What is it with this millennial
generation and the ones that follow,
Kids of seven, to thirty seven
that can not seem to formulate
a simple spoken sentence without
starting it with "Like" and ending
it with another quizzical "Like"?
Is it a verb or merely punctuation?
Or just an annoying affectation?

Like what the hell?
Like I just do not like get it!

Before I close my eyes ... Before I drift away ...
      fallow as the evanescent tide grows low;
      before the falling sun echoes
      upon shown waves of estranged sandbars

Before I draw this life’s ending breath ...
      as beclouding skies ache like a windswept shoreline
      kissed by a bitter sweet gale of love and misery
      beget a chilling spell cast of invisible winds of change

Before you no longer remember ...
      the way the song a gentle wind's caress
      swirls and sweeps away bare feet
      set free to soar beyond the reach of your eyes
      
Before these eyes see the final sunset tiptoe down the sky ...
      even the sun feels the dimming in its wake ;
      unrequited footprints in the sand course straightaway,
      never turning around to look back whence they came

Before another tide floods a deserted oceanside ...
      erasing the traces of where we danced naked as the dark
      glimpsing the diminishing horizon ― 

                              and I let go .........
      as the tears steal away the last glint of the sea

           The way you took your love from me ...



                 © harlon rivers ... May15th, 2017

you serenaded a soul with words my ears have never comprehended,
overused the concept of love, wringing the word out until it was left dry, there was a hope in me that the author in you would display himself for me as well, that your stanzas correlated to the feeling between us.
i was searching for the words in your mouth, my hands sinking in like a dentist on a mission, hoping to pry out the sudden surprise of a few letters from between your teeth, something to make me feel like there were still things to discovered, that you were not going to be like the others, but everything fit wrong, like when i had not worn my retainer in a week.

For I have restrained from the light above
Thou, in the ogling reflection, stood, awaiting
Amorphous reiteration of the rue singes the flesh
For I ,ere sewing the sin on my flesh, was inebriated from passion and from those I regret.

The eons of dust arched the back of the wind,
Integrating through, never did they collide, only swiveling.
For I missed the light flickering,
Beyond the hues of tears clear on my skin..

Only in this meandering path do I bedeck my complexion,
With sins ,adjoining skin over skin
I have never admired
The way they nestle over sin.

Thee; The patchy and rough branches,
Sew beyond the bones under,
Inexorably calling to terminate
This pain over and under

For i have sinned, please tune me out
Discerned from the peaks of higher mountains; Apart.
Though the stars shine upon solely a dust,
For a jiff, merely descends the armour, down

Caved in, clemency seems away in clouds,
Billowing up towards the luminary.
Did I crave it or did I not?
Does flesh ache a lot.

I stood in front of a mirror,
Abhoring the adversarial and metaphoric matter
Ethereality strikes over my flesh,
When I commemorate the sins I have flecked

to paint violent torches, eat quivering berries bent on thorns
every quaint brittle poet is mighty, strong, zealous
at each full yoke aches pure whole angst
mussed tousled everythings, draped silently on green tables with merciless baby finches eating delicacies
sipping gin and whistling - the year that beauty blasted through our roof and crumbled down onto our floors
the last part is the poison - chase it 'til it's siphoned;
may it be swallowed by a foe

-c.j.