L.R. Harvey Poetry

FREUDIAN SLIP I’ve come, if by no means the shortest route, to dis- believe in accidents. Pencils snap, of course, and noodles overcook because your show is on, but surely it was no  coincidence that when I said ‘whole testament’ instead of ‘old testament,’ a cardinal  landed on the windowsill, piercing as the crimson drops that trickled down his wrists.

STUDYING ECCLESIASTES IN NOVEMBER I’m up to thirty-three  reminders of mortality experienced in twenty- four. One: a gimping  bird. Two: the passing  cumulus reflected in  my monitor. Three  through thirty-three are currently beneath my sneakers, sounding like bones of children who refused to drink their milk. Ah, thirty- four—my pen is out of ink. Ok I get the poi

IT'S ALL SO STERILIZED It’s not the systematic front  to terminate the satyrs from  the forest floor—it’s not the  medical advice that you’ll be  better off with just a double- dose of Serafem than trouble with a god—it’s not, in fact,  the celebrated tragedy of fact beheading hope you studied in the unit on Enlightenment.  No, surely the cruelest joke modernity has played is there , the shooting star that’s actually a 747 bound somewhere East.  To think we nearly had a wish.

KENOSIS The weary theologian, frantic for a stitch of something definite with which to patch his fraying sense of sanity, attempts to catch an elusive fact he hopes sufficient to illuminate the inky infinite. But just  to light a single room, much less the house, requires quite a mess of these evasive  lightning bugs, and catching them in mason  jars is proving far more problematic than  initially perceived. Scattered in the evening like a sneeze they flicker out of reach, till out of breath he finds himself in much the place he was before—kneeling at the altar of his pillowcase, (and yes, he's in the dark.)

THE CAGED BIRD SCREAMS that having tasted fresh baguette  beside the royal palace at Versailles,  you shouldn't be surprised to find the supermarket brand is now a hint pedestrian , for lack of better words. Or spell it out another way—expect the noise machine beside your clock to seem increasingly inadequate towards reassuring you you’re drifting next to the Pacific once you’ve listened to the tidal clack of pebbles along a Northern California coastline. Of course! So why, on having glimpsed the upper- R, are you amazed to ascertain reality  a tad bit suffocating now, specifically   considering you've known a taste of air?

MORNING SUMMONS Cold gravel bites my naked feet. My coffee mug is in the truck, but hey, I don’t have cancer yet,  and both my parents have stuck  around for now. A pebble's prick proves adequate to call to mind  the detrimental possibilities, this and gratitude for their deterrence. Above, Orion beckons in the chill, and looking up I feel another form of prick, but one for which I still, regrettably, must wait a future hour.

FRONT PORCH Tonight a larva will begin to feel a burning back between the blades, will start his pilgrimage to holy hills on which he'll gather tight his shroud  and terminate his dirt-infested stint.  He'll likely deem it cancer, fate , write his final will and testament, or poems even, mourning for the brevity of life.   But can't we empathize, my friend, with this his groping, caterpillar mind, incapable of apprehending the grand immensity of butterfly reality? Time,  a little grace, could reinvest the grub, but now he'll nestle like a drop of rain beneath the eaves. We'll wait and hope, as if eternity were riding on an empty tomb.

RECENTERING Ironic how the All-Supreme Simplicity, at least when seen from such a vantage point as this, is pretty damn complex.  Remind me, little bird, that He is song. Remind me, breeze, that He is undeserving breath.  Remind me, fleeting whiff of barbecue, that He is feast                awaiting us beyond the West- ern rim, and one for which our hearts are right to water for.

MORNING MEDITATION                     'There is one heart whose thoughts are strong, whose very dreams are lives.' - G.M. Evening remnants patter softly on                the roof, though whether driblets from an oak or just the rhythmic cadence                of the ceiling fan is more than I can  say. It siphons me hypnotically above                 the bed and through the drywall, above  the yellow house where all the branches                congregate to share their scented secrets.       Up and up it ushers me till I’m beyond                the Milky Way, where there I apprehend  that yes , surely this is someone 's dream,                if one in which I'm but a lucky participant.

A SHORT THOUGHT ON ETERNITY Cancer, of course, and tears and pain and broken love and surely anything that bleeds. Undoubtedly the poor  no longer such, the starving more  than fed, the multitude of homeless   housed where rain is all but powerless. And death of course—be not proud!  But if, outside the gate, You were to set a letter box to garner possible proposals, consider coffee staying hot without a travel mug, and this , my gritty soul, inclined      to rest a bit but quickly losing steam.

THESE WORDS II We’d have a better chance of breaking out of Alcatraz than this our prison of a mil- lion shifting doors, intangible as light across the lake or heat that shimmers on a city street. For sake of illustration, say  I gave you nearly endless stacks of Lego bricks, demanding you  assemble love, or maybe truth , then gave you 90 years (at most)  to finalize the task. Then suppose I slowly dimmed the lights! You understand, I trust, this state of ours is truly similar to such.

LOVE IN TORNADO COUNTRY To usher in the light,                the architect will cut a window in the wall,               weakening the structural integrity in order to in-                 vite a ray or two within.     The lover also apprehends,                 of course, the risk of un- expected winds, but knows                that such is due for those who truly love the light,                whatever form it takes.  

A LONG TIME LOOKING AT THE FIRE Ideas taller than the pines  beneath which we attempt  to reason out perplexities  that only now occurred to me  as needing solving. Damn  I love and hate to think. THOUGHTLESS Envy of the ant who bites my toe and knows he's met the Queen’s criteria, while I  am left to contemplate if I  will measure up, or more                what happens if I'm short. EMBERS Consider that the truth is somewhere in the middle  part, and what exactly that would then necessitate for those of us who want to hold it in our fleshy hands. ASH It’s easy to articulate                 a prayer and watch it  flutter upwards with                 the ash—what’s tough  is saying, with the ash,               where or if it ever lands. TOBACCO If everything is h evel as  the Teacher says, at least it is a beautiful farewell of rum and sugar-maple. MEADOW And maybe every blade  is loud with testimony, shouting in the whisper  of the field that we’re the evidence you curt