L.R. Harvey Poetry

KINDRED Mimi’s eyes were fine when she was blind.  From what I understood at 12 it was the portion of  her brain responsible for taking  what she saw and reading  it—at least that’s what  the doctor said— which made a lot of sense when I was 12 because  I knew that god was there and that my eyes were just as good   as her’s, but when I looked up  all I saw was blue. This confirmed that I  was sick as well and they  just didn’t know it  yet.

18 & MATCHING TATTOOS I love you, Lord,  in sun or storm,                but keep it sun                 because I’ve seen the way that rain can scour pollen                off a porch               & swiftly wash away a promise such as this,               even one caked-               on summer-thick.

 PLANNING AHEAD If ever I beget a son (or daughter, I suppose,) who one day reappears from university to tell  me how, at last, he’s disill- usioned of the dream of god— is ‘waking up for good’ as I imagine he'll word it— I think I’ll nod my head and parrot Aerosmith, a band  that likely will reside beyond his scope of reasoning (like most  things good & true,) to tell him just the way I wish someone  had counseled me, Dream on .

  ONE-WAY TICKET A fingernail has sliced a rent across the noon, so it’s either judgement  day and soon they’ll peel apart like elevator doors  to finally reveal whatever they store  back there, or it’s just another miracle of aero-engineering roaring silently to any number of places for the holi- days. Either way the principle remains the same, and I really  just want to go home,  and preferably soon.

  APATHEIA° The joke, (correct me if I’m wrong,) is that we’d actually a better chance of flipping inside-out a coconut than  starting clean— man, it’s all so damn  inherited, crusted on ourselves like  a band-aid. Even you, squirrel, look -ing down and laughing at the way I  rock and rock and wrestle with reality,  are victim of environment. It's n uts !,   I know. But surely both of us, I trust,  could one day free ourselves from  what we thought ourselves, glimpse the Absolute, if be it when we look  a lot like that guy over there, tucked  in tight between the yellow lines with little paws entwined across our chests.

FAREWELL First frost, and cannis wilts exactly when  they said it would—                                         that cannis, the one we buried a couple months ago, exactly  when they said we should.                                         Everything  is cycling, then, according to the pre- determined time,                                         and yes, I know they also say that cannis is perennial, so will,  sometime in March,                                         perform a miracle, but ...

ELECTROCARDIOGRAM Your heartbeat is the snuffling dog,  two squirrels on a branch,  clipped roses in cold water.  It is, today, a diadem of fog  on Lookout Mountain, stench  of chicken factory on Broad, more water for the clipped roses which are fading on my living- room table. Your heartbeat is the metronomic click in our chests as we awake to this our holy Being (and thank You for sharing it) tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump