Watching the River Flow

Dreams, like this river, bend through time. And tears.

The relentless bore of a ruthless stream’s urge

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

beyond the next horizon’s dusty dawn, is eternal.

The mind will never find what it hungers for.

 

No matter how handy a heart might appear,

the ingenuity of a double hammock

is never more than a short-lived refuge,

one of the temporary waystations

to wash the dirt from your road weary feet.

 

Sorrow Hills. Happiness Falls. Anguish. Ache …

All places I could have called home --

had I cared enough to put down roots, labor

a little longer over the unfamiliar plots

of another tongue’s aspirating language …

 

But love, like poetry, requires the will to revise.

A heart can only immortalize what its lost

or squandered. In order to write, you need

to open your eyes, extract misery from the bones

of your art’s cancerous rage. A poet can’t gaze

 

upon a sunset without feeling the day’s wane.

Every c**k’s crow eventually cracks the resolve

to ignore the surge of blood rising,

the ineluctable call of the river’s summons

to weigh anchor, set sail on another dream.

 

I have no excuses, reasons -- the urge

to wander is a lust like any other

of life’s necessities. My unquenchable thirst

for salt, just like the river’s, can

not be explained. Somewhere a sea waits.  

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.