March 12, 2015

the poet is a river too...


photo by Edward Rinaldi ©

(from the Eastern banks
of the Hudson River
where Troy's City Hall
once concretely stood)





the poet is a river too...


"river towns 
are full 
of thieves 
and thirsty 
travelers"

every land, as it climbs away from the sea is strewn with 
ley lines...along insistence of rain, dotted port slips and 
towns with names connected to the wear of cargo and 
freight...where we make transitioning, a necessary part of 
our spiritual bloodstream...

yes, I was a drifter float wood viscous...I have always been 
a drifter though thoughts beyond this life are purely 
conjecture or feelings one way or another about a subject 
begging for definition...this is usually when my soul says 
consume more to know your holes need fill...

the constancy of my empty is a...

hunger paint silt slide clay mountain tongue...
a language of dissent drawn onto tidewater banks...
why is reason enough for anger to subdue me...
I knew how foment was foaming lattice bones...
how it lent my body an escape from now...

this is...
where I am more brittle...
when I wake up on occasion 
and say well I made it through 
another night being me again...

EJR ©

24 comments:

  1. The way the night is part of the waves, how we sway with the brine, like a selkie swaying in dreams.. yet at dawn we will come to the shore, and shred that skin of the night..

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    1. Thank you for that perspective...astute...much appreciated that you shared it so...

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  2. The last stanza...oh my. "I made it through...being me again." Sometimes it is hard to swim against the tide, to not be drowned..... Hayes Spencer is Kanzensakura

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    1. Yes, I seem always in the undertows... :) Thank You

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  3. very cool... so important to be brave to be ourselves even though brittle.. also like how you start this with the quote and the image of a drifter - i can relate to that a bit...

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    1. How do we come to understand our lives in the present...we create something, anything we can in a language of the past racing to reach our exhales, which are already tasting of the future...thank you...

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  4. I sense the passing of time, and history in this - I had not heard ley lines before ( aside from being a good scrabble word ) it really gave me a good visual to set the rest of the poem up.

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    1. rivers have always reminded me of ley lines...water being a keeper of information...a return to the infinite and emergence from it...cycling over and over...thank you for listening in...

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  5. I specially admire that stanza - hunger paint and language dissent and forming lattice bones~ There is a cycle in that river that forever returns ~ I also want to say I love the title!

    What a lovely offering Edward ~ And I hope you are able to return the visits of others as a courtesy ~

    Happy OLN ~

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    1. yes indeed, most of us hunger for more of the unquantifiable parts of the universe...I hope to stay hungry for awhile...much appreciated having you stop by...

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  6. I really like the reflection in this stanza.."yes, I was a drifter...."
    Very powerful write.

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    1. yes, a poem of mine without reflection...is a "revolution without dancing...", I do so appreciate you stopping by...

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  7. I sense and feel truth in this poem of yours.

    Wonderful and right to the point. :)

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  8. Ambitious and interesting write, Edward - I shall be back for more... With Best Wishes Scott www.scotthastie.com

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    1. Appreciate that you stopped by Scott...thank you...

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  9. Ah.. i love it when the human heArt fully expressed in all poetic expressions is danced in Nature.. in the melody of above so below.. all around.. inside and out.. 'we' truly are lovers in ocean filled glow..when connected in diatoMonous flow..:)

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    1. great observation...something we are born from and return to...rain and stardust...shaped by gravity and circumstance...wow...great comment...

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  10. Gorgeous photo and great metaphor.

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  11. This poem is the mouth of a river, ebbing with tidal waves of thought...to be re-read again.

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    1. Great observation...Troy NY is the last port of call on the Hudson River to receive oceanic tides...the poem actually wrote itself as I imagined how each of our lives mimic the journey of rain...and how rivers have mouths that are really soles (pun intended)...thanks for listening in... :)

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  12. "lattice bones" ... I love that.

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