The Beast, it lies,
The Beast, it cheats,
It gnaws and gnashes at your knees and feet,
Its teeth are long,
Its teeth, they scar,
No person is left unmarked
It size, unmeasurable
Its weight, unweighed
Its whereabouts, untraceable
Its name, unnamed,
But the Beast wears a familiar mask you see
A mask so familiar, so familiar indeed,
This unmeasurable, untraceable, unnamable beast,
Who gnaws and gnashes at your knees and feet
It roams by night, by day it hides
The fearsome beast who lives inside.

.
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

To be Kate,
To seem normal, happy, unbothered.
To be Kate,
Unweighed, hinged, togathered.
To be Kate,
To sound quiet, blessed, sound.
To be Kate,
For just one round.
Around the wall,
Around the lawn,
Around the guard.
Than where it's scattered,
Unhinged,
Where it's barred.
To be Kate is really, really hard.

A-walking ‘round a stony crag
atop which stands a castle strong:
I know each rock and brick and ****
that went to build it for so long.

My forebears helped to build this place
from its earliest days, just a palisade.
Thence it grew into this mighty space
that would touch the moon by fear unweighed.

The builders began, so constant and brave.
In Godspeed and discovery they came.
Once planted, a flower of May then gave
this rock two pillars of its fame.

Today it shines out far from its hill up high,
unhidden citadel of radiant beams,
reposed beneath the starry sky
while white and red roads to it stream.

Four hundred years — or thousands more —
has it took to make this fortress fair
at great cost to those who came before.
The scent of their toil fills the mountain air.

Yet this great rock is now on the verge
of toppling into the abyss below:
For those who claim it must be purged
now storm the keep with torches aglow.

Now there’s fear this fateful fortress will fall
to the whims and rage of a dishonest beast
who claims to just want to save it all
but will only lead to its defeat.

These castle walls shall not be breached
by the demons it once bred within.
The people who still build it shall reach
new vistas to the beast’s chagrin.