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a river runs through Africa

in the purple afterlife of twilight
seconds after leaving a bar of
drunken friends and strangers
twelve hours after you bury
your greatest loss, bury it
deep in thick soil, setting the
summer sky on fire like a funeral pyre
the sky shuts you off from the sun
and entrenches you in darkness that
feels like a right place to be

the people watch
from behind their glass, like
leopards in trees

escape, where is this?
death?

it seems to enter
bringing comfort from
the furthest place from home
the desolate place of nowhere
like that bar, women and men there
have no names

the journey by a river
to a place never been
one that has five colors and then
suddenly you are deep in Africa
traveling a dirt and potholed road
one that goes where guerrilla forces
have traveled before

the earth stands still
the billboard ahead states
"war is over, we have another life now"

noon arrives under pale skies
the river cries like a child
the one just left for burial
wailing, lost far from home

sobbing begins as if this dream you've been drinking
barely gets you to where you need to be

see the cascades with
a softly bent fall foliage and
twenty shades of green
shifting back and forth

the river's sands
sparkle golden under
the late afternoon sun

you stand in disbelief
and for one moment
believe in god
and in that moment
you are caught in the experiment of
humans and their hatred of everything

a moment you wished
had never come
you actually dream it was
the moment before

Style / type: 
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction): 
How does this theme appeal to you?
Last few words: 
This is some stuff left over from my journal I kept when in Botswana...
Editing stage: 

Comments

point taken

Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche

author comment

Hi Chez,

perhaps the war has left the country, but the war is still in the people, I guess that's the river-metaphor. I've got a feeling of "stranger in a strange country" by your poem, which actually reads as several poems. I thought maybe you have to sacrifice some of the discriptive parts, and focus more on what you'd learned, thematically, in order to balance the beauty/ugliness more properly. I might be wrong, just my thoughts after several reads. Good and touching stuff, as always.
Greetings,
Erwin

(a poem a day keeps the doctor away)

Thanks Lonnie, so much sadness in the beauty of that country, I immersed myself in her for far too short a time.

Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche

author comment

rocks. This short poem grabbed me long and hard.....simple sends a lot of impact.

vexations

Thanks Vex

Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche

author comment

A Bow then the sound of one hand clapping.

~A

lol thanks Ana

Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche

author comment

reading this felt like being inside the author's head
...and it was quite a ride

there was the odd spot or two where
i felt a word could be jettisoned and not
lose anything of the poem's intent, but really,
that's a minor thing

this poem took me on a journey
i felt a bit like the robin williams'character
in "what dreams may come"

some wonderful imagery in this that
jolted me from one scenario to the next...
yet it didn't feel jerky or disjointed...it all connected
...it was all part of the bigger picture

a poem of revelation

i have no crit to suggest on a personal
journal entry...

i very much enjoyed the journey

cheers
p

Thanks P, it very much was a journey inside my head, trying to get my head around being in a country where death seemed so much a part of a daily ritual...it was parts of a journal I did while I was there, I' d never used it all and wondered about the disjointedness but it truly was as it happened.

Chez
"The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she does a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, to see if anybody notices it - and to makes sure that somebody does." - Nietzsche

author comment
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