Ruth L. Rivers

Those who hold to silence; Do! Defend! :

I speak not! for the wear of words which do not mend
...

I am floating in a sea of apprehension
With worry and doubt as stars above
No call is to lost to be echoed around
Thoughts are silent as the gravity tugs
...

My mother is not perfect as some mothers may seem
Though my mother is not as dreadful as bad could be
She is flighty in her very worst
and graciously overbearing
...

Underneath the sadness of loss
Underneath the anger of pain
Underneath the sorrows today
Underneath this time and space
...

Tell me what you see out the windows
What do you observe of the trees
and the sky and the houses
What do you see?
...

The Cocoon: Society and the Butterfly.

It closes in and yet
i push
...

You’ve changed…
Different then before, simply not the same
…you’ve changed!
You’re alone…
...

This one kiss was meant to harm you
To burn inside till all the days end
To be a light aroused and haunting
Searching your depths at passions edge
...

For a time, we part
Leaving the “us” behind
Going our separate ways,
But only for a little time.
...

And I'm drowning and you don't see me, not really. Sure, you think you do, you say you do, describing me and what you think you're seeing but really, ...not really. An allusion that might look stark and thus, pretty compared to the chaos of color near you but how does that make me any less wet, any less dead? Loosing my self, with wet lips and the floating angel's hair, in a silence that closes out the rest of it, out of sound, out of space, out and out, trapping the dark and holding on to me, pulling me down, it's beyond that which you can't see for you have no shade of blackish bluish water, no longer having the answers I need, you want to leave me as I go beyond laughter!
And I'm drowning here on the inside of life, ripe with youths foolish answers, foolish captive dancers, who never give nor apologize for the messes they make, the lives they take, the innocence that they worthlessly put at stake in their desires and rampant horrific dances, whirling round in this silence so sound, so full of the proofs of fools having danced with me.
And I'm drowning, making me farther from all, allowing you to remove yourself and let me fall, a little more down with the spinning of soundless sounds, farther away from life and its warm pounding pungent drum, from that to being less seeing and a little more dead and a little more wet.
...

My black hole
A vortex unimaginable
sucking the colors
out of the blue
...

Oh heart...Where are you?
Come out of hiding dear one,
Come out into the shine of the sun
And the warmth of friends
...

Tear down the walls to your ears and hear my words sing, reaching in to some other order. Contained inside your being, seeing another side, another life. Reach in to the abyss, miss the dark and hold to order. Create new words aching out, shout the madness and life turning, turning, turning round.

Here I am
Splash to your being
...

Aren’t Emotions fickle friends
With their wandering ways
And their subtle serenades
Jumping from one terrific trend to the next
...

There were two of us that night…
Then why is me and not you who feels sullied
There were things said in the dark…
That I’d hoped to forget for the rest of my life
...

'Did you see the many acts? ' I cried

'Indeed, I did.' says she
...

We stand side by side and we are looking and she says to me “Isn’t it pretty? ”, and I nod once or twice but am lost, not on her thoughts, but far away on my own.
With an insistence and plea in her eyes she looks once more, jabbing her finger quite close but not in its range, speaking with little less question “Isn’t it pretty? ”, this time I sigh, knowing not really why, finally looking down at her small hands and face and smile.
Not looking back at me, still transfixed by the beauty, insisting now not to be affirmed but to be really heard, to be listened to in every sense of that word, she cries out with her child’s voice, and unbroken heart and mind, and unsullied child’s life, and everything truly organic in make of chemistry, “Isn’t it pretty? ! ”
I am there then with her, in her mind’s eyes, in her simple complexity, in her fluid uninterrupted breathing, smiling away in her pastel euphoric gaze, and I finally reply,
...

We civilly meet those who we greet on sidewalks and streets
With appropriate airs and appropriate hairs we buy our wares
In the days work we’re sure to never shirk our little perks
At the days close we turn on stoves and TV’s in droves
...

When one no longer differentiates between what’s called day and others call night
And losing ones self becomes blessed peace at heart along side a little respite
And feelings no longer accord with the rainbow but find them selves shades of gray
And the mind does silly tricks as if refusing to follow rules of today
...

Small child who once lay quiet between my bosoms
Silent then, in sleeps calming state
Peaceful lids entwine with stilled feet
You and mine hearts together did beat
...