L.R. Harvey Poetry

Evan plucks his socks again while classmates read The Odyssey His piston fingers tirelessly fire,  powered by the sleepless engine of autism. Thread by bleached-white thread, his Nike socks retire  into wisps of yarn that spread around the classroom carpet, his manna in  this wilderness.  A student scans for homework answers in her book. Another rubs his chin, looking for prickles he’s never found  before. I yawn and look for coffee. Telemachus is questioning in Nestor’s halls while Megan stares at Mike and questions if she'll die alone. A lip-sticked mother calls the school's front desk to question why her daughter has a B. Right down the hall Jim Walker asks the AC vent why it won't work. In here, the still  is interrupted only by the prick  of yarn in Evan’s questioning fingers, unraveling the thickness of the world, searching for something, answers, all his own.

Defining truth to a left-brained 10th-grader But what is truth?                              It’s when Ms. Martin in  the yellow house is raking up her leaves,  and inside chilling lemonade for all  her sons who’ve moved away.                                              That’s not the truth. Is it a lie?               But really, what is truth?  It’s when a child’s chalky hands peel up  the crispy earthworms in the cul-de-sac,  to ask his sun-burnt friend if he knows why  people and worms go flat.                                          Old age and accidents .  No not the 'what', the ever-present 'why'.  I want a definition.                    Go watch a daughter hug her mom down at the terminal, or see a pastor’s   shaky hands flip through the pages of  a KJV. Go see an old man cry.  Do you know what a definition is? Do you know what the truth is? I'

When fall first gives me chill-bumps when I walk barefoot outside one morning, and I  go back to joyfully dig for the long  anticipated crumpled long-sleeve at the bottom of the pile,  I enter a season of forgetfulness.  Bare feet and fireflies  are surely children's joys.                               Not me—I'll have nothing less  than browning leaves that scrape across the pavement like  an old man's fingernails,  and children under back-pack burdens sludging their way up school-bus stairs and missing Mrs. Wilky.                                       Perhaps I feel affirmed when nature shows the pain of age.  For three weeks, (sometimes four in Tennessee),  I’ll relish this autumn draught of poignancy and taste the bitter sweetness of the winding down.                                                                  The fourth week,  I’ll acknowledge my lie and face the fact  that I bitterly miss bare feet and fire

reading Paradise Lost  on a Tuesday night Sitting beneath my Nana’s oriental lamp, I plow face first  through clouds  of Harper Collins gnats, each stanza buzzing louder than the crooked fan that’s wobbling above my head. They hurl themselves with inky kisses against the hazel windshields of my brain,  which currently isn't open for visitors but has found  its way to Apex, North Carolina, where  it sips a lime Lacroix, fishing underneath  the willow tree where spiders dance on water thick with summer algae.  

A.M. perspective The window arch above the bolt-locked kitchen door lets in a thieving arm of groping light, probing, yellow as the eyes of alleycats.                    The pregnant air is birthed to crawling life as light i lluminates its unseen secrets. A  galaxy of dead skin cells  goes dancing above the hardwood.                                                         A ll is still and slow, beyond the grasp of time, and I am sitting in the middle of a universe.                                         How small I am— How frighteningly powerful I am— Amen amen amen.

sincerely, Life You thought about me on the riverwalk this afternoon, thought maybe tonight would be the night to talk about the way things are — and when you hit a lizard with your bike the blood was the wax that sealed the deal.  Tonight, you said, I’ll back  him into the corner ropes, I’ll slug a frank confession out of him about why lime-green lizards are crushed beneath a pavement warm with summer sun,  why blue balloons float out of reach  of cotton candy hands at county fairs,  why night-crawlers live while children die  on white-sheet sterile cots. Lying on the kitchen floor,  your shoulder-blades cold against linoleum tile,  you glimpsed me in the dusty air and there and then we fought, you screaming why and me saying yes/no/both because that’s the only way  to say it, in truth. Then discontent, you went to bed, four cups of water on your besi

cereal box It's neon font is shouting facts about the species of almond that grows out west,                a bove a far-too-easy maze for those who do not care to know. The seventh time's the last  I tell myself, while circling back  for eight, intent to navigate the little shelves of cartoon produce and help the lonely strawberry find the bowl of milk again and yet again.   I’ll trace this path for hours if I can buy more time before I’m forced to dress and face a maze   I cannot solve in seconds                                            or in ever.