Short Riverbanks Poems

Rocky riverbank...
the lap of a dog
out a bowl...

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fishing days with dad 
riverbanks tall grass we cast 
day-long fishing trip...

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Every hand tells a story
    life's adventures inscribed on palms
  Lines of wisdom, hints of psalms

  Yet destiny wears out her rhymes
    on riverbanks of sorrow
  Dreams not lent nor borrowed...

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Mystic River
lazy mists dawdle
 in sinuous rivulets ~
   fog surfs in deep dales

river of white clouds
 threads through alleys of tall pines ~
  fog garden slow dance

curly silver mists
 pale kisses on riverbanks ~
  swirling shape-shifters

flat bottomed clouds float
 wispy fogs tickle thunder ~
 joy ride for cloud ships

mystic tule songs
 gypsy brumes on evergreens ~
  forest singalong...

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~ Her special place ~


She searched the woods, the plants, the trees
   sloping riverbanks, fast-flowing streams
Not one's your special place, whispered soft the breeze

O'er rolling meadows, through bush and vine
   up steep mountains, past ibix and ram
O, please, she pleaded, please give me a sign

Daylight waning, plodding home, her face drawn
   when on her landing, an inner light switched on --
"This, my humble cottage" ~ her special place all along...

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Newhaven

This is the town that time sank,
Grey shades of dust on riverbanks,
where the gulls they flock a'frenzy


Those were the shops the road choked,
accessible through a haze of exhaust smoke,
each building there now stands empty,.


This is the land where the trash burns,
This small stretch of boozers and cab firms.
And a ferry port for entry.

This is the town of Newhaven,
and I doubt there's a thing that can save 'em,
for the money it left with the gentry....

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By the gray rivers flowing, the recently revived,
bob along like Champaign corks in the swift current.

The dead always pop too soon,
even when
you pull their corks with long lamentations.
The fizz-fuse keeps burning.

Morning finds them on-going,
restored and drifting among the detritus
of our own sad endings.

They are not ghosts, you gave them names,
but they do not answer when you call.
They instead, bump against the riverbanks
endeavoring to once again, come ashore....

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