(1674.)


I have desired, and I have been desired;
  But now the days are over of desire,
  Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;
Where is the hire for which my life was hired?
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,
  Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,
  And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,
And love a fount of tears outrunning measure;
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,
  Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,
  The dross of life, of love, of spent desire;
Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,--
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

Oh vanity of vanities, desire;
  Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,
  Turning my garden plot to barren mire;
Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,
  Oh vanity of vanities, desire!

He stood fifty times his height,
his palms pressed against the glass
separating him from the road in their glamour;
blurred images of car in their splendor –
and there isn’t the
familiar scent of coffee –
I call this pandemonium.

Nothing beats a day in a café
redolent of the finest Arabica,
he’d inhale deeply and recall :
unroasted gives the sweetest scents
of blueberries –
roasted’s entirely different:
fruit, sugar, perfume –
They call this addiction.

Mnemonic – a wind chime
lost in the array of winds.
“You used to be my cup of tea –
I drink coffee now.”
These words slip out of his dry lips,
and a lone tear trickles down a milky cheek;

They all say if they’ve got love,
they don’t need money –

And he’d say if he’s got coffee,
he doesn’t need love –
He calls this heaven.

when she was eight years old
she
asked her mother
have you seen the girl with
lashes like butterflies against sharp cheekbone branches?
a dandelion sprouting from sludge covered gutters and streets
streets, where you feel that bitter bland nothingness in your stomach

it feels buttery to stare at her:
see how snow outstretches arms and twirls tippy toes, envies her grace
see how balloon sized raindrops pop, target the freckles on her arm
see how her forehead crinkles when she concentrates, nothing more than a beacon
proclaiming she trickles with stars

when she was eight years old
her parent's violent protests slipped bruises under her skin like pennies in a coin slot
but they could not contain the celestial girl tucked under her ribcage.

she would still look at her like she was the breakfast sun on a saturday
whistling by the creak, catching glimpses of dresses from behind the legs of trees.
see how this is special love, sweet as strawberry fields under soft sun
they would never feel on their forked, sour tongues

It seemed the space between us became torn and
Profoundly distanced....................

Jamming bony knuckles and spread eagled fingers,
Lying their mapped out journey.....direction on point patrol....
Adorned by silver decoration, delighting in their skinned habitat
Shafted, deceit punching the recipient of the poison digits
Prodding and pushing their intent....dare you contradict
The intended carved out dose of punishment, Risk and
Safety......not yours and never would be; stooped
Down under the assailing bony palmed attachements
That delivered penetrating power, cupped around
Your arm til it became discoloured, pressure points
Backed you into a corner, up against the grain of the
Brick wall, cold and damp, the odour reaching
And scolding your nostrils with its stale internal vows
Refuse, stretching and protruding its foul remnents
An earlier life, when you were not under threat fades
Your very existance in jeopardy, your eyes pleaded for
Normality, willing someone to hear your silence, grip you
Tightly, not with malice, but with bravery and valour
Right now you need that shining knight, that white
Horse galloping down the blind alleyway, yet you
Know that won't happen for you're already sinking
To the floor, the blow comes sharp and stings, warmth
Exudes and trickles a path downwards, leaving your
Body, finding the cold concrete beneath you, travelling
Outwards................

Like a steady stream
That trickles through the forest,
I will persevere.
Though my journey is unknown,
I know I’ll reach the ocean.

In the place where the moon meets broken shadows, it begins with the swelling of my eyes  

Tears roll across the scars, that no one else can see

A phantom’s curse

Only this place can release my from this dystopian enchantment

The sweet smell alone entangles me with feelings of safety and wonder

For a reality flooded with forest flowers and a throbbing wind

It teases my subconsciousness, it trickles down to my soul

Like a an agonizing murmur

The hypnotic web forms

In this quiet place clouds hurry across confusing shadows

Shivering in the delicious sunlight

My immaculate hour of rediscovery begins…

Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise
The village childern mad for sport
In school times leisure ever short
That crick and catch the bouncing ball
And run along the church yard wall
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims
In times bad memory hath no names
Oft racing round the nookey church
Or calling ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather ****
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovial cry
That time shall come when they shall lye
As lowly and as still as they
While other boys above them play
Heedless as they do now to know
The unconcious dust that lies below
The shepherd goes wi happy stride
Wi moms long shadow by his side
Down the dryd lanes neath blooming may
That once was over shoes in clay
While martins twitter neath his eves
Which he at early morning leaves
The driving boy beside his team
Will oer the may month beauty dream
And **** his hat and turn his eye
On flower and tree and deepning skye
And oft bursts loud in fits of song
And whistles as he reels along
Cracking his whip in starts of joy
A happy ***** driving boy
The youth who leaves his corner stool
Betimes for neighbouring village school
While as a mark to urge him right
The church spires all the way in sight
Wi cheerings from his parents given
Starts neath the joyous smiles of heaven
And sawns wi many an idle stand
Wi bookbag swinging in his hand
And gazes as he passes bye
On every thing that meets his eye
Young lambs seem tempting him to play
Dancing and bleating in his way
Wi trembling tails and pointed ears
They follow him and loose their fears
He smiles upon their sunny faces
And feign woud join their happy races
The birds that sing on bush and tree
Seem chirping for his company
And all in fancys idle whim
Seem keeping holiday but him
He lolls upon each resting stile
To see the fields so sweetly smile
To see the wheat grow green and long
And list the weeders toiling song
Or short note of the changing thrush
Above him in the white thorn bush
That oer the leaning stile bends low
Loaded wi mockery of snow
Mozzld wi many a lushing thread
Of crab tree blossoms delicate red
He often bends wi many a wish
Oer the brig rail to view the fish
Go sturting by in sunny gleams
And chucks in the eye dazzld streams
Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch
The swarming struttle come to catch
Them where they to the bottom sile
Sighing in fancys joy the while
Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh
By rosey milkmaid tripping bye
Where he admires wi fond delight
And longs to be there mute till night
He often ventures thro the day
At truant now and then to play
Rambling about the field and plain
Seeking larks nests in the grain
And picking flowers and boughs of may
To hurd awhile and throw away
Lurking neath bushes from the sight
Of tell tale eyes till schools noon night
Listing each hour for church clocks hum
To know the hour to wander home
That parents may not think him long
Nor dream of his rude doing wrong
Dreading thro the night wi dreaming pain
To meet his masters wand again
Each hedge is loaded thick wi green
And where the hedger late hath been
Tender shoots begin to grow
From the mossy stumps below
While sheep and cow that teaze the grain
will nip them to the root again
They lay their bill and mittens bye
And on to other labours hie
While wood men still on spring intrudes
And thins the shadow solitudes
Wi sharpend axes felling down
The oak trees budding into brown
Where as they crash upon the ground
A crowd of labourers gather round
And mix among the shadows dark
To rip the crackling staining bark
From off the tree and lay when done
The rolls in lares to meet the sun
Depriving yearly where they come
The green wood pecker of its home
That early in the spring began
Far from the sight of troubling man
And bord their round holes in each tree
In fancys sweet security
Till startld wi the woodmans noise
It wakes from all its dreaming joys
The blue bells too that thickly bloom
Where man was never feared to come
And smell smocks that from view retires
**** rustling leaves and bowing briars
And stooping lilys of the valley
That comes wi shades and dews to dally
White beady drops on slender threads
Wi broad hood leaves above their heads
Like white robd maids in summer hours
Neath umberellas shunning showers
These neath the barkmens crushing treads
Oft perish in their blooming beds
Thus stript of boughs and bark in white
Their trunks shine in the mellow light
Beneath the green surviving trees
That wave above them in the breeze
And waking whispers slowly bends
As if they mournd their fallen friends
Each morning now the weeders meet
To cut the thistle from the wheat
And ruin in the sunny hours
Full many wild weeds of their flowers
Corn poppys that in crimson dwell
Calld ‘head achs’ from their sickly smell
And carlock yellow as the sun
That oer the may fields thickly run
And ‘iron ****’ content to share
The meanest spot that spring can spare
Een roads where danger hourly comes
Is not wi out its purple blooms
And leaves wi points like thistles round
Thickset that have no strength to wound
That shrink to childhoods eager hold
Like hair—and with its eye of gold
And scarlet starry points of flowers
Pimpernel dreading nights and showers
Oft calld ‘the shepherds weather glass’
That sleep till suns have dyd the grass
Then wakes and spreads its creeping bloom
Till clouds or threatning shadows come
Then close it shuts to sleep again
Which weeders see and talk of rain
And boys that mark them shut so soon
will call them ‘John go bed at noon
And fumitory too a name
That superstition holds to fame
Whose red and purple mottled flowers
Are cropt by maids in weeding hours
To boil in water milk and way1
For washes on an holiday
To make their beauty fair and sleak
And scour the tan from summers cheek
And simple small forget me not
Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spot
I’th’ middle of its tender blue
That gains from poets notice due
These flowers the toil by crowds destroys
And robs them of their lowly joys
That met the may wi hopes as sweet
As those her suns in gardens meet
And oft the dame will feel inclind
As childhoods memory comes to mind
To turn her hook away and spare
The blooms it lovd to gather there
My wild field catalogue of flowers
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers
Tedious and long as they may be
To some, they never weary me
The wood and mead and field of grain
I coud hunt oer and oer again
And talk to every blossom wild
Fond as a parent to a child
And cull them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move
Oft making ‘love knotts’ in the shade
Of blue green oat or wheaten blade
And trying simple charms and spells
That rural superstition tells
They pull the little blossom threads
From out the knapweeds button heads
And put the husk wi many a smile
In their white bosoms for awhile
Who if they guess aright the swain
That loves sweet fancys trys to gain
Tis said that ere its lain an hour
Twill blossom wi a second flower
And from her white ******* hankerchief
Bloom as they ne’er had lost a leaf
When signs appear that token wet
As they are neath the bushes met
The girls are glad wi hopes of play
And harping of the holiday
A hugh blue bird will often swim
Along the wheat when skys grow dim
Wi clouds—slow as the gales of spring
In motion wi dark shadowd wing
Beneath the coming storm it sails
And lonly chirps the wheat hid quails
That came to live wi spring again
And start when summer browns the grain
They start the young girls joys afloat
Wi ‘wet my foot’ its yearly note
So fancy doth the sound explain
And proves it oft a sign of rain
About the moor ‘**** sheep and cow
The boy or old man wanders now
Hunting all day wi hopful pace
Each thick sown rushy thistly place
For plover eggs while oer them flye
The fearful birds wi teazing cry
Trying to lead their steps astray
And coying him another way
And be the weather chill or warm
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his arm
Holding each prize their search has won
They plod bare headed to the sun
Now dames oft bustle from their wheels
Wi childern scampering at their heels
To watch the bees that hang and swive
In clumps about each thronging hive
And flit and thicken in the light
While the old dame enjoys the sight
And raps the while their warming pans
A spell that superstition plans
To coax them in the garden bounds
As if they lovd the tinkling sounds
And oft one hears the dinning noise
Which dames believe each swarm decoys
Around each village day by day
Mingling in the warmth of may
Sweet scented herbs her skill contrives
To rub the bramble platted hives
Fennels thread leaves and crimpld balm
To scent the new house of the swarm
The thresher dull as winter days
And lost to all that spring displays
Still mid his barn dust forcd to stand
Swings his frail round wi weary hand
While oer his head shades thickly creep
And hides the blinking owl asleep
And bats in cobweb corners bred
Sharing till night their murky bed
The sunshine trickles on the floor
Thro every crevice of the door
And makes his barn where shadows dwell
As irksome as a prisoners cell
And as he seeks his daily meal
As schoolboys from their tasks will steal
ile often stands in fond delay
To see the daisy in his way
And wild weeds flowering on the wall
That will his childish sports recall
Of all the joys that came wi spring
The twirling top the marble ring
The gingling halfpence hussld up
At pitch and toss the eager stoop
To pick up heads, the smuggeld plays
Neath hovels upon sabbath days
When parson he is safe from view
And clerk sings amen in his pew
The sitting down when school was oer
Upon the threshold by his door
Picking from mallows sport to please
Each crumpld seed he calld a cheese
And hunting from the stackyard sod
The stinking hen banes belted pod
By youths vain fancys sweetly fed
Christning them his loaves of bread
He sees while rocking down the street
Wi weary hands and crimpling feet
Young childern at the self same games
And hears the self same simple names
Still floating on each happy tongue
Touchd wi the simple scene so strong
Tears almost start and many a sigh
Regrets the happiness gone bye
And in sweet natures holiday
His heart is sad while all is gay
How lovly now are lanes and balks
For toils and lovers sunday walks
The daisey and the buttercup
For which the laughing childern stoop
A hundred times throughout the day
In their rude ramping summer play
So thickly now the pasture crowds
In gold and silver sheeted clouds
As if the drops in april showers
Had woo’d the sun and swoond to flowers
The brook resumes its summer dresses
Purling neath grass and water cresses
And mint and flag leaf swording high
Their blooms to the unheeding eye
And taper bowbent hanging rushes
And horse tail childerns bottle brushes
And summer tracks about its brink
Is fresh again where cattle drink
And on its sunny bank the swain
Stretches his idle length again
Soon as the sun forgets the day
The moon looks down on the lovly may
And the little star his friend and guide
Travelling together side by side
And the seven stars and charleses wain
Hangs smiling oer green woods agen
The heaven rekindles all alive
Wi light the may bees round the hive
Swarm not so thick in mornings eye
As stars do in the evening skye
All all are nestling in their joys
The flowers and birds and pasture boys
The firetail, long a stranger, comes
To his last summer haunts and homes
To hollow tree and crevisd wall
And in the grass the rails odd call
That featherd spirit stops the swain
To listen to his note again
And school boy still in vain retraces
The secrets of his hiding places
In the black thorns crowded copse
Thro its varied turns and stops
The nightingale its ditty weaves
Hid in a multitude of leaves
The boy stops short to hear the strain
And ’sweet jug jug’ he mocks again
The yellow hammer builds its nest
By banks where sun beams earliest rest
That drys the dews from off the grass
Shading it from all that pass
Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze
That hunts thro evry secret maze
He finds its pencild eggs agen
All streakd wi lines as if a pen
By natures freakish hand was took
To scrawl them over like a book
And from these many mozzling marks
The school boy names them ‘writing larks’
*** barrels twit on bush and tree
Scarse bigger then a bumble bee
And in a white thorns leafy rest
It builds its curious pudding-nest
Wi hole beside as if a mouse
Had built the little barrel house
Toiling full many a lining feather
And bits of grey tree moss together
Amid the noisey rooky park
Beneath the firdales branches dark
The little golden crested wren
Hangs up his glowing nest agen
And sticks it to the furry leaves
As martins theirs beneath the eaves
The old hens leave the roost betimes
And oer the garden pailing climbs
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The *** beneath his bags of sand
Oft jerks the string from leaders hand
And on the road will eager stoop
To pick the sprouting thistle up
Oft answering on his weary way
Some distant neighbours sobbing bray
Dining the ears of driving boy
As if he felt a fit of joy
Wi in its pinfold circle left
Of all its company bereft
Starvd stock no longer noising round
Lone in the nooks of foddering ground
Each skeleton of lingering stack
By winters tempests beaten black
Nodds upon props or bolt upright
Stands swarthy in the summer light
And oer the green grass seems to lower
Like stump of old time wasted tower
All that in winter lookd for hay
Spread from their batterd haunts away
To pick the grass or lye at lare
Beneath the mild hedge shadows there
Sweet month that gives a welcome call
To toil and nature and to all
Yet one day mid thy many joys
Is dead to all its sport and noise
Old may day where’s thy glorys gone
All fled and left thee every one
Thou comst to thy old haunts and homes
Unnoticd as a stranger comes
No flowers are pluckt to hail the now
Nor cotter seeks a single bough
The maids no more on thy sweet morn
Awake their thresholds to adorn
Wi dewey flowers—May locks new come
And princifeathers cluttering bloom
And blue bells from the woodland moss
And cowslip cucking ***** to toss
Above the garlands swinging hight
Hang in the soft eves sober light
These maid and child did yearly pull
By many a folded apron full
But all is past the merry song
Of maidens hurrying along
To crown at eve the earliest cow
Is gone and dead and silent now
The laugh raisd at the mocking thorn
Tyd to the cows tail last that morn
The kerchief at arms length displayd
Held up by pairs of swain and maid
While others bolted underneath
Bawling loud wi panting breath
‘Duck under water’ as they ran
Alls ended as they ne’er began
While the new thing that took thy place
Wears faded smiles upon its face
And where enclosure has its birth
It spreads a mildew oer her mirth
The herd no longer one by one
Goes plodding on her morning way
And garlands lost and sports nigh gone
Leaves her like thee a common day
Yet summer smiles upon thee still
Wi natures sweet unalterd will
And at thy births unworshipd hours
Fills her green lap wi swarms of flowers
To crown thee still as thou hast been
Of spring and summer months the queen

Just another raindrop in the rain
Just another person
lifeless and plain.
Just another drag to take me away.
Just another patient awaiting cancer and pain.
Just another weight to bare
Just another "I don't care"...
Just another wasted life

I can't tell you what it is
Impatiently waiting for the floor to fall from under my feet
constantly worry
about incomplete
can't compete
everything is


obsolete.

Just another raindrop in the rain
it trickles down the window pane

a crack in her voice
a tremble in her words
a shiver from her body
a tremor from her words
her anger gave her palpitations
her anger brought tears to her eyes
she clenched her jaw
and ****** her fingers

the wall next to her
no longer seems like a wall
it was a punching bag
the blood trickles down her fist
but she doesn't feel the pain
not more than the anger
red hot burning anger

Rainbows sit high
Imagination glides down their backs
and it scars hearts
after reaching a high, nothing matches that
Missing something now.
The paint, it trickles down and melts eyes
its canvas pain, it paints it gray.

To my fickle sea.
Poking holes in wishes you receive
The colors of the bay, they float away
Black and White is an infinite abyss
Lose yourself in the grace of it.
No in between,
just keep your eyes wide
you'll see nothing.
The sand at your feet
The glass and rocks that glaze the earth,
always find a way to cut their grace.
Don't pray too hard for me.

Search through your garden
the size of a thumbtack
the flowers rise over your head.
Trees of candy cane sprout before your eyes
You can't see what another sees,
no one to know what you know.

Taking a step inside an orchids stem
and tip-toeing down through the veins of its petals
the purple and gold
they all bleed through your mind.
Form and shape the world which you dance along,
thoughts of blowing breezes send your thoughts along their way
into this endless sea.

Watch the lines write themselves into darkened corners.
The bright and shining sun could change your world.
Swirling and spiraling staircases send you downwards without a thought,
no stopping the whirl-pool once your slipping under.
An octopus would take you in
and with every one of his eight arms he caresses your pain away
showing real effort in his cause

those who impress, settle at unrest

Watch as the berries erupt and bloom
crawl along the lines
mazes of blue
and red know there is no way to succeed.
Watch as the bumblebees sneeze with their noses covered in yellow dreams.
they pack it in with their toes in teams

A great glass lake, to skate along
the ripples
She falls along each crease,
stumbling and tumbling between each droplet.

The clouds fly high above her head,
they gaze upon her flowing gown.
They cry sad tears when they see her eyes
drowning her futures in their skies,
flowing and crashing and thrashing.

With an umbrella, float away
above the days when everything
turned out wrong.

The great glass lake serves true,
until you skip the rock of inferiority along its reflection.
The shatter will fly all about.
That is the point at which it ends
Everything you know is then contradicted and compromised
Your own description shattered

Stones drop from high heights
out of clouds with heavy hearts
waiting to smash this dream.

Great glass lake shines on.

My mind raw and twisted,
The soft spell of my fingers touch the leather skinned whip as I expel it against your juicy little ***.
Moments like these are my favorite, when your with me.
He strapped my ankles, wrists and all, to demand a bitter strength ignited in his intentions.
Another spank from the whip, tingly, prickly but yet so swiftly.
Few bruises here and there...
but your little angel love's every last bit of your masculine touch.
Feather me up, through tickles and such,
take me by the hair, and pull me towards your lavishing warm chest, where the sweat trickles down the arches of your ribs.
Feeling you pulsate when your ***** is in me,
as I make you c*m....a little closer to another specious night filled with adventure.

Suicide trickles sweetly
Down a tree covered in blood soaked scars
Falling victim to the predator that dictated it.
Death, rarely more precious than fragile life
Is strangely beautiful in this rare and gruesome scene.

Inside trickles of time and distant pasts
I’ve walked this crooked path
Each long and gnarly trail
Unearth hidden truths within the shale

Oceans unleashing tyranny
Expose the mangled mind
Rushing rivers cleanse swiftly
Into the lake of clarity to transform me

Raindrops create the ripples
Distorting our perfect reflection
Shifting the eyes of perception
For the sake of Evolution

We seek to conquer the Mountain
Before we find the ground
Forgetting the richness within the soil
Is the foundation that makes her whole

As I am this crooked path
The trickles of time and recent past
I take flight as the wind is free
And softly whisper to me;

You are the crash within each wave
The ripple inside each drop of rain
You are each question within your doubting
And the richest soil within the mountain

...a diary of the falling dominoes chapter

invisibly dying from the inside out
no one is looking into unseen eyes
no one can hear a muted voice fading
no one is close enough to be near

the deafening thrums echo
anxieties’ racing heartbeat
within morphing flesh shell ,
gasping for new breath
in a hovering stale silence

from a distance
the broken mirror ricochets a subdued light ;
much closer the reflection reveals
someone I once knew by heart

now an unrecognizable mask
enshrouds a terminal emptiness
inconspicuous at a fleeting glance ,
impossible to discern what storms rage
from the inside out ,... unnoticed  

an uncontained wildfire
smoldering within,  lies in wait
for the imminent winds of change
to fan the flames into the final
eternal silent ashes

a poet reaches out demurely
offering a candid look
into the window
of the imperfect human soul

there is no poetry
met by indifference
just gathered unread words scribbled,

squandered time
dripped slowly on an empty page ;
moments turn into days
days turned into years

invisibly dying from the inside out
an unfinished life trickles out
like seeping blood evanescing
from a bottomless puncture
wounding ... penetrating the heart,
leaching out the slow death of a poet

for poetry is only words unless they touch someone ...

befallen to indifference is poetic death
by salted paper cuts ...

a muting suffocation
that hiddenly erodes away,
silencing the passion
of a musing soul
one unread word at a time ...


© harlon rivers ... all rights reserved

The sunlight winks from behind the umbrella of leaves and mangoes overhead. It tickles your cheekbones like the first, second, thirtieth good morning kiss. Your sandals are worn. A woven basket rests heavy on your hip, in your hands.

Your fingers, slender and worn by the earth, trace the contours of my face the way they search for meaning in a dictionary. Gravity. We inch closer. Have you always had a widow’s peak? Your hand finds it rightful place over my heart. I kiss you for the thirty-first time today. You taste of plantains and milk. You smell of sweat and the sun. My hand relishes in the traces of heat on your cheek.

One mango drops from your possession. Unripe, but soon to be opened up and worshipped as it is meant to be. Your fingers grasp the yellowing heart and press it against my lips. I rest against the trunk and sink my teeth into it. Liquid sunrise trickles down your wrist onto my blouse. The leaves create shadow puppets on the ground, the story of two young fools swaying in the shade of a tree.

Not much inquiry
is necessary
delineating candlelight
Not much pondering,
only the flickering
whispers which permeate
time-space
And transfix time
temporarily
are the tools
for description...

...something about
the periphery
that lies beyond
its heated source
is the mystical shimmering glow
and its soothing embrace
that hugs
cradled-souls
And most matter about...

...energy not yet exhausted
heated translucent secretions
gush down
from the hot-tip likened phallus...


...the heated beads reflect the candlelight
Watching the warm trickles,
human feelings are warm
Lightly light
and light headiness
soon embrace...

The pine tree of Shiogoshi
Trickles all night long
Shiny drops of moonlight.

Fingers
Picking ****** flowers
Dripping spice burgundy
Staining serenity
A touch of
Surreal simplicity
Undaunted movement of
Molecular fractals
Bursting in waves
Of fantastical light
Sensual trickles

Tongue
Licking sappy mosses
Amber and honey
Expanding swiftly
An odyssey through the
Gums and divisions
Between ivory teeth
Ecstasy aplenty
Flooding down through
The body
Leaving stains
Of serenity

Nostrils
Sniffing smoky cedar
Microscopic air ripples
Orchestra of tune and note
Tune and note
Whispers and cries
Kisses and sighs
Invisible in form and sight
These do travel
Through tunnels
Those give sense of smell
Droplets of spice burgundy

Toes
Sinking through layer
Under layer of moist clay
Descending in time shaken
Matter
Pores of the skin
Breathing air and soil
Replenishing vital veins
Rivers of beating blood
Unending
Molecular fractals  

Fingers
Picking ****** flowers
Dripping spice burgundy
Staining serenity
A touch of
Surreal simplicity
Undaunted movement of
Molecular fractals
Bursting in waves
Of fantastical light
Sensual trickles

In a locked up abandoned room, stands dead people,
all worn and torn, all helpless and scarcely unknown.
They weep trickles of tears from their eyes, soaking down to their cheeks,
innocent faces and scarred bodies,
invisible to the world and their minds dreadfully drilled, with thoughts of insanity, as they rot inhumanely.

Open wounds and jars of acid, the key lays in one of them, torturous and hardly discredited
It's deadly, and extremely rapid.

Trapped and held back, suppressed and feelings of soul lack,
where the crows die at 3:00am, it's satanic, dark, dull and dim.

Hands burn and screams cry, the jar is black, so they hadn't know in which the key lie.

The secrets within, dark, deadly and too hard to ****** swim.

Weak and demolished, some people collapse in pain and satanic craze, the haze, the daze, thoust peculiar trickles of red rain drops from the ceiling above, rose wine red, depth is dark and foul like jin

It's ****** up...

Our ghosts keep all kinds of secrets, with their hands behind their back and face hidden and covered in black, suppression creates a place of torturous days and weeping eyes of display...
Isolation makes it worse, it creates a lonesome curse...

Treat your ghost well, then the dark won't take over, and make it dreaded and unwell...
Tell...
*All your secrets within

Your morning dew breath
trickles in early
As we walk with the foxes,
by the rockpools by the shore;
By the lilies by the glade.

Sat next to an old timer down at the shop last week,
he looked older than Methuselah,
piercing blue eyes surrounded by red,
seemed nearly dead,
like he’d been crying for a century.
He told me he was from Tennessee,
another good old Southern boy like me
& we got to talking about all kinds of things.
We ran at the jaw from baseball to politics,
frolics & war, even diamond rings.

I learned he was a fellow veteran,
said he had worked on the big boy
during the last big one,
said it wasn’t much fun,
but they were sworn to secrecy
to do it.
I pondered for a second or two,
knew exactly what he was talking about,
that Manhattan Project,
the huge mushroom-bomb!

Being a kindred soldier,
I leaned over, knew I was safe,
& asked him how he felt,
how he felt about its effects,
all that killing.
It got really quiet, eerily silent,
then he looked at me
& with a lone tear
rolling down his wrinkled cheek,
replied,
“Son, they killed my brother
in the Pacific, which killed
my mother in Cypress Creek,
which killed all my childhood dreams.”

Strange,
            how
                    killing
                              trickles
                                          downhill.

This was written free-hand; excuse my grammar if it may sound weird but I felt it might be wrong to change it too much since the following is how it flowed inside my head:

Everything is predominantly dark: brown, black, blue, and a sliver of gold paint the scene afore my eyes. An elderly man sits atop a rocking chair. Below the inch of illuminated dust, I see an array of stratified wrinkles... they cover the cheek I once knew to be always a warm, pastel pink...they trace a lip I once knew to be long and quivering, coupled with an anticipating, yet welcoming happy gaze. The endearing purity - that childlike exhilaration and consequent sparkle-- it was a wonder to see that never left his eyes... The wrinkles around them now mimicked those that used to decorate his face when he laughed out of sheer excitement. I remember that in those moments of laughter he’d be able to embody that one noun in a wholesome glory, seemingly no other feelings lending themselves to the elation. I had never encountered anyone else with the ability to do that -- it is one of my only favorite expressions I have found deeply ingrained somewhere within the sand of my mind. It used to remind me of the free spirit I recall to have had as a child... and he coupled it- in what seemed to me a mirror-like manner.
His freedom was a breath of fresh air -- it swept me off my feet and I couldn’t help but breathe it and continue to breathe it..to crave it. I held onto it like it was the last piece of toffee chocolate I would ever eat in my lifetime... But no -- his face was now at peace. It made for an interesting paradox - made evident only to those who’d remembered the appearances of his expressions. His calm was contagious. I felt my heart give a familiar beat: two fast, one slow...that was the rhythm I had met 70 years ago.
His hair had now receded; it was as white as shadowed porcelain. He looked like his father, who I remember held that same potential for his son’s smile. Suddenly, his face turned towards me, quitting its reverie. He held a quizzical expression on his face and although he did not yet move from his seat, I knew that he soon realized who I was...He studied me just the same, drinking in all the information he could possibly gather, still taken aback. I cautiously came closer...three inches away, I knelt before him.
To look at him now felt like an ethereal experience. I momentarily lifted my hand and let out a smile. It felt more of a sigh -- half from happiness, half from awe. Without further thought, I this time bravely lifted my left hand high and in answer to his waiting face, asked: “May I?” Upon a second’s ponder, he gave a slight, yet prominent nod of his head. I brought my hand closer, fifteen degrees from his line of sight, and placed it on his right cheek. To my dismay, he closed his eyes and let his head fall into it, my palm serving as a buttress to his cup. I let out a more excited smile and instantaneously felt trickles of salt fall down my weathered rosy cheeks. His response mirrored mine -- he smiled a full smile against my wrist...his eyes were now closed- elated, that he was. Upon opening his eyes, he anticipated what I might do next: I drew a circle with my eyes around his face, and without a moment’s worth of trepidation, uttered the phrase he once beckoned me before first touching his nose to mine. “May I kiss you?”, I asked. He smiled deeper this time, his wrinkles even more pronounced...It was perhaps to this day the most brilliant sight to ever present itself before me.
Without further adieu I touched my lips to his. It was as chaste, as lovely and full of promise as our first and last.
In the fierce hug we embraced ourselves with to follow, my head once more against his chest, my frame covered with the wonderful arms that I have missed so much, I felt our breaths dwindle away into the rest of forever.
...So I kept my promise: I found life in this man’s arms, and I died in his arms.

Three moments later and 68 years rewinded, I find myself wondering: Is this what our reunion will be like?

Pennsylvania, 1948-1949

The garden of Nature opens.
The grass at the threshold is green.
And an almond tree begins to bloom.

Sunt mihi Dei Acherontis propitii!
Valeat numen triplex Jehovae!
Ignis, aeris, aquae, terrae spiritus,
Salvete!—says the entering guest.

Ariel lives in the palace of an apple tree,
But will not appear, vibrating like a wasp’s wing,
And Mephistopheles, disguised as an abbot
Of the Dominicans or the Franciscans,
Will not descend from a mulberry bush
Onto a pentagram drawn in the black loam of the path.


But a rhododendron walks among the rocks
Shod in leathery leaves and ringing a pink bell.
A hummingbird, a child’s top in the air,
Hovers in one spot, the beating heart of motion.
Impaled on the nail of a black thorn, a grasshopper
Leaks brown fluid from its twitching snout.
And what can he do, the phantom-in-chief,
As he’s been called, more than a magician,
The Socrates of snails, as he’s been called,
Musician of pears, arbiter of orioles, man?
In sculptures and canvases our individuality
Manages to survive. In Nature it perishes.
Let him accompany the coffin of the woodsman
Pushed from a cliff by a mountain demon,
The he-goat with its jutting curl of horn.
Let him visit the graveyard of the whalers
Who drove spears into the flesh of leviathan
And looked for the secret in guts and blubber.
The thrashing subsided, quieted to waves.
Let him unroll the textbooks of alchemists
Who almost found the cipher, thus the scepter.
Then passed away without hands, eyes, or elixir.


Here there is sun. And whoever, as a child,
Believed he could break the repeatable pattern
Of things, if only he understood the pattern,
Is cast down, rots in the skin of others,
Looks with wonder at the colors of the butterfly,
Inexpressible wonder, formless, hostile to art.


To keep the oars from squeaking in their locks,
He binds them with a handkerchief. The dark
Had rushed east from the Rocky Mountains
And settled in the forests of the continent:
Sky full of embers reflected in a cloud,
Flight of herons, trees above a marsh,
The dry stalks in water, livid, black. My boat
Divides the aerial utopias of the mosquitoes
Which rebuild their glowing castles instantly.
A water lily sinks, fizzing, under the boat’s bow.


Now it is night only. The water is ash-gray.
Play, music, but inaudibly! I wait an hour
In the silence, senses tuned to a ******’s lodge.
Then suddenly, a crease in the water, a beast’s
black moon, rounded, ploughing up quickly
from the pond-dark, from the bubbling methanes.
I am not immaterial and never will be.
My scent in the air, my animal smell,
Spreads, rainbow-like, scares the ******:
A sudden splat.
I remained where I was
In the high, soft coffer of the night’s velvet,
Mastering what had come to my senses:
How the four-toed paws worked, how the hair
Shook off water in the muddy tunnel.
It does not know time, hasn’t heard of death,
Is submitted to me because I know I’ll die.


I remember everything. That wedding in Basel,
A touch to the strings of a viola and fruit
In silver bowls. As was the custom in Savoy,
An overturned cup for three pairs of lips,
And the wine spilled. The flames of the candles
Wavery and frail in a breeze from the Rhine.
Her fingers, bones shining through the skin,
Felt out the hooks and clasps of the silk
And the dress opened like a nutshell,
Fell from the turned graininess of the belly.
A chain for the neck rustled without epoch,
In pits where the arms of various creeds
Mingle with bird cries and the red hair of caesars.


Perhaps this is only my own love speaking
Beyond the seventh river. Grit of subjectivity,
Obsession, bar the way to it.
Until a window shutter, dogs in the cold garden,
The whistle of a train, an owl in the firs
Are spared the distortions of memory.
And the grass says: how it was I don’t know.


Splash of a ****** in the American night.
The memory grows larger than my life.
A tin plate, dropped on the irregular red bricks
Of a floor, rattles tinnily forever.
Belinda of the big foot, Julia, Thaïs,
The tufts of their *** shadowed by ribbon.


Peace to the princesses under the tamarisks.
Desert winds beat against their painted eyelids.
Before the body was wrapped in bandelettes,
Before wheat fell asleep in the tomb,
Before stone fell silent, and there was only pity.


Yesterday a snake crossed the road at dusk.
Crushed by a tire, it writhed on the asphalt.
We are both the snake and the wheel.
There are two dimensions. Here is the unattainable
Truth of being, here, at the edge of lasting
and not lasting. Where the parallel lines intersect,
Time lifted above time by time.


Before the butterfly and its color, he, numb,
Formless, feels his fear, he, unattainable.
For what is a butterfly without Julia and Thaïs?
And what is Julia without a butterfly’s down
In her eyes, her hair, the smooth grain of her belly?
The kingdom, you say. We do not belong to it,
And still, in the same instant, we belong.
For how long will a nonsensical Poland
Where poets write of their emotions as if
They had a contract of limited liability
Suffice? I want not poetry, but a new diction,
Because only it might allow us to express
A new tenderness and save us from a law
That is not our law, from necessity
Which is not ours, even if we take its name.


From broken armor, from eyes stricken
By the command of time and taken back
Into the jurisdiction of mold and fermentation,
We draw our hope. Yes, to gather in an image
The furriness of the ******, the smell of rushes,
And the wrinkles of a hand holding a pitcher
From which wine trickles. Why cry out
That a sense of history destroys our substance
If it, precisely, is offered to our powers,
A muse of our gray-haired father, Herodotus,
As our arm and our instrument, though
It is not easy to use it, to strengthen it
So that, like a plumb with a pure gold center,
It will serve again to rescue human beings.


With such reflections I pushed a rowboat,
In the middle of the continent, through tangled stalks,
In my mind an image of the waves of two oceans
And the slow rocking of a guard-ship’s lantern.
Aware that at this moment I—and not only I—
Keep, as in a seed, the unnamed future.
And then a rhythmic appeal composed itself,
Alien to the moth with its whirring of silk:


O City, O Society, O Capital,
We have seen your steaming entrails.
You will no longer be what you have been.
Your songs no longer gratify our hearts.


Steel, cement, lime, law, ordinance,
We have worshipped you too long,
You were for us a goal and a defense,
Ours was your glory and your shame.


And where was the covenant broken?
Was it in the fires of war, the incandescent sky?
Or at twilight, as the towers fly past, when one looked
From the train across a desert of tracks

To a window out past the maneuvering locomotives
Where a girl examines her narrow, moody face
In a mirror and ties a ribbon to her hair
Pierced by the sparks of curling papers?


Those walls of yours are shadows of walls,
And your light disappeared forever.
Not the world's monument anymore, an oeuvre of your own
Stands beneath the sun in an altered space.


From stucco and mirrors, glass and paintings,
Tearing aside curtains of silver and cotton,
Comes man, naked and mortal,
Ready for truth, for speech, for wings.


Lament, Republic! Fall to your knees!
The loudspeaker’s spell is discontinued.
Listen! You can hear the clocks ticking.
Your death approaches by his hand.


An oar over my shoulder, I walked from the woods.
A porcupine scolded from the fork of a tree,
A horned owl, not changed by the century,
Not changed by place or time, looked down.
Bubo maximus, from the work of Linnaeus.


America for me has the pelt of a raccoon,
Its eyes are a raccoon’s black binoculars.
A chipmunk flickers in a litter of dry bark
Where ivy and vines tangle in the red soil
At the roots of an arcade of tulip trees.
America’s wings are the color of a cardinal,
Its beak is half-open and a mockingbird trills
From a leafy bush in the sweat-bath of the air.
Its line is the wavy body of a water moccasin
Crossing a river with a grass-like motion,
A rattlesnake, a rubble of dots and speckles,
Coiling under the bloom of a yucca plant.


America is for me the illustrated version
Of childhood tales about the heart of tanglewood,
Told in the evening to the spinning wheel’s hum.
And a violin, shivvying up a square dance,
Plays the fiddles of Lithuania or Flanders.
My dancing partner’s name is Birute Swenson.
She married a Swede, but was born in Kaunas.
Then from the night window a moth flies in
As big as the joined palms of the hands,
With a hue like the transparency of emeralds.


Why not establish a home in the neon heat
Of Nature? Is it not enough, the labor of autumn,
Of winter and spring and withering summer?
You will hear not one word spoken of the court
of Sigismund Augustus on the banks of the Delaware River.
The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys is not needed.
Herodotus will repose on his shelf, uncut.
And the rose only, a ****** symbol,
Symbol of love and superterrestrial beauty,
Will open a chasm deeper than your knowledge.
About it we find a song in a dream:


Inside the rose
Are houses of gold,
black isobars, streams of cold.
Dawn touches her finger to the edge of the Alps
And evening streams down to the bays of the sea.


If anyone dies inside the rose,
They carry him down the purple-red road
In a procession of clocks all wrapped in folds.
They light up the petals of grottoes with torches.
They bury him there where color begins,
At the source of the sighing,
Inside the rose.


Let names of months mean only what they mean.
Let the Aurora’s cannons be heard in none
Of them, or the tread of young rebels marching.
We might, at best, keep some kind of souvenir,
Preserved like a fan in a garret. Why not
Sit down at a rough country table and compose
An ode in the old manner, as in the old times
Chasing a beetle with the nib of our pen?

I analyze,                                                         ­           my whole entire world
I specialize,                                                      ­            always in acting a fool
I socialize,                                                       ­ but the truth trickles through
I vocalize,                                                        ­                 not wanting to undo
I internalize,                                                     ­     everything that matters to
With surprise                                                         ­                   the ones I love
I realize,                                                         ­          they never left my side
Then I visualize.                                             Always believing what is right.

The wind howls
outside my bedroom window
shaking me
my heart; my soul

it screams
while you sit there
drinking sweet-smelling coffee
a baby boy in Africa
cries of hunger
and aching ribs.

while you are curled up
under warm and soft blankets
an old and lonely man
wanders the darkest streets
looking for warmth;
a home

while you hide there
surrounded by light and family
with an aura of ungratefulness
you are lost in the rays of your technologies
with a frown on your angelic face
when a weeping woman
shakes and prays
for her gone children to reach Heaven happily
but you dare forget God to a screen?

my house shakes
from Wind's agonizing words
and a streak of cold
trickles into my haven
along with the words
"what am I doing?"

somehow
my stiff legs reach
a window
and the arms in front of me
pull it open
to reveal no sound at all

where is the wind?
did he leave just as
he touched
my heart; my soul
making me waver?
or does a gust not howl ,
speak,
and isn't heard?

no
the wind was here
for how else did the once-twinkling snowflakes
suddenly freeze
and lose all of their beauty?

no one but Wind
would take the innocence
of such young and beautiful white specks
just as they landed
in this cold,
dark world

no one but Wind
would flare you with reality
enough to make you cry with obliviousness
for this wind; my Wind
he is the voice off all those
who have faced
life's stinging brutality;
him
instead of
hiding under covers
and whispering morbid lies
that
everything is okay

Just Let It In

this
language,

the perplexity 

of this language, 

is damaging to me.

how can there possibly

exist such an impeccably

imposing combination of

words that still manage to destroy 

a soul as wasted as mine? somehow 

words discover these fine little cracks in 

my wall, as thin as the head of a pin. words 

are like water, rushing into whatever space they 

can invade, occupying whatever volume they discover. 

this water trickles through the fragmented spaces, traveling

all the way to my heart, transforming me in the way they seem to

alter us all. it is these words that i take with me. words reverberate in my mind,

disrupt me to my core, degrade me. your  words are the ones i perpetually carry with me...

any...all of them. yours are the ones that elicit the simultaneous firing of every
single neuron in my brain. there is something about the magic of your words
flowing together...whispered into my ear. they move through me like
a stealthy, lone snake, undulating in a field, stalking its defenseless
prey; slowly...at first glance, not appearing to be a perilous threat
...then piercing me all at once with fierce strength and
determination, devouring me without appearing to 

acknowledge that maybe i still...still want to be.

to be whole. and i do. my body craves 

the sensation of being complete,
not torn apart by the nonsense
of your  daunting words
disrupting my spirit
and making me
despise the
necessity
of language.

i wish i could
void your words 

from my brain, but
my mind is helplessly
inconsistent; i can never
forget what i long to,  
scarcely remember
what i must; and
my peculiar mind
*
certainly* will never
forget the sound
of your words, 

just like water,

flooding me.

taking me

over.

Unlimited essence of floatation
The slow turn of rotation
Flying across the vast stitched multiverse
Extreme wave of beauty, but with a curse
So large, infinite if you will
Though, at float I am, still
Moving towards a planet
Gazing deep within it, I can tell it is stranded
The low gravity warped around my astral shell
Not enough to send me to a dwell
Paralyzed as its beauty is spectacular
The dark, purple atmosphere moves upon deeper into my soul
Absorbing and soaking its cosmic realm, my eyes center towards a trickle of light
A shine calling upon my invite
Invitation towards the 3rd Heaven
Still trapped within the box
The 2nd Heaven
Leaning closer, my aura and the planet's begin to lock
An increase of gravity as it embedded
Embedded a mere astral body on towards a new oasis
The closer I began, I noticed how my eye was so basic
Or was it
Creating barriers, I mustn't
Now upon the barren, desert soil
The dim black and purple formed as crystals
A plant sprouting, as the roots coil
Gazing upon the birth of one's self, a force trickles
Awaken from the deep slumber of meditation
A possibility of an infinite number of myself brings an essence of incredible invasion
Or perhaps, I'm moving forward within my soul
Moving closer towards a reality-based goal

somebody knew Lincoln somebody Xerxes

this man:a narrow thudding timeshaped face
plus innocuous winking hands, carefully
inhabits number 1 on something street

Spring comes
                the lean and definite houses

are troubled.   A sharp blue day
fills with peacefully leaping air
the minute mind of the world.
The lean and

definite houses are
troubled.in the sunset their chimneys converse
angrily,their
roofs are nervous with the soft furious
light,and while fire-escapes and
roofs and chimneys and while roofs and fire-escapes and
chimeys and while chimneys and fire-escapes
and roofs are talking rapidly all together there happens
Something,and They

cease(and
one by one are turned suddenly and softly
into irresponsible toys.)
                              when this man with

the brittle legs winces
swiftly out of number 1 someThing
street and trickles carefully into the park
sits

Down.  pigeons circle
around and around and around the

irresponsible toys
circle wildly in the slow-ly-in creasing fragility
—. Dogs
bark
children
play
-ing
     Are

in the beautiful nonsense of twilight

and somebody Napoleon

RIVERS MAKES ME QUIVER

Youthful mind left wandering just feeling the wetness from yards into the curbs

Ripples running curbside over toes, forming those first streams for a meandering mind

Clouds collecting power,mists collecting,forming Drop by drop rains flowing into their reserves  

High mountain lakes reflecting their passion, partitioned by beavers to make their own pond

  Broken into brooks flowing faster downward into streams,cool and clear their taste like sweet liqueurs

Beauty not confined to a torrent but gifted with greenery and wildlife ,flowers that make the forests more confident

Trickles forming into cascades downward making outpourings & overflows waterfalls forced through the fissures

Gravity needs spaces we watch as it heightens then widens,making it's way through the continent quickly becoming most prominent

Admire her beauty but reap her rewards,wet bounty to feed the fields, food for fishes ,generations receive her treasures

Canoeists,kayakers or legendary steamboat captains are fond of their flowing, boys wondering where she will go ,knowing our tears of joy will flow to the sea should be our greatest compliment. R.C.

In the dour ages
Of drafty cells and draftier castles,
Of dragons breathing without the frame of fables,
Saint and king unfisted obstruction's knuckles
By no miracle or majestic means,

But by such abuses
As smack of spite and the overscrupulous
Twisting of thumbscrews: one soul tied in sinews,
One white horse drowned, and all the unconquered pinnacles
Of God's city and Babylon's

Must wait, while here Suso's
Hand hones his tack and needles,
Scouraging to sores his own red sluices
For the relish of heaven, relentless, dousing with prickles
Of horsehair and lice his ***** *****;
While there irate Cyrus
Squanders a summer and the brawn of his heroes
To rebuke the horse-swallowing River Gyndes:
He split it into three hundred and sixty trickles
A girl could wade without wetting her shins.

Still, latter-day sages,
Smiling at this behavior, subjugating their enemies
Neatly, nicely, by disbelief or bridges,
Never grip, as the grandsires did, that devil who chuckles
From grain of the marrow and the river-bed grains.

Hatred seeps through vicious eyes,
Love like a dream lost forever,
hearts forgotten together,
an ecstacy of broken sadness,
glitter trembles in minds refracted,
Broken tension forgets itself,
lost in the hands of the weary,
never safe in the caress of sin,
for poetry cannot be formed from chapped lips
your fingers ache as words relapse
breath forgets to fill your lungs
your place is gone here,
life begotten through glass shards
piercing the skin to your bones
small drops of crimson leakage
trickle from the crevices of your body,
the pain is unstable and placid
as they tear your heart out
with their bare hands....

A loved one lost leaves us with less in life,
not a loss to death and his scythe, rather, love’s untimely death.
At first a soul severed does not suffer, numbness reigns over .
For hope, that foolish feeling, whose feigned friendship forges a trust,
woos without warning, whereby a weak body—in disbelief,
hears Hope’s healing message with haste and hardly heeds her coy hint:
“Toil with Time;” therefore, Hope, through truthful trials with Time, teaches.

Time’s quite an omnipotent entity—an ever-morphing force.
The stages of Love’s relations—from first sight to last—change
the flow of Time. When Love starts it trickles from the mountain’s source;
slow and steady, but gains speed as each shared interest adds on.
These streams form a river, Time passes by—Love keeps you busy.
Eons seem to pass in the blink of an eye, noticed only
when that love departs. Time’s effect returns, languishing the void;
that drop of water trickles over your soul making time lull.
The mind replays the broken record of Love’s last visit till
Time’s drop drips from its place onto the rose’s petal, splashing
that prison of longing open, for Love’s return sets you free.
If that drop lands on the posy, for your rose was picked by one
whose hand is unknown, Time causes unfamiliar drought as
that posy shrivels under the sun. Time, now vapor, ascends—
with others joining we form a cloud of soles—growing denser still.
Up here we watch the world revolve, Time’s presence perceived no more.
This Union of Soles float in a blur, each learns from a neighbor.
Knowledge gained heals the sole, but is useless if employed alone.
We pray, forlorn—hearts still torn, till we fall to an earthly shore;
so keep Faith close, along with Hope, for Time will take course once more.

At this point I must disclose that I still need to elevate,
by descending from the misty fog of Time’s timeless smokescreen;
however, my time spent is not in vain. The lessons I learn
shape my view on life’s inner workings—cognition reigns over.
Over and over, I’ve seen the world revolve, patterns appear.
I see sole souls enter this realm alone, then leave as quickly,
for few remain stuck here, jailed in the prison of the timeless.
Most move on— graduated, learned, and having passed Time’s tests.
Alas, I am a mule in a stable—stubborn and restless.
This aside is ending as a descent’s beginning takes flight.

Love is only truly lost when one cannot overcome change.
A switch, which demotes loves to a plane of platonic tenor.
With faithfulness, a likeness to those before the Fall furthers
the Sole’s doles—now brighter—they exonerate Love’s loss of love.
When the soul, driven, has forgiven, then friendship’s re-obtained.

The seconds, hours
The world in a shroud.
There's no where to run
All one does is cower.

The days go by
Dead men deny
An elaborate lie,
Till the day that they die.

Hope trickles away
Just as blood,
From each corpse that lay
Red runs wild
Wild like the fires at night.

There is no solitude here,
Once, free men, now fear
When their world is run
Under The Barrel of The **Gun.