L.R. Harvey Poetry

On Cleaning a Garage A life well-lived is a Taylor guitar, Dented and scratched from mistimed turns In corner bars On seedy city streets, With errant stomping feet And cigarillo burns From drunken Thursday-nighters; A faded neck from sweaty hands Playing thread-bare strings That buzz and ring in a too-loud downtown band. A race well-run is an old Toyota truck With chipping paint and whining belts And a drive-side window that’s stuck Unless the blinker is on; A truck that has intimately felt The twists and turns of country roads, The steady hum of the freeway’s song, The silence of starry nighttime drives along The empty parkway to home. An annotated book with a story between the lines, A wrinkled smile and crow-foot eyes, A dented wedding ring - The fullest lives are found in broken things.

Collapse “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”- Hunter S. Johnson I’d like to collapse into my oaken bed Exhausted, an all-spent spirit eager to rest At last beneath the earth’s soil duvet. Give me a face-full of wrinkles on which they'll lay My shroud, a pair of thread-bare hands to nestle Across my stagnant chest, A knowing smile tugging my drying lips Into a satisfied smirk. And there I’ll be content to lie, Knowing I earned each furrowed facial line With laughter, tears, and the toil of work; Knowing my resting heart Deserves its rest from years Of loving, laughing, living, and leaving, Of rejoicing with the joyous and hurting with those who hurt; Knowing my lips have known The taste of a lover’s kiss, Have known the inimi