The Archangel cometh

We own you and we will take your soul. Bet on it, buy stock.

Poets are a dime a dozen, I
cost only a penny on the cheap.
Bilbo Baggins and Robert Frost
each a copper of time pasted
upon the digital landscape of
the Internet. No written pages,
only ones and zeros defining,
recording genius, talent, moronic
diatribes, the succubus of intellect.
The decay of society in the cloud
of tomorrow. Is that your ultimate
destination, bucolic acceptance?
At what point will the reason
of the word be given over to
the Machiavellian manipulators
You sheep, you followers, naysayers,
you destroyers, you that sleep
with Eden’s snake of technology,
will kill your children, welcoming
the Archangel of Destruction,
without ever knowing you are
no longer members of humanity?

©2012, Donald Harbour

The song still plays

there is a violin playing
like a desolate dove cooing
feather ruffled beckoning
it is the quivering voice
of an inner emotion
the wrist held too tight
choking the flow of melody
a long lonely echo filtered
through the song of spring
the scent of the chord
plucks at the mind causing
remembrance of smiling lips
pursed to blow a gentle breath
upon my flushed cheeks
a sweet orchid moment of love
the days gone to our youth
while the symphony still plays
it is no longer our libretto
change is the rhythm of time
we have become its constants
metered ticks of life’s metronome

©2012, Donald Harbour

The youth of 1916

A response in the poetic form of a ballad to a line from the novel “Into the Silence”.
By the end of 1916, every boy I had ever danced with was dead.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

(I)
When the call for war first went out,
Our boys joined with happy glee,
Not knowing loves kiss goodbye,
Was the last to ever be.

(II)
Their women mourned so pitiless
With tears their eyes did swell,
But boys thought the better of it,
Formed ranks and marched to hell.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

(III)
Rose colored was each manly cheek,
Their hearts were young and brave,
But soon their faces turned to ash,
Hearts stilled by battle’s grave.

(IV)
Their country gave them medals,
Chiseled names in granite stone,
Everyone sadly shook their heads,
But their widows cried alone.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

(V)
So when you think to take up arms,
And kill another man’s kith and kin,
They too are someone’s father or son
Who will never be kissed again.

(VI)
The great war should teach us all,
There is no reason for such slaughter,
In the end the pain of  death,
Is carried on by wives and daughters.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

©2012, Donald Harbour

A child’s memory

She stood alone among the trees
a woman formed ripe with life,
a perfect beautiful figure
alone and naked in the light.
With confused mind I watched her
while peering through the leaves,
blushing at the vernal scene,
her auburn hair dancing in the breeze.
I could not find air to breath,
my lungs suffocated with my guilt,
yet hidden I viewed her mesmerized,
shuddering with the disgrace I felt.
She stepped into a placid stream,
a bare ripple on the watery plane,
slowly swimming from my sight,
disappearing among river cane.
As if the moment was yesterday
I still smell wild flower’s bloom,
I hear the tinkling water flow,
and the call of a lonely loon.
Fifty-six years have passed me by,
the spot grown over where I stood,
yet an adolescent emotion haunts me,
shamed by a vigil in the silent wood.

©2011, Donald Harbour

When I was young and free

Image via Wikipedia

Oh winged  creature hued in rainbow light,
Fluttering at the edge of failing sight,
Held aloft upon the soft scented air,
Stirring jasmine and lilac growing there.

I knew you once when I was strong and young,
Frolicking with maidens in the golden sun,
I knew you when my heart beat wild and  free,
When blue skies and songbirds surrounded me.

Our springs and summers are not meant to last,
Now dim fading memories of a youthful past,
Night was always such a foreboding distant thing,
Never dreaming the sunset it would bring.

My windows curtained by an ocher gauze of time,
Separating each moment from a life sublime,
Gone the charm with which once I was blessed,
Flown away on the butterfly wings of happiness.

© 2010, Donald Harbour

First crack full of sand

When I was six
my family went to Pensacola.
I loved the ocean,
The crash of the waves,
the seashells, bikinis,
the smell of suntan oil,
the scent of the women.
That’s when I got my first
crack full of sand, and
understood why the girls
were joyfully squealing.
The pleasure of it all,
the compacted joy of sand
scrubbing the erotica
between your legs.
Eeehhhhhhhhhhh!
As I grew older I found
more entertaining pleasures.
Slow dancing at the Jaycee Teen Town,
sweaty, butch wax duck-tailed hair,
unforgiving layers of petticoats,
the over use of Chanel number 5,
Clearasil, moon pies with RC Cola,
Pabst Blue Ribbon, copping a feel,
penny loafers, pack of Lucky Strikes, and
desire rubbing hard up against desire.
Oohhhhhhhhhhhh!
College years were complicated.
I was a spring buck in heat,
quantum copulation in the backseat,
breathless fondling expression,
whispered promises to break.
Woodstock, bra burners, free love,
girls without innocence,
consequential satisfaction,
that potent release.
Aaahhhhhhhhhhh!
But time plays a mirthful game,
pulling away the layered onion
of age, the mark of the years,
making a living, satisfying
the man, the big kahuna.
The shaving of obligation,
the dues collector paid,
screw yourself the common gratification.
The postmortem of Vietnam,
chaos theory imposed by Old Charter.
Iiieeeeeeeeeee!
That leaves only the thought of
what was, the ego of who,
the id of what is, the sensual,
pulsing, erotic, clamor for the whole.
The part hidden to youth by
the discrimination of age.
Driven by the pull of experience,
the itch of sand, slow dances, backseats,
ecstasy in a world of derivative pleasure,
knowing all this is life’s warp and woof.
Founded in the assurance of the past,
there is only one sound left, only one vowel,
the melancholy plenary discomfort of the future,
it is: “Uuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour

A storm is coming

“A storm is coming” – graphic art by Donald Harbour

Tonight a spring rain will kiss the pansies corolla,
frogs will sing love songs under the lunacy
of a blood stone moon and, the world
will not know the better.
Somewhere in some distant day the joy
of rain and song have been left behind,
hidden by fake existence that imitates life.
A storm is coming, it beats against the morrows
of Mother Natures morning sickness, her belly ripe,
verdant as a pods bursting with seeds,
the offering of untold time waiting, pulsing
with humankind birth, blood, death, beginnings.
A confession to the cornucopia of her thighs,
buttocks sealed with a barrette of the season.
Young girls and young men desire
without knowing how to tend the field,
to nurture the soil and grow the harvest of the future.
Yet, she returns and gives up her fruit,
yields to the plow with the reins
held gently over the shoulder.
The casual tug of the leather rails
against the promise and need.
of the generations.

Copyright: 2009, Donald Harbour