L.R. Harvey Poetry

I MAGINARY NUMBER Having delved the deep places beneath the decimal point, infinitesimal spaces opened and found only to open further,  and having then decided to try the other side, only to find—to their chagrin—the same  expanse extends in both directions,  the Guild of Seekers of a Final Formula  is perplexed, gathering on the  ground floor to discuss next   steps in their pursuit.  One can imagine their frustration,  then, when a newcomer slips in  and pipes up from the back,  suggesting what they lack  is not definitive at all but just a bit of imagination. One can almost taste their disdain when they ask him what number he suggests and he suggests a different plane entirely,  which, when pressed, he  goes no further than to say  with quiet authority, it's i.

It is clear again this morning,  sleep-scum smudging the blinking light of the alarm   clock, that I’ve not the clear -eyed vision of a prophet.  And by the rising resentment  I feel towards the mother of my baby  for so loudly emptying the belly of the dishwasher, canonization  is not a plausible option.  It is an odd feeling to waken to the cold rising of one’s  utter normality. To take a shower  with a damp towel and bar of soap curved to fit your forearm,  to eat an egg like everyone else does, to be another hurried head in the overhead time-lapse of a bus-station or an airport. Look left at the stoplight: there you are, driving to work, eating an English muffin, and not the exception you imagined.

THE GREEN MAN So go ahead and holyfool it , dear friend, don't be shy, otherwise they'll all get to you with reverence in the long run — Eugene Vodolazkin When you come to suspect the seriousness  of the sheer absurdity which is the tremendous tremor of a billion beatific bees  buzzing in the heart-hive, suddenly you’ve half a mind to un-mind the other half. Nothing, please, more  cognizant than baby babbles, more worded than a wanting, verbs going (going where?) yes, going  there, and knowing.

THE OFFERING This is one way to begin.  Gently dislodge the cicada skin  from the bark of the Bradford Pear. It crackles like deep-fried air. Don’t flinch as you imagine you might have mistaken  it for a living one, as a  breath tips it over and you  imagine you feel it crawling across your open palm. It isn’t  alive and neither is it finished with you yet. Don the summer wind like a priest’s garment, then lift the encasement, shouldering the airy weight of a crusted world.  This is what you are  here for. Then shrug off yours.

TRAPPED The line of thinking goes  that given time enough and patience and an underlying trust  that “they're doing the best  they can,” we’ll make our way eventually to the front of the line.   That granted, the house is tilted, but with a few more up-front  expenses the fixer-upper will be fixed, and we’ll at last begin to live  the life we imagined as something more than a growing list of pending repairs.  That in a couple years the offices  will be emptied again, desks  dusted for our people to become  the ones to do what should’ve been done a long time ago, and yes,  soon we’ll get in front of this! The line of thinking begins as optimism, or despair resembling it, till warping under the weight  of its sheer self-interest it bends gradually back on itself until it clicks into a circle and we’re in the middle.  Feel around. There’s no way out of this. Best start looking up                                or digging down.

DEPOSITING WORMS IN THE COMPOST BIN They might have looked at each other  with watery eyes and whispered something like “can you believe  our luck:” egg shell, coffee grounds, a rotten head of lettuce  steamed in grass clippings, all this and more before them in a blue  feed barrel, mist slipping through  drain holes with the smell of next year’s vegetables, hot and thick. But more  likely they didn’t say a word  of gratitude or even surprise at their undeserved fortune. More likely  they wriggled from the palm, falling   to another day of mindless consumption and shitting on the gift, an act of such open   defiance that nothing less than long-sitting love could turn into a garden.