back down
a long and winding road;
where unforgotten memories
were once searchingly explored,
untrodden pathways
coursing way up north of alone
on the low highway
Now an aging shepherd
wonders without a compass ;
a vagabond deprived of light
from an ever blurring north star
Heart empty as a gas tank
with a broke down gauge,
running on fumes of hope
for unpromised tomorrows
Running from loneliness
just to be on the run
The gales of silence bellow
No feelings I can see ― lay me low
Wild-eyed daydreams
of Full sails billow out
through the windshield,
only hearing the unspoken
moments sigh restlessly ―
The dull droning road rumble
re-sighs renunciatively,
a tired monotone voice
mimicking the loathe silent echo
wallowing in an
omnipresent hollow void
deriding unspoken chaos
between the passing centerlines ―
A frost heave pothole erupts,
with a leaf-spring rattling thud,
as a fleeting cloud of dust arises,
set adrift with the draught
headed off the east side
of the Alcan highway:
blown way outside the lines,
towards the Alberta prairie
White knuckled steering wheel
held sway, rolling down
a beckoning wilderness
reincarnation;
default reset button paused ―
stuck in a moment ― until another jaw rattling
frost-heave pothole in the highway,
jars it free
Leaving it all behind
like a sigh breathed
in a silence a heart has outgrown;
just a fleeting cloud of dissipating dust,..
a paling whisper
the past seems to send forth
like a fading last breath
Letting it all unfold to become what it is
harlon rivers ... May 2018
... travelogue 2 of some
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 11:34 AM UTC
Rustle in the leaves,
tussle with the vines,
afoot in the tree of life,
the gutsy snake coiling,
Raddled and rattled with mans sin,
Divulgence to the loner who cherished the fruit,
in the dusky orange red skies which brought in the adhen
and from the tolling bells in the distant church ,
While the snake lolloped in the stark blue skies,
Manipulating this oppo for the abyss.
The wandering seam of the night,moon,
With flickering light forbade the seance on the seemlessly never ending night,
Pity the snake for another morn would rise
For it will have to go to the *** ,no the pit.
The ***** and cuckoo within cooee , chanted and coerced another morn out !
Following the sun like the grail, the people lounged in to the waters of the ganges.
While broods of hurted children huddled in hate,
hurling stones at the traitor.
Hauling the renegade into the throngs,
Hunnish hands assaulted him until he swooned in to the motherlands lap,
Hue and cry of the avengers brought in the tripper,
Heavy loads hugged on to his shoulders,
In poise words he spoke,
''for every creation has its flaws,
And when we batter on the withered soul,
It leaves the barren man dry again,
To ward off evil is like blowing into the forges of Vulcan,
And only when tests and temptations are burnt in the bonfires of joy,
will man be moulded into a joyous being''
Hissing whisphers from the crowd spoke,
Heresy of the tripper is the hold,
Hasten yourself and bring our brother medication,
Hunt down the snake will we,
For this vagabond has spoken in verses,
Only to be filed in the trippers travelogue.
Hushed up as the snake in the pit.
May 20, 2012
May 20, 2012 at 1:19 AM UTC
A breathe of words ―
a gust of thought scattered;
welling silence ruptures
bulging vault chambers
with the patience
of tongue-tied hearts
In a long deep breath
pith of soul manifests;
rich with the breathing spirit
of life that's passed
A timeworn lid spinning
on a blue glass jar
Indigenous roots
and memories tender,
perpetuity gleaned
and garnered
on fruit cellar shelves
Segues of ancient culture ―
evolution derives
from many roots
trying to catch
time in a bottle;
a travelogue
of saved beginnings;
magic beans
in a mason jar
Life’s native seeds gathered ―
organic building blocks
the immemorial soul
of the earth sown
and reaped;
sprouting unstilted
continuum
for which
ever fleeting time
cannot hold
Jesse e Stillwater
09 May 2018
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 12:54 PM UTC
**A ravaged beauty -
long threatened tired life,
riding appreciated**
Friday’s off-road cycle ride started late with a heart-choking chill head-wind blown rain - blurring my glassed vision, so I trusted into the triple lanes of colours slicing through the Vale of Neath. Here a builder’s ladder jumped boomeranging off it's white van - attempting to decapitate me - behind me it’s miss was announced by squealing brakes and crunching impacts, scaring alive splattered visions of a flat-end and being posted within a near drain. Surviving today's devilled ribbon of the dangerous windscreen imprisoned - sitting with pub bound murderous cohorts - I found off-road safe solitude’s mountain bike path East to Coelbren - joining new, a fine yet unsigned cycle route curling around Mynydd y Drum, to open views of Cwm Tawe as I pass hunting twisting through woods a single Red Kite. Then gravities speed, circles barriers into Ystradgynlais top - a narrow ribboned descent, hemmed by cars and paved children to the rugby fields.
**Senses travelogue -
previously un-experienced,
time spins slower**
Here the trails old section points to Swansea - winding lost betwixt fields, paths, trees and roads to Cwmtawe Cycleway proper, there to pedal beside and across Afon Tawe with repeated special offers of child saddled exhaust roaring kamikazes, bicycle maiming broken glass, proudly owned attack dogs, branch hung ball-sacks of excrement, visions of the lost ripped-away steel gated stops, hacked-off wooden fences and never-there deceitful dreams of red doggy bins all disguised what passed for hidden beauty, which he called lovely ugly. *Backing-into Pontardawe to crawl away below the dark bridge,
past a single inviting pub - I accompany the Tawe and it's twin a decrepit polished canal
through ***** alleys - until our hero stutters, gapes then tunnels under
great noisious noxious ribbons of hurtling tired....*
**Pressured paced life -
impossible commitments,
Living organic**
.
May 1, 2010
May 1, 2010 at 9:37 AM UTC
.
There’s an ancient duct tape patched
roller suitcase still up in the attic,
scarred by sky miles and undiscerning
indifference; it came to rest like a final breath
exhaled at the end of the long road ―
In the dusty rafters of silent repose
the death of an alter-ego comes to life
and jars and jogs the sleeping dogs
that lay benign as a pothole riddled road
Holding onto memories buried alive,
hidden away remembered ―
sans wings to fly away
laid bare unweighed with the weight
of everything else garnered and saved
subsisting in a shallow grave;
hoarded and hidden away breathing
locked up with the other baggage borne
behind tired eyes
Feeling the ache of blood stained knees
falling down sullied at the side of the road
Hindsight and a roll of duct taped memories
linger; stuck to the grey bandage scars,
second guessing should have thrown out
with the permanently temporary
fading plasticized luggage name-tags
back when I was still close enough to care;
too many miles to reconsider ago
Some say: "it's the journey not the destination" .
Some day when its too late we'll know
Some day it will be too late to make amends
for everything i could not be ...
harlon rivers ... 07 06 2018
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 11:52 AM UTC
Rest stops and road weary vagabonds
Peanut butter, water and stale bread;
Cookie crumbs and lip smirched paper cups
Somewhere's last weeks coffee stained newspaper
Blown out tires and the side of the road
Deep, thick, unmistakable, bear paw-prints
lie fallow ― undead in the mud
Feeling the raw silence of what you’re thinkin'
ooze out of a festering puncture wound within
Churning soliloquies gnawing away
at the unspooled threads fray,
understanding there’s no fear
in less than nothing to lose
Sometimes change happens
so fast you don’t even notice
We can wait a lifetime and never be sure;
never taking that first step that leads to a journey
of a thousand miles ― just a step away
It’s not some kind of bewitching
loneliness spell cast
never seeing another sole
in measureless hours and days
Passing moments languish imponderably,
there are no feelings I can see,
by looking away ―
always as blind as we want to be
Wanting what was taken more than what is given;
still doing the things we learned we shouldn't do again
The longest miles are the trodden ones
with only traces of learning how to be
alive ― off the grid; alone again
It’s a journey where there's no map to guide you
Just a deepening furrowed lifeline standstill
Stalled at a crossroads in the palm of your hand;
uncertainty deriding where you’re headed ―
both a reason and an excuse when we're not sure
we're not alone on such a long one way road
we've been out here traveling on
Forbearing the truth that holds my soul,
the only way through the ache
is through the wound
... and
I’ll get down this long road somehow
harlon rivers ... May 2018
... travelogue 3 of some
May 19, 2018
May 19, 2018 at 11:43 AM UTC
*The unexpected snow, disruptive,
in ways more burdensome,
than mere fender benders and
swapping travelogue commutation miseries
ah, the tv reporters regale
with snow tales, human fails,
but where do you hear
of the children
burnt once by fire
then again, now,
again!
burnt by snow.
here, hear, listen here
technology moves forward,
grafting new shells of skin
on burnt children,
but tonite you're cozy thinking
of your valentine's heart,
not of the little ones,
whose hearts are unprotected,
by what we take so for granted
beneath our protective gloves and coats, scarfs and boots,
our prophylactic human skin,
theirs, fire ravaged,
now re-hazardous,
by southern snows burning
these children hurt,
unexpectedly,
cannot play in the snow that came so
unexpectedly,
lest it burn them worse*
"in the children's burn unit, postponed all surgeries except 'emergency'. Two days of outpatient clinic patients forced to reschedule,. That then, postpones their surgeries, second step grafting, etc. Our vents ran smoothly I heard via the generators, unlike last outage. We had to ambulance each individual patient.
I dread going in tomorrow but small comfort,
it will be warmer than my cold home."
Life first, poetry second
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 3:31 PM UTC
Thu. Aug 11 2022
7:16 AM
~ for Julia and Joanne~
good neighbors
<>
a renewable habit apparently, again, a first poem of the day
(FPOTD), comes early, this old practice, me-bedded and mugged, with music ear installed drowning the noises of television blah,
iPad rests on left leg, left hand pointer finger ejects capsules
of letters, charmed into existence by the Barber adagio.
the Weather Channel forecasts morning-rain and my window
to trample and shuffle this deteriorating body rapid closes,
and the sun, weak, in concession speech, begs pardon, throws
off a few miscellaneous rays by way of apology, fooling no one,
except for the hopeful, itinerant poets, & the bunnies-neath-the deck.
know now you understand the poems entitlement, as is my wont,
you’ve been invited inside, sharing eyes and senses, you journey
today from a vantage no one else possesses, just you and me. Later,
we will drive to the Parrish Museum, studying modern painters,
each will inquire, a poem for me please, I nod sure, perhaps?
promise little, deliver less, is this your best? A travelogue of the
mundane, the little things, that do not stir your heart, smile tears,
and make you think wish I was there, or this, being
just too-me-boring?
The brain growls, no one making them read this perfunctoriness,
nonetheless, you apologize, pardon the no-angst trivia of daily life.
like the acid reflux bile, swallowed and returned to whence it came.
before it invades, tarnishes the peace of our surroundings and
the pleasure of your company, as I read your writings,
*worth so much,
filled with so much angry pain,
I want to easy-soften the everything,
if this missive, takes you-nearer, to the calmer~closer,
this poem, you transform it from perfunctory, to just, simply*
perfect.
8:18 AM
Shelter Island
Aug 11, 2022
Aug 11, 2022 at 8:37 AM UTC
**A ravaged beauty -
long threatened tired life,
riding appreciated
Friday’s off-road cycle ride started late with a heart-choking chill head-wind blown rain - blurring my glassed vision, so I trusted into the triple lanes of colours slicing through the Vale of Neath. Here a builder’s ladder jumped boomeranging off it's white van - attempting to decapitate me - behind me it’s miss was announced by squealing brakes and crunching impacts, scaring alive splattered visions of a flat-end and being posted within a near drain. Surviving today's devilled ribbon of the dangerous windscreen imprisoned - sitting with pub bound murderous cohorts - I found off-road safe solitude’s mountain bike path East to Coelbren - joining new, a fine yet unsigned cycle route curling around Mynydd y Drum, to open views of Cwm Tawe as I pass hunting twisting through woods a single Red Kite. Then gravities speed, circles barriers into Ystradgynlais top - a narrow ribboned descent, hemmed by cars and paved children to the rugby fields.
Senses travelogue -
previously un-experienced,
time spins slower
Here the trails old section points to Swansea - winding lost betwixt fields, paths, trees and roads to Cwmtawe Cycleway proper, there to pedal beside and across Afon Tawe with repeated special offers of child saddled exhaust roaring kamikazes, bicycle maiming broken glass, proudly owned attack dogs, branch hung ball-sacks of excrement, visions of the lost ripped-away steel gated stops, hacked-off wooden fences and never-there deceitful dreams of red doggy bins all disguised what passed for hidden beauty, which he called lovely ugly. Backing-into Pontardawe to crawl away below the dark bridge, past a single inviting pub - I accompany the Tawe and it's twin a decrepit polished canal through ***** alleys - until our hero stutters, gapes then tunnels under great noisious noxious ribbons of hurtling tired....
Pressured paced life -
impossible commitments,
Living organic**
.
May 6, 2010
May 6, 2010 at 12:54 AM UTC
You can only dream of
places I have been
Mentally,
All the things
I did for my family,
All they did,
instead of helping me,
Is trying to
put sense in me,
When I come to a point
Where I am
about to plead insanity,
A room of variances,
Out of body experiences,
Mental *******
Heart full of spasms,
The ones
my past couldn’t fathom,
This ain’t a struggler’s anthem,
But I can’t help but,
Generalize,
And I can’t undermine,
That I felt heaven,
At least on my fingertips,
I found hope,
At the brink of disbelief,
Don’t blame the postman,
If you put the wrong address,
Life is a *****
depending on how you dress her,
Let the broken glass,
Mess up the dresser,
Rosewood, Redwood, any wood,
If I could I would,
The more I clench my fists,
the more sand I loose,
But I choose not to,
just my screws,
My life is like a travelogue,
No just ticket needed just travel along,
Like a broken pen and a moleskin,
A DSLR and an eye to watch closely,
No backpacker,
Just a bad actor,
Modern day rye catcher,
Self financer ,
A mere puppet on the string,
That life hangs by,
finding questions to some bad answers,
Putting up with bad promise makers,
When a promise may curse,
Life is just a makeshift,
Life is what you make it,
Or make of it*
Mar 7, 2011
Mar 7, 2011 at 11:49 AM UTC
#(a travelogue cont...)
Waiting for summer
just outside the tallest
mountain’s door
Where the emerald vale
streams spring glacial-grey
river waters,
west into the setting
midnight sun
Another resplendent day’s
paling whisper set free
in an unseen blink
and an unheard sigh
In these unwonted moments
eyes rise up to touch
the beckoning sky
like a bug drawn
to the light
Upward over
highest mountain's skies
abides everything
worth rising for
It's so rare
in this fleeting life,
when a dream
for a moment
comes true ―
you come to understand
how deep is silence
and ...
it doesn’t really matter
when there’re no words
harlon rivers
June 9th. 2018
11:55 pm Denali sunset ...
"don't dream it's over"
Jun 10, 2018
Jun 10, 2018 at 4:27 PM UTC
Each human life, finally a travelogue
across time and space,
through emotional landscapes
with a hidden text between lines.
May 12, 2012
May 12, 2012 at 2:04 AM UTC
Now an annual autumnal literary festival visit
to our island redoubt,
the snow geese come honking down,
in linear formation
warning itinerant human beachcombers
of their arrival on the beach runways
of our sheltered island
This TripTik recommended diversion,
is a pleasure long anticipated by them,
seen as an intellectual rest stop,
with excellent sea snacks cuisined,
flying down the Eastern Seaboard
keeping Interstate 95 on their right,
an avian version of GPS
Our birds,
follow a minor route,
commencing in Nova Scotia,
the farthest north of all the species,
never making it to Mexico,
ending their travelogue in Georgia,
lest their true species be confused
with other kinds of Floridian snowbirds
Sit by my side they do,
one by one in assigned seats,
on the now scrawny grass blanket,
their attention span famously long,
unless a school of striped bass
seen on radar in the vicinity
I, on my Adirondack throne,
a poetry reading to intone,
with more-than-occasional audience input,
considered their right most fair
Critics one and all,
animated animal devotees of the arts,
unafraid to express their thoughts,
oft in unison or in
unharmonious John Cage
cacophonies of disagreement
Sadly, I only speak local seagull,
thus their effusive exege(e)ses and criticisms,
either damming or acclaim, indistinguishable,
their only "tell" is if
they stick around for
just one more...day...
That my poetry they did favor
was a conceit I feigned to believe,
loving their attention even if not deserved,
for in their service, and nature's too,
I am now trained to sit and wait,
a minor stitch in a famous tapestry,
for well I recall Milton's words:
*"God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
His state is kingly;
thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."*
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
I live on the edge of a sleepy soul
a moist rose
and an infinite lilac sky
beneath my chin
— M. Melia, from The Unravelling Travelogue.
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 8:09 AM UTC
Waiting for you,
Yes you!
To toss me a stanza,
Feed me your lines,
Give a starter, an appetizer,
An antipasti,
A few morso's please,
To complete a meal.
So we make this connection
Permanent and when we break
Such being the course of all
Uncoiled, unoiled machines,
We will look back and say,
It was the best poetry of my life,
For two made three
The most fantastic words...
Unto one, into one, one.
So send me your pregnant,
half born, song with no lyrical end,
That won't complete themselves.
Titles in search of body,
Touch me in places,
That only you can provide
A path, a travelogue,
So I visit, and show you places,
You missed!
Send me those lost bereft ones,
Yearning not for freedom,
But creation itself!
Let us collaborate,
And make a marker's mark,
That cannot be auto corrected,
Since the morrow's daylight will
Bring its inception,
A new name, a new poem,
That will be added to the global
Dictionary.
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 8:14 AM UTC
so you write a lot,
pouring entire waking existences,
current n' prior,
into a long and crafted 'pistles,
and pixels
and you got jive pride
and then, the poem,
you worked so hard for,
ups and dies
gets a few middling fingers of reads,
dying on a vining of
Juliet's pseudo poisoning elixir,
no big deal, happens all the time
but here's what's wielding & weirdly wilding:
***A poetpourri.
of newly found co-inhabitors,
from around the universe,
from places unpronounceable,
unlike Venus & Mars, (very poet-popular)
and from previously places were
never or seldom was heard a
discouraging word, igniting a
rewarded mutuality of a
following up embracing***
par example;
Tirunelveli
Poland
Lisbon
Cyprus
Bihar
Uruguay
Ankara
Vienna
Albania
Tanzania
India
Bangladesh
New Zealand/Australia
Soldotna (Alaska)
plus Texas, West Va., Ohio, and other exotica, like
Nowhere
what a blessing!
Blessed art Thou o Lord,
that permits the miracle that my integers
of 0 & 1
can be translated into such
varied exotica, in harmony,
thus permitting this discovery of
never visited oceans and landfalls
of poetry never heretofore to join as
one.
Aman.
<>
nml
Aug 30, 2025
Aug 30, 2025 at 6:31 AM UTC
~~~
every word I write is a tribute
*now listen here,
let's clarify the inescapable,
what this tribute thing means,
cause what I'm doing here,
ain't exactly clear
everything we write,
is only a watery-encapsulated
reflection of our lives,
which of necessity,
will always be messy
what the heck does
this guy mean.
when enlisting
this shady word,
tribute?
at 3:10 in the AM,
tribute is dressed in its
more defy-nition sinister,
a bad news speaking cultural minister,
who never fails us
by reminding,
tribute originated
as the nasty kind:
"any exacted or enforced payment or contribution"
every **** word
that I've written
is a **** tribute,
an exacted, enforced, wrung from,
payment
of a pound of flesh,
Shylock's variety pack kind
I'm not bitter,
a touch angry, perhaps,
even brave, ok, unafraid,
to admit, overall,
got it pretty ok
but that I still struggle
to get that satisfaction,
in everything minute and daily,
the tiny and the tremendous,
the cost production load only goes
unicycle upward sloping,
this crisis crazy we call being
alive,
and to you,
who keys and ken
my meaning well*
herein is my good kind side
my paying
tribute
to you, your courage,
even me, periodically,
for awakening and walking
into the unknown outside,
and giving it up
in our travelogue of
shared poetry
5:48am
Jan. 21, 2016
NYC (aboard the stationary bike,
paying tribute for forty years of sinning)
Jan 22, 2016
Jan 22, 2016 at 4:30 PM UTC
A travelogue of my voyages
A narrative of my adventures, my wanderlust
All of it begin from you and end at you
These chronicles of my escapade
Are not merely a fictional account
All of it echoes my search for you
Through the seven seas and countless nations
I try to unearth the happiness to be with you
Couldn’t find any trace of you,
Punished for seeking you
To find you, I’ve walked around the whole world,
Still walking, still confused, wandering across for you
Jul 13, 2016
Jul 13, 2016 at 3:43 AM UTC