L.R. Harvey Poetry

Walker County Commisioners Meeting: April 3rd Ned Yates is incensed that from here on out it must be written down.  He knuckles the podium with a frown  and sputters out “You all oughta know  by now that here in this county  we’re not a buncha pencil-pushin geeks,”  by which he means that just to speak is barrier enough to get at what we’re  after. Muffled laughter, and Mr. Yates mumbles  what sounds like “scalawags,” to which  commissioner Askew (despite his digs) doesn’t camouflage his objection  as he scrapes back his chair  to wag a gnarled finger and shout  “If you’re gonna keep mouthing off  then say it to where I can hear it.”  If only, Mr. Askew, it were all so easy  as that; if only it were, at best,  just a question  of chest, as if were we to shout a little longer, a little louder,  we'd chance upon the missing word sure untangle  these, our many mutterings. 

Do We Have a  Quorum?  Well we’re present—this hangnail of the living  contingent—and then  there’s the unaccounted for who came before quite likely peering in—for all  we know—through the wood-frame windows, eager to wipe a dust-hole  with their thumbs and watch the goings-on to see if we arrive at a kind  of consensus. So to answer your question,  yes. And speaking of questions, theirs are ours and we carry the weight of them in the damp manila folders of our lives, eager to take the stand: On behalf of all of us, then, Why does it cost so much? Are we,  on this end of the bench, being  heard? And then, in a word,  what are we going to do about it? 

THE BUDGET: UNEXPECTED EXPENSES Just how much we fight about the God damn budget.  Just what would it cost if God were actually not the pawn picking his way down the side of the board until, finally stuck, we flick down with a wooden click? It’s being slowly leeched,  the carotid of the child's belief, and we must sit here smiling on the porch to sooth  the confusion of the dying.   Our loves and fear are tangled  like an old ratchet strap,  and we've a long trip ahead of us, our hearts in tow. Never enough time before it's time to go. It's a peculiar malady, if none too rare: Where is the waiting room for those of us who both love being here and can't wait to get away? We’ve locked the door and now hate each other  for lingering so. Now we know about our moms and dads. We asked! The goal was living transparently, and now people can see us.  The poor are always popping up  right when we're about to settle in  for the evening or en...

Walker County Council Meeting: March 15th The question was, he prefaced  from the stand, a simple one: Is it true,  Ms. Teems, that as it stands you received a zero-dollar deficit  from Mr. Whitfield when you took  the chair? Her answer was plain in kind. He nodded, as if this was just where he wanted her  for what came  next. And do you, Ms. Teems,  reckon  to keep it that way ? It was a fair  if obvious  question, simple as the ones  we tax ourselves a fortune  to avoid: What do you want?  What do you love? When do you feel most at home in the crowded courthouse annex of yourself? We leaned forward in the stale click of the clock, waiting for an answer and marveling  at just how long the ensuing silence.

  Walker County Council Meeting: March 3rd — first Thursday of every month The quorum hobbles through the hobbled door of the civic center, as if being touched by God in the hip socket were requisite for living  here. Commissioner Teems bestows the blessing followed by the minutes, then opens the floor for public comment. The proposed rock quarry in Rock Spring is of chief concern, the chief financial officer proffering the neighborly promise to open the floor just above the water line,  which is just more lies—per Vince McGill  off Five Points Spur, down by the Helicopter Park— to obtain the land and begin drilling well below that, contaminating the ground- water. Up bubbles a low murmur, then a spill over  of comments regarding the recent infestation  of litterbugs in Lafayette, the merit of another bite on tax dollars for the county’s new Dodge Ram,  a shout-out for such a damn successful Desert Storm  memorial. No decisions are made,  a...