L.R. Harvey Poetry

END POINT Disoriented in a labyrinth of commas,  clauses, and other such syntactical obstacles through which you are obliged to navigate your way to meaning, please persist  until the period—endings often have  a way of rearranging perspective, like reading an Agatha Christie novel  a second time—of course, no novel  idea that not until the end can one begin to understand, but still, it’s one  well-worth a periodic re-exhortation as you pilgrim through this opaque poem— your hope being that maybe, since you don’t quite get it yet, there's more  

  SIDEWALK SOJOURNER No one disagrees it burns, or further that our coddled soles are far- too tender for the trek unscathed.  Anyone who’s summered in the South can testify to how a parking lot  elongates like black licorice when you want to get somewhere—the neighborhood  pool, per say— as if desire had  the latent capability to warp asphalt. And then, remember how all the stuff would weigh you down like a spatula on hashbrowns? Or how  the one thing you didn’t pack  was a pair of flip flops? All this to say,  it’s not the first time the world has told you to pick up your feet  and keep moving. You stopped listening, got comfortable. That’s what that sizzle is.

YOUR WORK Primarily to slow the atrophy, unlearn them. Start with fairies, maybe. Proceed to listen to a stone.  Talk back, and watch the neighbors  wrestle to tie up their tongues before they get the chance to join.  One day, look up at the sky  and tell them that it’s okay  to want to go there—you do too. When they ask why say you know  why. Resist the urge to explain— say find out ,                          if anything.

LIFE IS A WALLACE STEVENS' Just a convoluted poem, really, disclosing its identity as slowly  as an origami crane. Approach it  with a sense of awe, then give it   time. Read it once and then again. Savor how you uncover, (firsthand), the flavors that were always there. Your interpretation, of course,  will change with time, but that’s  to be expected with any text worth its weight. Resist the urge to let your eyes slide lazily over  opaque lines. Trust that pearls hide in oyster shells, and this implies effort. Keep in mind that text neces- sitates an author. This implies purpose. 

ANOTHER ANGLE ON THE INCARNATION When I poop I read poems. Yes,  I will admit it’s an odd place for such a holy endeavor,  but then I doubt that anywhere  is opportune, per say, for eternity to puncture the surface. And why? Largely because it saves time,  and saving something seems  to be the only grounds on which divinity would stoop to mingle with  the shit. 

BY MEANS OF EXAMPLE 10th grade you find she’s available, try everything you might to catch her eye despite the fact you know it would bore  a hole in your unworthy skull. Is there  a chance that the vacancy you’ve  never yet attempted to articulate but always  deep-down known is exactly her shape,  that perfect, indescribable shape? Is there a chance that here , Ms. Johnson’s homeroom, you’ve found a home the way that pencil has nestled in her  hand as if it weren’t a pencil anywhere else? Then, consider how you might  respond if you were to find out  she felt the same: Had wanted—no,  had yearned —for you to come to  her, admittedly unworthy (as you both  are well-aware,) but daring nonetheless.  If such were true, you may find yourself inclined to stand up in your desk, to shout—despite the consequences— Allelujah!

  THREE MEANS OF PILGRIMAGE If you’re to go per intellect, it’s a long crawl up a down escalator—there is, no doubt,  sensation of ascent, but movement  towards the End is negligible. The journey of the mind away   is much more easily accessible— stop moving, and let the steady  slide of rationality proceed in its descent. H eart? It's difficult   to pin, but much like when as a child you'd stop fighting it and drift asleep to the tires' hum, wake up to the realization that some- how, despite your discombobulation, y ou've already made it home.

HOW DEEP? HOW VAST?          'Love is oure lordes mening' - Julian of Norwich  Perhaps, if grossly honest with  ourselves, our dread is less the list  of blunders we’ve accumulated in  this brief excursion round  the room, (exhaustive as it is), but more that maybe there exists a secretarial position designated to the work of keeping track of our near-infinite omissions.      Once again feigned ignorance .      Passed up yet another chance      to exercise the mandate. Yes, again    invoked the name of ignorance. If such a list exists? W e're done for, frankly, unless of course  (and here's the rub) there were another infinite to which He finds himself inclined, to which He finds himself beholden and participant, in which we find                                  ourselves engrossed.