Long Riverbank Poems
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Every morning, I open my eyes, and I wonder at my surroundings.
Before any constructive thoughts, chaos comes raging as waves, crashing through my mind.
Crowds speak in unison, yet, against the grains in the sands of time.
Past memories that may be false, as they feel like they belong to someone else, and scenario’s that never will be;
confusion that paralyzes rationality and lost moments recollected out of context;
sudden realization of needed self preservation and implosive, internal destruction bursts like a supernova;
emotions on the tipping point of control, spiral into a death dive - as a predator hunt’s it’s meal, so too do they threaten to devour the entirety of my being.
Realization, that the wandering moments of yesterday, standing deep in a dense fog, are all but lost if not chased; propelling a desire of recollection.
The crowd of voices become amplified, as if to reverberate through an empty chamber.
A funny joke, a terrifying laugh from a seemingly simple weatherman, the bark of a cat and sounds of a drowning fish; an argument settled after a battle in a lost war.
Instructions whispered in urgency…I am almost there.
There are a plethora of directions, end points of accomplishment. Success at a task generates only, yet another task, complicit to procrastination in understanding the numbness.
Compelled to breathe, my own words break free of their restraints and I am convinced to search.
Awe….the blanket is red, the door is closed and the shades are open. There, a written reminder, a preset notification, so to speak…drawn by the hand of a stranger, it expels any worries that I shouldn’t be where I am.
An over-spilling riverbank of realization supersedes the chaos and I am able to sort the broken pieces.
Sometimes I can reassemble them, most times they are rebuilt by someone else, repurposed and perhaps handed down, as if generational.
Truth begins it’s treacherous journey into my heart and let’s my mind stray, as it organizes what must be done to move forward, the triggers of the moment, deciding the fate of my day.
edgar allen poe: he died on my birthday, but before i was born and before the beginning of the civil war. he might have enjoyed the pale horse of that day, as he endured the hellish bells, bells, bells & belted the raven’s forevermore.
sylvia plath: loved to take blood baths, hated tulips, and was born twenty days after my birthday, many years before. i was introduced to her bell jar in my high school years.
james mercer langston hughes: he invests in the euphrates, congo, nile, mississippi (m - i- double “s” - i - double “s” - i - double “p” - i) rivers, where his soul has grown deep.
robert lindley: the soup’s own dark poet, emotions worn on his sleeve,
he watches the waters flow from the riverbank & returns from ashes and dust
darkness falls and delivers
7/21/2022
In old London
the Thames used to be muddy,
not muddy like the Mississippi,
but the mud of the drowned,
murdered, and of long lost dreams.
On gray dawns
scrawny kids would sift through
the detritus that washed up
on its stony riverbank,
small objects that belonged
to the once living.
Sometimes a good ring or wristwatch
would be fished out of the effluvium,
more often rags,
chicken or rat bones.
Those who once stood beside
these dark waters
may have looked deeply into them
as if despairingly predicting
cold malnourished hands
scooping up their dreams
to be sold for pennies.
One may insist that spring will come if I just stand there,
I was, therefore, standing on the riverbank as he said.
The rain poured on the riverside where I stood
and when the water ran into the river
for downstream where the valley expands,
at a time when the water returns as the dew drops
on the riverside, the flowers bloom exclaiming,
“spring is here.”
Because he said that summer will come
when the spring grows as flowers on the riverside prairie
and look up at the sky from the places where they rooted,
I leaned on the drifting could high above and stared
at the corner where the sky hangs on, and before knowing
summer rushes here driving the golden chariot.
And when you live through your life
hanging onto the golden chariot, he says,
autumn will come.
That’s why when the sky becomes red
on the other side of the golden chariot goes,
winds rise and leaves fall and autumn comes
stepping on the fallen leaves.
If I weave the mortification I experienced as warps
and cruel treatment I underwent as the threads of wefts,
while relating all detestable memories deeply imprinted
in my heart to the leaves woven into a small boat,
and waft it on downstream to forget all those unwanted memories,
by the time the drifting water becomes a star
after whirling in the marsh for a while,
and falls onto decaying reeds
the winter comes, he says,
as a colorless lonely flower by a grave site where I stand.
August is ending with a heat that gives no mercy to the land or man
so intense that the air swelters off the river into the tree tops,
looking ahead, its as if we are passing through the gossamer of summer's spector,
Private Shanon has been missing for six days
although, we believe he is lost, not captured or deserted
only God knows where his feet have taken him,
evidence along the riverbank indicates that he is alive and pursuing us
perhaps mistaken and disoriented, thinking that we are further up river,
Old Dorion is seeking him now like a clever wolf,
Shanon was seperated from me while stalking a coyote
a most mischievous animal that is entirely foriegn to us except in prank,
a bottle of whiskey goes to the first man who can lay a coyote down,
yesterday half of the expedition went hunting the prarie dog
a critter more cunning than a cat and jumpy as a log spark,
after several hours of scrambling around like lunatics
Private Sheilds has finally caught one with pork bait and a twig basket
the poor rascal squieks like a cheap violin,
eventually I will send it to Washington with other novel specimens,
President Jefferson and the Philosophical Society will be good guardians,
the men and I have been refreshing ourselves on the jewels of soil
the wild grapes are so succulent that the Italians would believe
Bacchus himself had seeded this earth with a secret serum
and the plum groves cuddled in the most unadulterated coves
invite the mind into Eden's shadow,
on this journey we have observed migrations of pigeons
that have rivaled the stretch of storm clouds,
crowds of squirrels so numerous they have canvassed the ground with a sea of fur,
and now the mighty, mythical buffalo walks before us
a legend amongst beasts, monstrous in girth
with hooves that peel the Plains and horns shaped by vengeance,
as they graze we seize the prize of their offering with thanks in our aim,
not having horses strategic concealment is critical, they are reknown for retaliation,
we dropped seven of them in a great pandemonium of panic
the gun smoke, field dust and perspiration meld into a fragrance of sacrifice,
our sustenance is secured, their lives feed our future,
J.A.B.
Community starts here
Under this tree of sprawling branches
With thighs pressed against sinuous gnarled roots,
Our heads nodding and shaking with whurring yellow leaves
Adorning our heads and fluttering off into the river beside us,
Only to stick to the dipping twigs of the tree in such cool August air,
Such a smoky light, community will start right here.
Community starts here
In this small over-crowded coffee shop,
with faces in late morning glow, as old friends reunite to
the clang of dishes and the sliding of porcelain
On faux-mahogany, elbow-elbow expressions brighten
from the whiteness of day: "I got a copy of my documentary on DVD
In my car that I can give you, if you like?"
"Oh really, well, okay..." This is the post-Sunday Mass air
Where light and love swirl as opportunity and re-emergence
And everything feels as natural as a breeze, with the fluttering of
Newsletters, roommates wanted ads, yoga lessons, and announcement
That a new spoken Word artist is arriving in town who's blind but has a dog and took the
bus from Ohio and reads his words like honey for angels,
This is where community starts.
Community starts here
On the playground of a hundred tumbling children
Screaming, tugging, jumping, laughing, crying, and dreaming.
Slow this time down and imagine them all 30-years-old with suits
And private thoughts and caged feelings and fully-fleshed with the
Citizen's kinetic energy to do right and wrong, good and bad,
Picture them as you, then picture how you're reflected in their eyes like
Revolving suns with times for dinner, and now flash back to the monkey bars,
Back to the open-souled shining young stars, here on their battleground,
in this galaxy of fun and terror our community finds it seedlings.
From the cafe to the riverbank,
From the playground to the People's Court of Whatever You Can Think Up,
Community starts everywhere,
Everywhere,
But my bathroom.
As if the sun intended this habitual tendency to make the body healthy I do. First, the brain believes itself what a mistake if it's blue. The eyes blue breeze sky praise God some beautiful living world earth. Good as a proper prayer could good. Then a leg moves. What a miracle course of muscle goes to greatness human and divine. Morning moving as good a feeling.
An arrow of cloud on the sky points the way. Everyday look you and you find an ancient new way. A list of the components contains the river's horizontal reserve deep dull and dark as a dream, the blue sky and her daughter the gentle breeze and her great husband the morning sun. After these, men and their nice machines and their morning chores.
When I get up I brush my teeth mundane. I put fruit in a bowl by the bed and brew tea. I feed the cats animal meats preserved and cans of caught fish organs and oils complex. Their ****s being different from mine cleaning. I sweep the floors with a broom and a dust. And knock in the nails. I check the mailbox and search the street a fence a neck a stretch for the mailman and imagine the mail. My doing this opens the windows and unlocks the doors.
Next I water thirty thirsty plants important. The ferns smell of earth spray. This good thing lasts into the wee hours of your life remember. Open goodness goes to heaven sky on earth or in a sense four seasons. I open the back door porch and a black cat morning. You wonder why. A childhood breeze makes the feelings in the mind play music. The mystery of night is now a mystery of morning. Something of nostalgia wine.
The center the stomach the body the sex. It propels the peoplexs body all day. From morning to night a woman a man. Everything fitting and grand and in through the door healthy, nothing and wise. The grass on the hill of a willing riverbank. Welcome and good morning.
I am the center of raw and wild feelings.
Born from an ancient spirit of infant and child.
Falling back in a womb of darkness, myself I discover.
Hiding in an egg, I hear a whisper.
My shell is touched by a promise in the wind's soughing.
Infinite breath of wind caresses, I, who am little.
I am conscious of little.
A time before definition or feelings.
Warm, wild wind soughs.
Motion stirs the blueprint of a child.
God in every breath, every whisper.
Take form and discover.
A bud must open in order to discover.
Hesitation and fear cry out from a bud so little.
Inside a chameleon wears it's feelings.
Fright filters through the pores of a child.
Leaf and skin shiver in a dark wind's soughing.
The angelic songs of a river soughs.
Life's song for us to discover.
Along the riverbank runs the child.
Of the future she knows little.
Reflecting in water a spectrum of feelings.
Their sound is a scream, a laugh, a cry and a whisper.
As I grow the acceptable sound is a whisper.
My tears often mix with a shower's soughing.
Bodies aren't meant to cover feelings.
They should be naked dancers that discover.
Their steps are big and little.
Dance with the flow trusting child.
As I grow older, in my soul lives the child.
My heart is the room where she shouts and whispers.
It's a never-land where she will always be little.
Hope sings in a tear-river's soughing
With care and love we'll learn to discover.
We are courageous explorers of feelings.
The child, her voice a prayerful wind's soughing.
A soft reminding whisper not to fear discovery.
Oh little love I am with you always, experiencing together our feelings.
I’m wondering
how do we get up
and get dressed
find our way
out of this mess
is there a trap door
in the floor
or a secret passage
marked by elvish rhunes
that only appears
by the light of a full moon
or sun lighting the keyhole
at high noon
how do we escape
from this straight jacket
of insanity and hate
avoid our fate
wipe clean the slate
maybe through the sewer grate
there is a way to fix it
but should we even try
or just lay down
on the riverbank
and drink
some whisky and rye
laced with arsonic
or cyanide
we have the power
but most don’t know it
or they’re too afraid to use it
because they might
blow it
angry as hell
but too scared
to show it
we have the rock
in our hands
but hesitate
to throw it
because
we might hit our brother
or father or mother
or the next door neighbor
or ourselves
They say all good things
will come to an end
what if
the only good
thing to come
is the end
Independent Heart
A riverbank, a farm, the field, wildflowers, birds, bees
The beautiful tall willow tree at the end of the farm
Blue sky, crystal air, countryside, childhood’s age of life
Unforgettable times, moments, years, beautiful past
Youth age, my past, dead hope and time, sad faithful life
It is good to remember my earliest fate in this life; oh life!
Live in nature is a blessing of life, a gift from the highest
Live in Nature is a way to the High; into the highest life
Oh Life, how and where can I find my life and only heart?
Freedom, Independence, nature, purity, honesty, crystal life
Just live, and live in a big garden, live the greenest life
… Remembering the clean life
A life
Beating
Far
Hearth