Watching the River Flow

Our dreams, like the river, are bent by time. And tears.

The ever-rushing torrent of trials and tribulations,

that relentless bore of a reckless tide’s urge

to carry on to the sea, to see what lies beyond

the next horizon’s dusky dawn, is never satiated.

 

No matter how handy a heart might appear,

the ingenuity of a double hammock

is nothing more than a short-lived refuge,

one of the temporary waystations

Muses grant to wash the dirt from your road weary feet.

 

Sorrow Hills. Happiness Falls. Anguish. Ache. Regretville …

All places I could have called home -- had I cared enough

to stay the course, labor over the unfamiliar

knots of another tongue’s aspirating language --

to drowse a little longer before giving in to wanderlust.

 

But love, I’m told, like poetry, requires a willingness

to destroy. A heart can only immortalize

what its lost or squandered. To write, the eyes need

to open, breed misery into the bone. Grief

must metastasize, seep the cancerous rage for life’s art.

 

The poet can’t gaze upon a sunset without feeling

a day’s wane. Every c**k’s crow eventually cracks  

his resolve to ignore the surge of blood rising,

the ineluctable call of the river’s summons to

weigh anchor, set sail for another distant dream. 

Ken e Bujold 

 

Reviews

[Ern M. Yoshimoto]

your writing is addictive. i really appreciate the alliterations. i do not quite understanding the meaning of the poem, maybe i'm not supposed to? but i will read it again tomorrow. yet there's definitely something here, and it gets me.

[Betty Hermelee]

Dear Ken
I read this many times… my take on it is that you thrive on seeking a clear path in life even if it means veering off the path to revise your dreams… just like a poet has to revise his writing…. You are thirsty to find your horizon…. Like the rivers finds the sea….. the memories are somewhat sad, like a drifter’s malaise… but you have the urge to drift into another dream, if it beckons…”the urge to wander is a lust”
Warmly
B🌷

[emmajoygreen]

An old story set poetically far beyond the ordinary. Phrasing generous to intention and in places - either sad as sad or - tragic,

'But love, I’m told, like poetry, requires a willingness
to destroy. A heart can only immortalize
what its lost or squandered. To write, the eyes need
to open, breed misery into the bone. Grief
must metastasize, seep the cancerous rage for life’s art.'

How true is that: life and love top-tilts in a flash, the scene - its love and passion dilutes, dimininishes, disappears. No magical abricadabra but a rusting bent, rusty old lamp.

Third and fouth stanzas hurt.. truth slowly hitting the air.. how it can be, how cruel it can be. But sadly, finely put, too finely put.. truth really does hurt. If my words offend, too much my own thoughts.. apologies sincere - honestly

[Ken e Bujold]

no. you are spot on Em. 3rd 4th and 5th verses should hurt. While I expect a great many readers will take the tone and narrative to be about love or infidelity ... it's not really. Intention is an exploration of self, how dreams, ambitions like the river bending-cutting through earth erode. But erosion is not synonymous with decay. It's a paring away of one level to get to the next, which is what poetry amounts to in the end. or so for me anyhow

[emmajoygreen]

Understandable if.. one has a reason, No matter if different, it feeds and feels the same in spite of different ingredients. Beings are left with too much or too little of 'whatever' - how do you, anyone, describe emptiness or saturation - if appropriate opposites. Could debate this.. like it or not.