C.M. Rivers

"The point of being an artist is that you may live." ~ Sherwood Anderson

Journal

  • Dream Catcher

    A dream of bamboo groves and flickering candles.  A dream of sitting in meditation, of the alchemy of bees bringing about the reality of honey, of the heart lifting, of a tormented heart and eyes grown world-weary. A dream of desire stirring below the navel, of a starry sky like a great milk-swelled breast, of Read more

  • Intersection

    A swirl of motion disguised as effortless.  Notions innumerable, channeled by a single consciousness and dismissed.  Pandemonium, orchestrated as if by grand design. Sirens, horns, voices, shoes, wheels, engines, commerce, commotion, patches of persistent quiet. A rich harvest of information passing through the needle’s eye of a moment’s fraction.  Another wave breaking in the audio-visual Read more

  • Genesis

    Good morning swollen and veiled moon, trees whose blossoms are about to erupt. Good morning sun, disc of fire piercing the place where stars froze and crackled in monumental quiet only moments before. Good morning to the owl’s hushed song sliding outward from a deep pocket among the boughs, to the banshee-wailing of belts beneath Read more

  • Fastenings

    What if you yourself didn’t want anything, what if you spent measureless lengths of time just people-watching, ruminating, taking notes of where your mind traveled to, at once engaged yet unaffected, an explorer holding the oar gently as he rows upriver, a tourist observing wide swaths of gold made by the afternoon sun as they Read more

  • Many Brothers

    Connection erases age, weakens constraints, strengthens the bond of brotherhood. I have crossed many valleys. I have loved many brothers. Treetops creak and bang the way the screen door did in my own lost boyhood. A wind has risen.  Dying leaves pray for us all as they descend, knowing how to honor their own wisdom. Read more

  • Noblesse Oblige

    A medallion of liverwurst, a dish of warm milk.  Even these, you hardly wanted in the end.  You looked at the water in your bowl as if it were a stranger to you.  No more did you come to the kitchen at the sound of a can being opened, the clinking of dry food against Read more