Where is the strength to be strong ?

Where is the strength to be strong ?

For strength is not a passing season ;
it does not come and go lightly,
by and by
The true nature of stalwart love " is " ,..
an enduring friendship cannot pass alone ―

Strength knows not colour
nor measure of dark or light
The creed of its roots ;
the plea of its strife,
within misery becomes belief

Yet is the sorrow felt a contradiction ?
Our own vision's
day by day devise
to bear diminishing life ?

Where is the strength to be strong ?

The doubt in faith that ebbs and flows ;
lost in gravity of deepest oceans'
blackened push and pull ?
No matter the despair embraced
that which makes the broken feel whole

Where is the spirit to be strong ?
The verve that emboldens strength ?

A Life is driven by a Will to BE ― is ―

Manifesting transformation ,..

Rise up the hidden fountain springs within
where all spirit waters begin

Sturdy strength ― Resilient and strong
"Never enough" belies love’s urgent calling

"Never enough" is of enslaving device
a fleeting moment
ne'r  a candle burnt out

The Will to BE
  is always enough!
    to BE ―

© Harlon Rivers ... January 6th, 2017

note:   written for a struggling friend,
and for anyone who can relate to the 

side affects of life's waning wintertide ... 

thank you for reading

A lonely bird without a song ...

A lonely bird without a song

He squeezed his voice out of the throat
an old Dreadnought guitar
He bared his soul to anyone
who would listen to his psalms;
purging the torn an anxious silence within,
surrendering an unspoken heart in a song

Some days you feel
like you live too long
Watching the recurrent tides
recede and grow low
This life, such an unplanned journey,
given to lose what’s been lost once more

How many times
must a heart be broken?
To realize a heart heavy
won’t stop beating strong
Steal away the broken inside these flesh forsaken walls;
breathe one’s last bated breath in the peace of a song

Sometimes life falls
waaayyyy short of expectations
Though passing time
may assuage evanescent dreams,
there is a stillness that floods the moment
awakening the  motherless child in his soul

Fate befallen a wordless silence
in the aftermath of finally letting go
Fingertips no longer calloused
Dreadnought wood dusty gone cold
Melancholy madness echoes unrequited
A lonely bird without a song

Harlon Rivers ... September 2016

a moment changes everything

Peace...Rivers

authors note:                                                                                                          

I've been unable to find a place to share my creativity 

that feels like I belong, so I'm in the process of reopening 

my creative writing blog chapters..  at least here 

I can be comfortably numb; where indifference is not taken personally, but my normal, because of the constraints of the system, 

The Winter Still

photo by:   H A Rivers

The Winter Still
              by harlon rivers



Only the silence of the rain
casts its cleansing balm ,
redressing the gray mood
with the memory of a fickle sun’s
tawny winter hues

A plethora of awakenings ..,
croaking mutters spellbind
enlivened by heavens touch ,
painting hope a greener pasture ,
adorning other fallow
winterscape meadows
far and wide

A colorless midwinter gravity
envelops nature’s endowing OM
with a mystical ribbitting mantra ,
the hidden multitudes’ echoing
their ardent supplications ;
enlightening pleas resound
the call of the wild ,
beckoning spring
come by here and now

Cleansing rain arousing
the quiescent emerald moss ,
where it thickly grasps
its unseen confluence
hushed beneath
its breathless clasp

Dormancy refreshed
by the cleansing rain ;
the calmness strove
to charily assuage
an uninvited aloneness
bequeathed by
the wintertime resonance

And suddenly...,
           it is
the winter still

authors note:

The thrumming cadences of a zillion frogs abound this stormy wintertime Eden … just felt the urge to try to tell somebody

#life #hope #winter #thoughts #melancholy #spring #seasonschange

Someone said a poet died ...

Someone said a poet died
a lamentable natural disaster
no one really ever understood
the uncomfortable loneliness they read,
left unsaid, in the silence between the lines

Gathered words often revealed
an awkward vulnerability
life tethered by an in-severable frayed thread
unable to shed the skin that enfolds
the dauntingly misunderstood laments

Suspended at friendless crossroads
melancholy days of indifference wept
mused many a sleepless night
"accepting an unfinished life"
evanescent as the faltering light

It’s as if there was always some wordless reason
to never feel good enough
unworthy to discover elusive love unknown
cleave a labyrinth out of the darkness
okay to just let go

It’s not a weakness to be human
"Tears are the heart’s traces" … he once wrote
"only eyes cleansed by teardrops see clearly"
heaven's rain unconditionally enlightened
by love and light.

Someone said a poet died
trying to make sense
out of all he thought he'd given
a word at a time was left behind
only abandoned words remain in the torn of silence

harlon rivers © 2016

#poetry #poets #crossroads

Dead Raccoon Along the Long and Winding Road

Dead Raccoon Along the Long 

  and Winding Road

                                  by harlon rivers

Raccoon lying sullied
along the long and winding road
haven’t felt this kind of sorrow
since the day the music came undone
Seen a lot of life stained highways,
walked a lot of lonesome miles
Not going to clean up my own spilt milk
waiting here for the stars fall from the sky

Raccoon lying sullied
along side the long and winding road
Passed by with silent indifference - -
look the other way byway child
Just a bump in the road
blood strain map to the ditch
lovely stretch of the lonesome highway
leading me on home alone

Dead Raccoon lying sullied
along the long and winding road
What are we going to do
this life wasn’t near enough ?
Swarm of honey bees awhirl
land high above on yonder tree,
touching the moment’s greater good
with a beguiled sweetness
natures' reverent ambrosial esprit

Rolling thunder storm
roiled through after midnight ;
cloud to ground lightning
resplendent spider web
Salt of tears or salt of Sea
this bitter sweet song
Dead Raccoon lying sullied
along the long and winding road

Tail stiff and pointed
toward the highway ;
compass needle coursing
on to other side ,
destiny come what may
Now some kind of this storm
has left me down hearted ,
high atop noir thunder heads loom ,
caution thrown to the moon ,
yesterday’s seeds unsprouted
yet lovingly sown one by one

Dead Raccoon lying
on the other side
along this long
and winding road
misbegotten eulogy
this bitter sweet song ...
we leave a lot behind
along this long 
twisted road home ...

Notes: 11 pm June 1st, 2015

June 2nd 2015 a work in progress

In the starless sky blue sky

In the starless sky blue sky
                                              by harlon rivers

    dancing alone,
    when the sky
    is falling down

     free falling
      spinning …
rolling & tumbling 

uncontrollably around

rapt in the variegated
    shameless air
in the starless sky blue sky,

murder of crows watch
 from above high wire

grey nothingness aground …

tucking in the arch of a diver
    rolling upside down

Falling at the speed of loneliness
 espy the passing edge of a ledge
     with empty nest of brown

          uncaring glimpses

              ...the gravity
              ...the weight

           the whoosh of gusting wind

               brushing wild feathers,

                of rushing waterfall
                 becoming a silent
                  fallow creek bed

            …. shattering

    into Many shades of Black

       sky blue Robin’s egg
       nascent hope bestrewn - - - 

           broken pieces
       lie beside the tears

            awakened 

                  in 

                 the 

                 fall …

  Note:                                            

google search photo by Andy