Best River Poems

Crying River (The Untold Ballad) 

Undercover waters of rain dash
Cold children, no smiling splash
Tragic sobs, epic force of the mountain rain
Beautiful as it may seem -shallow basin 
---Dream---

She cries a tune, 
Mocking the Maple lands, a beautiful tune
Crooked Cornwall, she steams with the moon
Oceanic dreams,...

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I’m listless as a lazy river
barely lapping at the shore.
I wanted once to find the ocean,
but I don’t care any more.

Would I even make a ripple
if a stone were tossed my way?
Even with the frogs and fishies
I no longer wish to play.

I’ve lost my course...

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I move with the river, it moves with me
We move in synchronicity
My thoughts flow with currents
Push my feelings around the bends
It heals my wounds, the hurts it mends
It washes away worries and doubts
In motion it turns it all inside out
As peace consumes me all about
No...

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Wind whistling through the weeping willow tree
Its teary leaves drip silently into the fast flowing river
They float freely dancing in the dappled daylight
Caught in the rustic reeds they plan their escape



10th December 2014...

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Lily of the Nile 

O Lily of the Nile, your enchanting
purple starburst blooms
rise on naked stalks to greet

lovers on their river stroll as
nature lifts their spirits high where
setting sun and twilight meet.  

Known from ancient ardent times
as lover's finest floral gifts... 
alluring in shadowed...

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To find solace from misty tides that curve,
In low beats gently weaving their way
Along the coastline where our town rests:
This aging lake I knew as a girl
Is now draped with crumpled lily pads,
Against night’s advancing shade. I heave…

Yet, the clear music of waves endure
All trespasses...

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spilling mother’s milk
Nature’s bounty feeds her child -
river’s youth fades fast


Susan Ashley
April 29, 2020


~ Fourth Place ~
Premiere Contest: Hi-Ku (5)
Sponsor: Brian Strand...

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Take away the frost of winter,
rid the land of biting snow,
then who would praise the warmth of August,
how could April rivers flow?

Hush the deafening crash of thunder,
dull the flash of lightning's thorn,
and who would feel the calm of silence,
when the still of dawn is born?

Sow...

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Nor thunder in the dark, nor flash, nor fire,
nor other pyrotechnics that, they say,
accompany all such events, nor dire
phantasmagorias, going astray

in the unconsciousness. I’m all alone
down by the river which impassive face
turns gold with dusk. The other side is grown
with willows. A bit cloudy; a...

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How I wish to scuttle alone,
over a gentle river,
from bank to bank,
in a small boat,
rowed with a bamboo pole.

The call of the wild is an irresistible call,
to venture into the silken waters,
to feel the wind and look at the blue sky
with nimbus clouds drawing strange...

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He left his sneakers by the shore
A backpack too, was laid aside
to pick up when the sun had died

He claimed his other gear, instead
The thrill of rapids filled his head
and sounds of water drew him in
         ...

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No mere river, thou art nation’s heartbeat,
That you came from heaven may be a myth,
Not that for common good ye fell beneath,
For centuries ye lift people’s spirit.

Let me call thee India’s stand-in sub soul,
O Brahma-vari, heaven’s holy waters,
Thou worshipped art in thy all as a...

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by rivers memory bank - flowing current eddies of you...

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A long hard look softens to the touch
life lines   rivers that ebbed and flowed
the midstream upstream fight
has left its nicks and scars
but the brooks that babbled batting lashes
that sent splashes over laugh line rapids 
and pooled in floods of pain
have all eventually
come to...

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