DavidJarvis

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An Autumn Upon Me by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

An Autumn Upon Me

And to continue this night and on through morning, in half-light I find a place to rest, strangers among my thoughts, those unknown people of my past calling to me, piecing together a family of strangers. This is my father, I don't know his name. See how he holds my younger brother so tenderly, his gentle kiss, his hand across his face as if he were smoothing paper, finding a place to write. His words, like my memory, are hidden. He passes his hand over his cheek and tells of the lost children, he speaks of his love, her name eternal, living, becoming. If this night is the same, if days have collapsed into seconds and I a

The Remaining Years by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

The Remaining Years

I watch you enter the river every day. Eyes closed, head back, unsteady and fighting to stand, your legs reddened by the cold. Every day you return to the shadows of the river's edge. You sit and listen to the water running over the rocks, drawn to the sound of living. You close your eyes again and pass your hand across the earth beneath your legs, come across a rock, pause and reach to the earth, cool, damp beneath and dig your fingers deep and remember what it was like to feel the first quick rush, the trembling and running breath of living and meeting that moment of the unknown. I want to go to you, walk with you in

Rain Horses by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Rain Horses

We held each other in the dying light, as the final shadows from the sun passed into our room, draping light on your back, shaking from the thunder of a summer storm that brought rain through our window. The scent still lingers in the folds of our sheets, in your hair and the summer damp pillow beneath my head. I close my eyes and feel your breath on my throat, running my back. I wanted to hold you closer but some distant place called we could not resist. The first quiet moments stopped the distant thunder kept us alive, and now lies dead beside me. Silence brought the horses, running my cheeks to some destination known only t

I Close My Eyes by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

I Close My Eyes

I can, if I sit with my eyes closed and listen only to the rain, forget what her face looks like. As soon as I open my eyes, she is there, smiling. She brushes away a hair that has fallen over her face, brown over the deeper brown of her eyes. She turns to the window and watches the iris bend and touch the earth. I close my eyes again, there is nothing but the smell of rain. These images come to me, I can't recall if they really happened, or if I have believed them for so long that they have become real. But this is what I have come to believe about my past, my childhood, the women I have loved and very little else. He

Hills That Rise Like Streets by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Hills That Rise Like Streets

Take me through hills that rise like streets and fall to a green valley of cities. By the water's drying side I can rest and for the seasons mark the descending tide until blasted mud rolls, and I move. My child, your eyes are never filled, they spill rich waters, and I drink so that I may never die. In my hands, your hair, like those waters, flows and shakes darkly your sigh. Roots of year's growth tangle with my hair, your hands are the mouth of a thirsting tree. With my eyes, I am poor and blind to the depth your body judges, to be safe. Recall a rain, my laughing, and I will splash in the waters, a happy romp through mud

All is Now by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

All is Now

I should tell, before leaving, about what is true, what is myth: and most is both, these writings begin, I can tell as some real life event, and there the mind takes control creates another reality striving toward the deeper meaning of any event to a truth, not what is reality now, but what has always been, and in years will still be true. Anything else written is a pleasure, that will as time does, pass. And these pleasures are written, with the rest, it is hard to tell, but read again next year, we shall see what holds true. This has all happened, in some way in my life, and to explain the particulars would be to kill the

In the Distance, From China by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

In the Distance, From China

We've known each other, so many times. As peasants in China your hands were old lined and dried from the sun. Your age hidden by the fields revealed at night when after working I sat to write with the brush you made when you took down your hair and leaned over me, letting me know it was time to come to bed. There, in the chamber of your hair, your smile broadened with the sound of cranes calling to each other. You still smile that way, I have the papers of those nights, still wrinkled like your eyes. When we woke the other morning I saw your face as it was in Alexandria, so perfect all the men followed you and we laugh

Kansas Storm by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Kansas Storm

You lift me in the High branches of my childhood, Chasing boats after a summer storm. Crackling straw, Lightning fire of Rainfall on the tin shed. Sleep in the sweet hay, Clinging to my hair and clothes. Rain smell from the fields Is memory. Sky forks lit your face, And mine was dark. Eclipse The night and flash behind your eyes. "Goodbye." Built deep within your voice Where thunder cracks. Strike me and I will Stand in the rain, Arms raised To welcome your next Embrace.

One Cup by DavidJarvis, literature

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The Longest Night

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Devotion by DavidJarvis, literature

There Must Be a Voice by DavidJarvis, literature

Absolution by DavidJarvis, literature

Call it Sacred by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Call it Sacred

With eyes closed, we see ourselves in another light; a light that shadows our flaws, covers our scars, the light of forgetting, of not wanting to know. We see the world in part, showing only that moment, nothing else. A night sky of stars, each a moment, cannot become a constellation; our lives when frozen are the same. That piece is missing, call it the unknown, call it sacred.

There Is a Song by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

There Is a Song

I watch the stars as if I am one of them, drifting alone knowing others are near, yet unreachable. Instead of a union, I look for a picture in the stars to tell a story. I look for others still to form words in the darkness; showing a life, a history, and future. I look for familiar shapes to remind me of a home. There is a song, a name, images of those I love; all in other languages, all in other places.

The Uncertain Darkness by DavidJarvis, literature

The Longest Night by DavidJarvis, literature

That Moment of Waiting by DavidJarvis, literature

A Memory of Flowers

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A Memory of Flowers by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

A Memory of Flowers

I will plant a garden of flowers, each to remember someone's name. Friends, lovers, and those forgotten in the gentle rains of May. As I kneel in the garden, I recall a night of walking, the sun had just gone down and the sky darkened from purple to black. I wanted to pick the new flowers, crocus and daffodils, like she says I used to. Only the tops of the flower, the fragrant petals. She says my hair was golden then, like sunlight. And I thought of this while I picked the violet crocuses, on the first warm night of the year, a paper bag full of petals, waiting for the geese. I heard them calling to each other, during t

Deep in the Earth by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Deep in the Earth

Before I woke this morning, I had a dream of waking, and pulled myself through roots and soil, deep in the earth, a bulb tasting the sunlight heat, splitting the frozen land and stirred from a dead slumber to feel the light. But still the cold attempts to stay with the land, reluctant to let the water flow, or loosen the sap in the trees and sprout to green. Clouds attempt to hide all traces of the sun while the wind turns the leaves, confusing their direction, but can do no more than shake them gently, and lose them to the night. No other is so alive, flames from those wells split the earth. First the crocus,

Spring Seeds by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Spring Seeds

1. Casings fall from the new blossoms; blown in the spring wind. Paper seeds from other trees rattle on the stone path in the garden with last fall's leaves. In the stronger wind they rain dry and tight on the street. The new leaves move silently above the falling seeds. Quieter still are the iris in the corner waiting to bloom. Just two days later... iris! 2. I must look to the small, the intimate, to regain much larger things. The paper seed rests on a new leaf by the stone path. The paper seed hangs on a leaf above the stone path. Which way shall it fall? Like sand, so many paper seeds collect agains

The Bellows of March by DavidJarvis, literature

A Window Opened in Spring by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

A Window Opened in Spring

Rain on last fall's leaves, a dry sound, a wet smell, a robin somewhere far away. Rain, so cold this evening, on the leaves of last fall, a robin singing above it all. Hearing the faint rain outside, I open the window, and the cat comes right away. A window just opened in spring, brings rain, the robin's call, and the cat, each from different places. Again, so cold again the rain trying again at spring.

Returning by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Returning

And there is a new wind coming from the west, bringing the wet rain smell, the gentle blue of spring that stirs the trees, through the bark of winter's dead skin wind pours, and the hands of the tree spread and hold together to catch the waters. I see through the older light taken by the snow. The stars are trapped there, for months, and as the sun melts to snow, the star is broken, and in this moment, the night and day are one. At sunset the last of the snow melts and a thousand suns, some already dead, fly to their home, leaving the wet earth clean for the rebirth. The snow is seed, the earth, womb, wherein lie a thousa

Stumble by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Stumble

A moment of release, the pause after taking a breath and thankfully able to take another, or to choose, the possibility of drifting in that gray, holding to the moment of inaction. And so I choose. For the past months I have been in the womb. Content. Swirling in the warmth, not wishing to even try, for the fear of failure. And so now I choose. Placing one foot on the wet grass, shaking, I rise. On my first step, I stumble. And get up.

Under the Sun

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A Moment of Peace by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

A Moment of Peace

A moment of peace, the past realized as I stay up late, a single light in the house. Outside, the fireflies already become fewer, having completed their nightly ceremonies, and retire to the grass, or deep leaves of the trees. And I could, if I wanted, go out and join those few remaining, this night the past washes over me, those short years ago that at times seem forever, when I was young. Already so old, and yet still happy, content with my life, and these moments, becoming fewer, grow brighter and alive before I go to bed.

Congregation by DavidJarvis, literature

The Proud Night by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

The Proud Night

The solstice has passed. The day at high summer noon has stated plainly its beauty. On this the longest day, we are alive in the heat of the sun, all fallen to knees to proclaim its strength. I fall next to a girl, prime as the sacrifice. The day is for the young, where they run to the river and paint their bodies in mud, slip into the water, as fish jumping in the high moonlight, they run and fall to the grass, roll down a hill and lay, panting, catching the cottonwood that blows by before turning to their lover and wrapping long arms and legs around each other, holding tightly to the sun stained hair, resting a hand on he

Constellation by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Constellation

A small field of lilies bend in the midnight wind. Each a golden sun, slowly changing and blowing to form a constellation. First it is the warrior, Orion, searching for prey on a hunt alone in the night. Arm raised to strike, heavily, to split the earth in two, dividing night and day, dreams from light, our waking lives from the past. The stars sing, again a cricket, alone. Lights glitter, for a moment, then sink into its back. It moves closer to the lovers and watches over them as a mother, caring only for their safety, the stars, and a small field of yellow lilies. The flowers move. Swell in an ocean of the night. T

Missing Voices by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Missing Voices

There is a chorus of voices in Kansas nights, the finally cool air still holds sun, in the heat of stones and sidewalks and so the night talks, of no other air, the conversations drift from harvest to plains and riding the constant heat of summer and so insects and frogs argue like old men, on the porch we listen to these eternal nights, with not so much as a smile we laugh with the couple across the street, while they argue and don't notice in the failing light the fireflies and the children next door signal to each other, with flashlights, a secret code that is answered in the trees and from blades of grass. And, but f

Chasing Signals by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Chasing Signals

This evening is not unlike my childhood. But have I seen fireflies and chased them flashing in the fresh cut grass? I rest inside and leave this night to a smaller boy, whose golden hair was brilliant as he ran and laughed. He shouts outside that he has caught one, gently and between split fingers looks to the firefly inside. And after a signal, sets it free. And still as he watches the night take his prize, he regrets the loss, looks to the house, the glowing room lights and sees a man, resting, almost asleep in a chair, alone and frowning from some evening's trouble. The boy takes a step, drops the jar he meant t

With the Last Light by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

With the Last Light

Through my bedroom window I watch the still heat of the day come alive, glorious in the cool and breezes of night. I turn to the woman sleeping beside me and place my hand on her stomach that is still young. She turns, her hair lifts and catches the breeze. She says something in her dreams, but I cannot hear the words. She smiles and touches my hand lazily and pulls me close, holding to me with the last sunlight, before opening her eyes and catching a glimpse of a firefly outside. She runs around the lights of the sky, spinning and calling to the moon, that has been watching all day long, and now turns and shows itself, sm

An Autumn Upon Me

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Autumn by DavidJarvis, literature

I Arrive, Unseen On His Back by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

I Arrive, Unseen On His Back

Rain hardens on my cold skin as I wait in a dead grove for the solstice. Years have passed. Rain and thick ice crack when I take my yearly breath. I stretch, glacial carvings fall from my back, hidden quests and cinders of the fire are buried where I sit. This year I move with majestic grace. Prometheus was bound to my back, years ago I bore him, a tiny spark and wore his daily blood. Vulture claws scarred my shoulders, chains hardened my muscles, bearing an errant god fired my passion. I moved from that place, but the marks are still with me, the passage of another age. I seek a new god and travel the darkest hours to

Leaving by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Leaving

I will be leaving soon, the plains and storms, will roll in my dreams, and no more, mountains will soon bottle my tempest, my horses, in a cavern of echoing sound. What will change, I have lost, I have lost the passion which only months ago was my every moment, it now rests in these pages, in the pages scattered in my house, in the pages of my dreams, a peripheral shadow that runs, for fear of being exposed again stripped to the biting light of the over world, I held that creature in chains for weeks and would not loosen the bond, until, which night? did it beg to stretch and drink a glass of wine, and I joining it fell asleep

Midnight by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

Midnight

Crickets have been in my memory since childhood. They are the night, when the darkness scares a child; they sing about fear and the night, a reminder there is something primal and afraid in all of us. I grew up being afraid of that violin sound, and now I laugh in memory of those nights. But in the other half of my mind, I still fear, we all do when we are alone, at that moment before we open our eyes to see what else is in the room. The moment we realize that we may never wake. The oldest part of my dreams is the darkness, the sucking black light that hung over me as I tried to sleep. The ceiling like a smoke covered cave, where

Portent by DavidJarvis, literature

The Lily Like a Moth by DavidJarvis, literature

To Follow That Rain by DavidJarvis, literature

Literature

To Follow That Rain

Today is the first rain if autumn- the air feels colder, wetter, hinting at those months to come. The light, during breaks in the clouds is diffused, it becomes a saturated quality that outlines each tree as if to draw attention to the leaves that hint at changing. To follow that rain- a colder night, and a bright fall day warmer still but crisp- the wetness of yesterday is made clearer by the sun- which shines as if a farewell.

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Our Insomniatic Affection by LoveShotEyes, literature

Literature

Our Insomniatic Affection

This bed is a vast Sahara of arms who have forgotten how to hold, console, its sheets a canvas of tongues who have crumbled to dust under Love but, still, I trawl these expanses under the guise of dreams, searching for fragments of you broken loose from the sleep-chapped cries of these lips, which endlessly strike together like flints, trying to make one spark of Love to warm me on.

Iris sijo by RedDragonfly, literature

My Revenge for You Leaving Me by LoveShotEyes, literature

After the Club by LoveShotEyes, literature

Literature

After the Club

There is something about walking in the rain after a club; a purging, a careful folding-up of memories, gathering storms upon our skin. We waver towards your car as if it is a beacon, a sober hope which will withhold the pain of morning. Your fingers fumble for the ignition, rain scrawled across your hair, eyes written weary with sleep while my body presses into the folds of the seat, engraved in a halo of alcohol, intoxicated with the night and all the stars which write it.

Deviation Spotlight

July_2010_Desktop by DavidJarvis, visual art

July_2010_Desktop

DavidJarvis

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About DavidJarvis

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United States
Deviant for 18 years
He / Him

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Current Residence: Longmont, CO
MP3 player of choice: Winamp
Shell of choice: Litestep

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DavidJarvis

Jun 28, 2010

Summertime

0 min read

I finished up with A Memory of Flowers (a week late, but not too shabby).  I'm going to do a bit of gallery reorganization on The Longest Night before continuing with the third book.  There's a lot of editing still to be done.  I've been mixing submitting new stuff with editing the old and it has been working so far... putting in more graphics to help define the sections, and eventually, the whole thing will have illustrations throughout.

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DavidJarvis

May 5, 2010

Finished with one, starting another

0 min read

I've completed The Longest Night and took a break before starting on the second part, A Memory of Flowers.  This book still has a lot of work left in it, and I'm happy to be editing and writing on some newer material.  This one is about Spring, I'm glad to leave the winter months behind, it seems like such a long time, but now life returns and I'm submitting some more poems.

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DavidJarvis

Mar 23, 2010

A New Project

0 min read

I'm working on a project called Forgotten, a collection of poems I've written over the past few years.  After a few distractions and experimenting around, I've found something that works. The first book is called The Longest Night, divided into three parts.  The poems are intended to be read sequentially within each gallery, kinda like a book following the progression of a story. Some of the poems are complete as I can tell, and others are pretty raw.  Critiques, suggestions, thoughts are always welcome. It begins in winter and follows the seasons as a structural time-line.  This is the first of four books I have lined up, each building on

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Profile Comments 36

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MyLastBlkRose

Dec 17, 2010

Would you like to join my group?

DavidJarvis

Dec 19, 2010

Thanks, I'd love to! I truly appreciate your comments and support. I'm submitting some pieces to the group right now!

MyLastBlkRose

Dec 19, 2010

Thank you darling<3
So much<3

hell-on-a-stick

Dec 4, 2010

thanks much for the fav on [link] I've been out adventuring again...

so when i came back, there was a host of favorites waiting for me. too cool. Thanks for reading my madness.

DavidJarvis

Dec 16, 2010

Anytime. What a great welcome home... a bunch of favs pawing at the door!

C-Ireland

Aug 25, 2010

_{This is your personal welcome to #theLiteraryVoices. I look forward to reading your work and getting to know you as an author and artist in general. Keep in mind that I do not have all the time in the world, so I will not always be able to read your submissions but I will do my very best to read some every now and then. (: Thanks again for joining and remember to keep on writing!

~Cathy}

DavidJarvis

Aug 26, 2010

Thanks, glad to be on board. I'll keep submitting and reading the group's work as well!