A Poets Manifesto

You might ask me why write poetry, why it is that I give paper to my thoughts.
I would have no recourse but to answer you with the coral flesh that breathes in lines
of hibiscus sentiment. I must refine my speech to ink, preferring the human to the inhuman, the light to the night, the stars to the nocturnal moon. I cannot defer such questions but I must defend with tourmaline hands the beauty of such solitude, the way it traces my spine with octopus tentacles, prying with a stonemasons gentleness
the crystal granite of clarity. Here among the pebbles glass, the waters are born anew, rejuvenating the white spirit with truth untarnished. Here among the urchin waves, anguish is but a beginning breathing mist into the crimson dawn.
You might ask why I write such things, why I choose to traipse the depths of my soul, digging for ingots of pearl, why one would prefer seclusion to this world. But I must answer with elusiveness, protecting the consonants drum with a soft clenched fist. I must defend the verses with a respect for the distance, never abandoning the shadows completely.
I have chosen, no it has chosen me. I am subdued by the syllables speech, the way a conch whispers bitterly sweet nectar wading waves like a surfboard. I am drawn to the tangerine sky like a kite of doves, soaring above the senseless solicitations of this world. I am a thousand neglected struggles, a million hummingbirds crying in blue notes of atonement. I look beyond the windows view , erasing my doubts with sentences of thunder, a tempest storm on the rise.
You might ask me why I write poetry, but in the end, it writes me. I am merely a willing participant, gathering strength from the muse, seeking merely to uncover and expose the beauty of this place.

Kevin Harling.

On the Precipice

I feel like a bohemian
diametric and opposed
to scales,
balancing on
uneven bars trying to
maintain some sort of footing.

Arterial winds gust
full of questioning crimson
and hibiscus doubts,
to where does the wind sail
like a nomadic thought,
never looking west or
showing its face.

Everything is coming up clover,
spilling like ants upon a crystal table,
here light turns plum and
when you decipher ink
the words are lost.

Edges fall from a window
like balloons downward
sinking like a weather vane,
the compass is ajar and teetering
on a ledge.

That time falls cannot be questioned
gravity allows no touch,
it is mute like air and swelling
like puffy cheeks.

The day is unwinding like a clockmaker
marking its margins with chimes
and mischievous laughter,
hold on to whatever you can grab,
tomorrow will not stay still.

Kevin Harling

Apparitions

Longing

Evening ash adorns the windows of the spaces
you left behind, like a sash of memory that
hangs on a vacant wall.

Yellow is a fraction of the cost rendered
in forgotten dust, the fingerprints on my
pillow flesh that aches for yesterday.

I am caught like a stone coral whimper
between a shout, but the shadows silence
such chagrin.

Today numbers fall like rain, all the dates
you occupied like a freshly baked pie
occupies a sill.

I can smell the air vaguely , the traces
that fall like tepid rain upon my brow,
blowing like a train mist, hollow.

I am at a loss for the words.

Coffee permeates my skin in a hue of regret,
you dwindle like a cypress, all soft branched
and blowing like a soft westerly wind.

I call out to ghosts without response, and
like a sheet wrinkle, dismayed by my lingering
thoughts and the face I can't leave behind.

Kevin Harling.

To the Poets of this World

Ode to the Poet

I don't know you
and yet the soil that permeates your soul
lights my way through the phosphorescent night,
soldiers of the pen who smote gunpowder.
I have never met you and yet your eyes of emerald
torches commandeer the waves and shout to the heavens,
the ink you so bravely spill like nectar.
I see your casks seep blood red truth and not falter an inch
when sentenced, I hear your trumpet song bellow like a moon
full of nocturnal honesty.
I touch your flesh blue paper and read crisply the lines you
shed like a confessional testament to integrity.
I may not know you but I breathe the same breaths, I hunger
in a thoughts silhouette hovering like an owl
reaching for wisdom and the fortitude to stand.
I am a ghost in white muslin clinging to your bosom, hoping
that the poems melody, its magnolia roots itself deep within
this frame.
I linger poets in your granite presence seeking the stones flight,
skipping borders of boundless garments, embroidering a tapestry of
balloons so I can soar above the mantle of the sea.
I may not know you, but I am becoming you, in dreams of vermilion
stars, pierced by your pomegranate words that speak magic.
I loiter here, waiting for the diamond eclipse, shrouded by geranium dunes
and tall grasses kneaded by the turquoise sun.
I am silent, a forest of silent pines, needled by pins, wanting to
nestle in the company of your most humble and topaz tranquility.

Kevin Harling.

Tuesday September 21st/2009

A Life in Question

I have submerged myself in the skies, searching for the meaning of clouds. I have allowed the sea to subdue the salt, never wondering how it tasted. I have borrowed angels wings and searched for Heaven without ever leaving the ground. I have touched honey periwinkle dreams with eyes half closed, plunging my shadow into the path of light. I have ambled and argued with significance turning indifference into a country fortified by razor wire borders. I have tossed crystalline words across valleys of amaranth, martyring the forests and barefoot hills. I have bought copper chalk hope and wrapped it in gold paper just to impress the stars. I have satiated my hunger, climbing vines of sorrow and pity, and never understood how to breathe. I have lamented loss like a stray lamb, crying out to shepherds in a minefield of tigers. I have studied defeat standing knee deep in black water and only requested a bigger umbrella. I have filled volumes of orchards with all the wrong apples, throwing mineral questions as if they were stones. I have lived a life in a night full of translucent promises, naked and full of thorns, dropping bones as if they were raisins. I have leaped when I should have stayed, wept when the tears should have smiled, departed when I should have arrived. I have lived a life full of compromise, satin to the eyes and stinging like a bumblebee. I have lived pollen excuses and removed myself to glacial retreats to ponder my very existence. I have lived indeed, facing agony with saber-tooth teeth, quivering like a lost child. I am still here today as I was yesterday and the day before that and so on and so on. The hours bleed tangerine and the skies tremble blue pins, I have looked for the answers and in the seeking have discovered an ocean of sentences painted on paper.

Kevin Harling.

Bits and Pieces

A place where the power of words becomes the emphasis of how a poet views not only his life but the world at large. Here everything takes on a new meaning, the commonplace becomes uncommon, the familiar unfamiliar. Here colours change like the seasons, and words breathe song into the mundane, the beautiful, the ugly, the unbelievable and the normal. So take off your shoes, open your mind and let the words whisk you away.

Behind Today

Truths a Blister


I have spent a lifetime in the rear-view mirror
chasing the wind with my sails.

I have lingered in past memories like a chalkboard
that can never be totally erased.

I have sought forgiveness like applause with a
syringe full of misplaced vanity.

I have scaled inhuman mountains hunting for
rainbows and a suitcase full of gold.

I have searched for compassion in the closet
and wondered if it was in my suit pocket.

I have longed for love in all the wrong faces
and even now am not sure what it is.

I have exercised caution with a blindfold
to scared to reach out and touch.

I have kept the world at a distance, feigning
affection behind locked doors.

I have bargained away freedoms for the sake
of a few more dollars and still been broke.

I have defended bias opinions to be in the
"in crowd" like a court jester.

I have wrestled with angels in a sky filled
with mud and still not believed in miracles.

I have told lies to lies and wondered what
colour truth is.

I have stolen sleep during the twilight
throwing stars like little pebbles.

I have breathed air as if it was not precious
and dressed my hours like a clown.

Kevin Harling.

September 22nd The First Day of Fall

Waiting For Sleep


My patience has been tested by pillows
which may seem an odd way to look at things
horizontal and staring up at the floor.
The clock moves like mercury, liquid
and spilling, scurrying slowly as if
to mock these nocturnal thoughts.
I am an octopus with galloping arms,
struggling with sheets made of oak
satin skin, fidgeting with the hours
like a perforating wind.
Everything is seeping through my windows
eyes of coal, dreams of alabaster china
dolls and green doors filled with sheer
black stockings.
Sleep has become the moonlight lagoon
to which I cannot fathom, its depths of
deep blue wishes and naked bottoms in chaps.
Perfume percolates like coffee, sweet and
naked as a perfect belly exposed to my
touch.
I feel like sand being lapped by the sea,
the salt of my flesh like a joyous wound,
relished with a sensual savvy.
I am nocturnal like a loon, summoned by
insomnia to endure with a smile this
most long and arduously tender night.

Kevin Harling.

Autumn Evenings

Ode to Autumn


Ethereal ingots of crimson
spilt from heavens hands cover
the ground like maple petals,
blessings like prayers answered,
jewels of red precious honey
to be tasted and treasured.

My memory of fall and the shoulders
so willingly displayed in glorious
tunes that feel like a warm October
wind.

I weep like a poets lantern
rooted in smiling tranquility
lost in the grasp of wheat,
holding on like a clinging vine,
singing incantations of a sobering
kiss.

Life is a season unlike this
for here beneath my feet the
ground crackles like a violin
soothing with quiet notes of umber.

I remember the rains of turquoise laughter,
jumping into mounds of musty mystery
never quite sure what lay at the bottom.

I remember colours of a rainbow wish
uttering childhood days when time
was a companion, I recall in vivid
silhouettes the dawn mornings,
crisp and invigorating.

Autumn my eternal comrade
walking hand and hand through my hours
like a faithful puppy
who sighs in bright red eyes.

Kevin Harling.

Monday September 21st

A Lament


Summer feels like a gypsy
vagabond erasing the spring
with empty thorns, quivering
like Medusa with a thousand eyes,
her stone leaves like absent
syllables making knots
and tormenting we the travelers.

I feel forced to understand
the silent gestures of her language,
her shadowy disposition that funnels
my thoughts to her lips,
touching albeit briefly
the nectar of her eyes.

I await patiently like a drunk forest
her ivy caresses that cling and climb
melancholic, the way she
dusts everything with perfume
like a downpour of swans.

She parades in like a lightning bolt
nomadic and drifting like a
solemn wind, dancing on ancient
myths as if she had not a care
in the world.

Summer feels like a necklace of
pebbles galloping,
like a vertical Pegasus stammering,
like a shoeless God trembling,
and yet in a whisk she can
blanket the earth with a blanket of
golden myrrh.

I linger in the fragrance of her rose
awakened by the brow of her nocturnal
daylight, and when I think I know her secret,
she extends her talons and penetrates my twilight.

Summer is eternal, mineral and suggestive,
she is doves and amethyst smiles,
she is a solo violin, amber and refusing to be held,
she has wings of tourmaline feathers.

Summer my lamented crown of shimmering
words, lost in a solitary sea of white.

Kevin Harling.

Sunday September 20th

A Taste of Melancholy


Sage fingers
trace the lines
where the wind
rushes in
hoping
to bestow magic,
searching for
the reasons
to escape.

Yesterday
breathed goodbye
like a citadel
smoothed by stones
awaiting the return
of a single
green branch.

Turquoise skies
sigh overhead
peering into
tomorrow
like a phantom
wish,
plush and subterranean,
motionless and beckoning
the way a heart
beckons.

A river of doves
call out familiar names
that don't exist
like a column
of wounded
absence.

In these hills
lemon water
spills
like silent tears,
pleading with the wind
like a lonely
pelican.

Distance is not abstract
it defines life,
like an island undiscovered,
and yet when the day
withers and night
reveals its fissures,
eternity
drops its petals
condemning the moon
to be mute.

Shadows of bone
shape this place,
a place where everything
is devoured, eaten
by its own teeth,
regretting yesterdays smile
and frowning upon
the dreamers hand.

Kevin Harling.

Ode to The Country

The Dance

Across borders
these thoughts spill
like air thick
with anticipation,
the wind whispers
green eyes
and smiles.

Across continents
the words fall
like autumn,
merging like
two bodies
hungering
to be one.

Across divides
that separate
only lonely
hours
we reach for the
stars and dream
of tomorrow.

Across plains
and waterfalls
where tears
speak about
love.

Across the road
when eyes meet
and hands
touch the
moments flesh.

Across the dance
floor with
the lights
dimmed
and my sweat runs
to meet you,
and when
together
embraced by
the music,
we sway
like trees
in a lullaby.

The dance
of this dream
that falls
like a rainbow
upon my pillow
and the wind sings
a love song
and dances
right beside
me.

Kevin Harling.

Dreams Should be Made of This

Night Time Wishes

Pillows made of
raspberry sleep,
the way that sounds
familiar
rolling off the
tongue
like a cherry.

From here beyond
the above, blue
stars yawn
happy and
contented by
a day of white
laughter.

From her the words
over look
the veranda
on a hammock
swinging like
the wind
pondering
rainbows and
leprechauns.

From here the questions
never need answers
like jello
they just jiggle
joyous.

From here tomorrow
sounds like a vacation
at Disneyland
where you get to be
Mickey Mouse
floating down a river
of milk chocolate.

Pillows made of cinnamon
hope and full of
yes.

I could spend everyday
here among the
stars of liquid
honey.

Couldn't you?

Kevin Harling.

Stars fill these Skies

Magical

Stars tumble
in a pantomime
of tangerine yellow
giggling
like school children
in a playground.

Laughter fills
the sky with
watermelon
moons.

Joy comes to heart
in a rush of
candy cane wishes
and
this late hour
cannot subdue
the feeling
of tumbling dice
spilling
jelly beans
all over the
seas.

I jumped over clouds
made of marshmallow
and slapped
my knees
till they tickled
and blushed
shyly.

I am a lark
a pied piper
a court jester
of clowns.

Laughter is all I can
see
and blue licorice
voices
of pillows
talk to me about
coming to sleep.

Kevin Harling.

Today Smiles Goodbye to Tomorrow

Today as Tomorrow was Yesterday

Brown paper sentiments
fill the aisles of
this heart
like corrugated smiles
and laughter
chuckling like
wind filled
balloon ashes
of white.

I can sense your disapproval
weighing in already
and I am only
half finished
so I guess i will continue,
anyway
I saw the bus windows
glancing as they
rushed by heading
straight south.

Armadillos
stuffed
sat on the ledge
of the taxidermists
store looking bored
with their
current position,
and I couldn't help
but notice how
puffed up
all their hopes
must be.

But I don't want to meander
like a lazy river
bending plastic
sentences,
so,
anyway,
walking like an umbrella
slightly aloof
I paced the hallway
of the page
with fine print
collecting adjectives
because they were on sale.

I grabbed a hold of
some adhesive,
and began sticking
them to my thoughts,
hoping to remain coherent,
trying to stay economic and
debonair.

I wonder if you'll
get but never mind
that now.

I took the bag
full of sentiments
determined to
to make the day
whimsical and
full of smiles
and laughter.

Kevin Harling.

Autumn Approaching

Traces

Crimson air fills the sky
with promises full of
sterile eyes
flickering like
stardust
across the pages
of some old
yellow dusted
book.

On the table in the kitchen
enamel tipped forks
argue
about when the sun will set
tapping the brittle
porcelain plates
trying to attract
attention.

Bystanders passing by
stop and stare
at the candles
flickering like eyelashes
in the window
partially open.

The moon bids goodnight
to the heavens
bowing its lapels
below the shoulders
of this day.

You have to wonder
where the hours went
as you sit
like silverware
all dressed up
deciding
who is going to do
the dishes.

Fingerprints cover
the table,
silhouettes
and reminders
of movements
and plans
gone a wry,
while the laundry
hung in the hallway
almost dry.

What was left of the
conversation
that tasted like
stale bread
mixed with
cold black coffee,
nothing but faceless
traces
and a whole lot of
dust.

Kevin Harling.

Questions

I Am Not

I am not defined by my yesterdays, I do not linger in passing memories, I am not a ghostly apparition. I am not the minutes that slip by unnoticed. I am not subject to definition, I am not that easily defined. I cannot be easily explained, my character is still becoming. I am not something that is easily forgotten. It takes time to unlock my secrets, and that is only if I let you. I am not a pushover. I am not very easy to find. I am in many layers. I am simply not that easily defined. I am still evolving, the lines of my life not yet revealed. I am still discovering. I never stop learning. I am unwinding the pages of this story are still not written. My chapters are undisclosed, I am just unfolding. I am not very easily defined. I am up in coming. I was slow to start. I am on my way to becoming. Perhaps one day I will be defined.

Kevin Harling

When the Lights Recede

Below the Sky and Sea

Sleepless mauve ribbons descend
the night one stair at a time.

The sky shimmering with blue painted clouds
beyond the fingers of hopelessness.

Footsteps of angel wings bounce
and whip gathering wind yellow.

The hues of loss sounded by conch
flying butterflies whispering hello.

Here below the sea regret waves green
whistles and tolls tomorrow.

Seahorse congregate and plan processions
of retribution mounted on steeds of neon
red.

This battle of banners wages on waves
ascending foam tides in charging armies.

Words lost in a shuffle of innuendo
propagate and stir the murkiness of victory.

Here among the titans nothing is wagered
entirely, no anemone souls, no starfish wishes,
nothing of any real value.

Everything is a pantomime played out in
real time beneath the sky and the sea.
Everything is collusion.

Kevin Harling


Ocean

Like pearl leaves crawling to the sea
driven by the desire for salt
the
brine like the colour of my thoughts
on a shoal made of coral
and the urchin
who held classes for English
preached about proper usages
of pronouns
and the blackboard
was erased by anemone
purple and kind of evasive,
the waves tried to wash everything away
as if it was fleeting
and time spoke like sand
in glass whispers,
and I could not help but think
that whirpools can cause you
to drown and be swallowed
by what the professor said
and the blue sky
was clearly visible although
somewhat blurry
and the clouds just acted nonchalant
after all it was only Thursday.

Kevin Harling


A Secret World

Between the lines decomposing light
in the spaces secrets that linger
faces and traces of dust stall
in the lulls where I vault ink
places I sit and think twinkling
star and foam of sea clouds.
Between the valley and grove
mist meadow dove and silence
the sheets and lace satin tear
like a pomegranate flower tree.
In this river bending meander
here amongst now and what was then
between air and sound whispering
the rain and traces of pen I sit
thinking moon sand and dunes I
who bleeds ink blue and red flesh.

Kevin Harling


Hold On

Hold onto this as if it was a thunderbolt
sent from above the sea sky sun
and wish to feel its breath upon your flesh
cheek skin
hold onto the soft rain blood and whisper
wind.

Grab hold of the minutes passing flow
and scroll sound wave and goodbye
touch chins and fall down grounded
by heaven bliss and love balloons.

Hold onto such air breathe ice and
upon cold show cheeks and grace
soak in the joy and remember
always remember to hold on.

Kevin Harling


Falling Into You

In whispers that inoculate the silence,
the brevity of these words mired,
by their own undoing, the wisps
that exist somewhere between,
caught among my breath and heart.

The things I really want to say,
that I usher away with a trivial flippancy.
I am treading my mind,
struggling to make sense of things I so easily dismiss,
the everyday stuff we overlook.

I have to stop myself, catch my words,
and take a deep breath, and
let myself fall into you.

Kevin Harling

Tonight Beloved

Tonight, oh let your substance ascend
establishing my dreams with flesh plum
succulent to the senses,
let your kisses travel ocean distances
swallowing fresh my glances with your
eucalyptus legs.

Cover me with your persistent shape persimmon
collapsing my passion, from behind you.
Bend the night into one moon covering my eyes
with your delicate fig mouth.

O moist flower, corrode my shoulders
with galloping breath teach my fingers to read.
Weight my heart with the softest dew
and without interruption encompass this night.

Let your bosom saturate my skin like nectar
flowing like the sun's rays into unexplored valleys.
Embrace my face with lips of honeydew
pressing against the hours with loving teeth.

Extinguish my impulses and while your hands gather
impale my heart with ankles that defy gravity.
O beloved I could surrender this sweet night forever,

Kevin Harling

A Surreal Love Poem

Pawned by the absence
My hands that touch enamel
The color of my thoughts
extracted like tourmaline
Do I have the space I need
These incompatible shoals
like sheets
Our kite shaped hearts
that avalanche on sunbeams
In supple liquids
that upset everything
In this house filled by eclipses
within the measured shadows
This distance marked by throats
by asphyxiation, by paralysis
withdrawing in the dusk
In violet lagging heartbeats
that freckle time with seconds,
seconds of orange and hunger,
seconds without escorts or indexes
Summoned seconds effused by dissidence
this descending skin
your nubile murmurings, disquieting
and breath exhausted by brambles
On the threshold of submission
this trace of vapor, this venial breadth
this mourning of our arms
enveloped and escalating
like bread that suffocates the contours
the valley of your skin like mortar
your phantom forehead familiar
your undulating surfaces
This voluptuous suicide reverberates
silk stockings and snakeskin laughter
this mutilated nightfall of ivy
that pecks at infidelity with thistles
this caged tedium of copper anchors
like a resuscitated hurricane of kisses
your eyes of anthracite windows
the scent of moss that echoes of a covey
of dawns
I am not sure of myself
nor anything else anymore.

Kevin Harling

Margaret Atwood Are you Here?

Table for Two

Pt One

And just let it be spoken, spilled and whispered,
this place in which it is born, beginning without
adjectives, spectacles or spurned by salt, or whatever.
The dust located and unflattering, bats and counselors, the crowd.
Because we minus, dismiss, disregard, dockets and red tape, voices mouthed through a Dictaphone.
Minute, hours, days, designed to go, in the absence of shirts and sockets, and evidence as loud as neon, glass, light that creeps through a green tinted window.
The sound of stones moving in a row, like chattel bickering and a bakers dozen of six fresh brown eggs, what agility!
Sometimes, you and I, no more you, like a halo all lit up with candles, so full of wax obscenities, small and:
I stand up to the mirror, my head and eyes full of milk white laughter, this life, treetops and mango cheeks, the Muse, grief that criss-crosses, peaches and, peach stockings, toes. What's the point?
I can make amends, ssh let me whistle in your eye, fences,
hearts and curtains, closing down.
But! Is their really any point anyway?
I could go naked, unctuous and more kinda ordinary.
Is their a difference?
I should have been a mortician.

Pt Two

Here we are again, my dear prudence, if only it could have been different, but whatever! You thought we could rename the world?
By hiding the real meaning like a kiss off stab in the handshake behind closed doors, us, ages ago, yesterday, I see your eyes, those alabaster orbs of
indecision, regrets and, parachutes made to not open, and sky and lies that confuse the clouds, and sentences that drag on and on.
Your mouth full of too much annunciation, sniveling, carnivore promises, and bifocals breathing like a father's one last hope.
I cannot resuscitate the dead, they're gone in a procession of a several million others, millipedes, footsteps.
What's the point? Why all this attention?
Paint the sky true blue and the moon red, rub it with olive oil on paper like pebbles, that line the shore, on an almost empty day across furniture, and let's get back to the ability, for what hope have any of us truly got, and;
How can the moon light up the night?
Maybe we could settle this debate over a night cap coffee, after all its been two years since we left the trenches, trashed the fences that stood in front of the ceiling wall chandelier right behind the moat of our precious defenses.
Do you want the truth?
Or have you heard just about enough already?

Pt Three

Go ahead tell me about convenience, midnight, perhaps I am listening, like a bee you leak pollen paper, but the audience is less than honest, silhouette that swims with apologies like a loose stamp fin.
Fledgling nature, wing, tail. So what!
Do you sigh as you kneel at the base, foot of the bed
as brittle as china, cupboard, all flustered and trying to cover up with dusty pronouns and places
you might have frequented.
In a vacant interval, do you hear it?
The silence that looms and shatters the sound like a veil, immodest.
I wonder can you remember?
December almost tragedy snow white blue petal
flakes falling, and, hands raise high in the air, snow angels on the ceiling and, the fan muttering on the floor.
Halo, and for an instance, we're both still here. Shameful!
Did you actually shoot someone? I think of you like
bones in the wind rolling across the plain sidewalk cinema by the lake cobblestone road as dull as a neon lamppost
and atoms.
It's five years on now, where should we start to unravel, unpack, everything is becoming everything else, yellow, carnation, earth, I could stroll, ungrateful and refusing to cry out or, so full of prattle, symmetry and punctuation, clever, quietly questioning the windows.
Can you really change me? you must be kidding, are you just bureaucratic and unfamiliar, let me escape this place.

Pt Four

And so what has become, begotten like a promise, a whisper of doves, square Vatican cathedrals, white robes and red crosses emblazoned with false vows,
When you knelt in a row of altars upon a rainbow and mahogany pews, like a double agent sent to conspire with angels, pidgeons and rain, clouds like soup choke; and chiseled chins and blurry recollections.
When you prayed to the moon outside your window god, reaching stars in the night sky, and what was it you wanted to say in the silence without confessing, your invisble muted gestures of lips, a mute song playing on the radio in the windowsill of the topaz coloured kitchen tile surface.
But in any case this is almost-holy. white sacrament, feathers, truth and shadows, stiletto aria that blesses in the name of red roses.
And I will listen to the owl and the pussycat argue, the smell of dandelions and a scroll unrolling like an evisceration of tongues, wagging, yelling wild obscenities from a pink gondola that rises through the terraces like treetops;
And millions of squirrels like wings, and,
Do I really need to repeat myself?

Pt Five

To all good women and men who happen upon this shore with a bundle full of hope, bells and whistles, thistles, cannonballs and cake.
To all those who have served pie in slices, slabs, grovelling for seconds, and all that civility, high society, etiquette and strings attached.
Bling like a violin cello, one gold ring, fellowship, span and scope.
To you few who think you have been chosen, you cannot be elected by veto, you are dismissed because of resignation.
So sign here on the dotted line and don't read the fine print.
To you the selected by Canadian American Idol, you may have made the grade after the commercial break, this is all about ratings, right now we are slightly above par, but very close to being level. Let's just cruise on automatic like a robot controlled by remote signals from across the room.
To the survivors, the brave ones who braved the elements and portaged the pill boxes, tubes, boobs and drug filled skies with red eyes, red flat lined like a lost passenger on platform thirteen.
You in the margin, in the silhouette, high lite reel, celebrity, the face we all want to see when we look in the botox mirror.
You are, you almost on empty, where is your personality? Show me some spunk its only mid June.

Pt Six

So this is the way life is, autumn has come and rested its crimson residue upon the ashes of yesterday's brow.
What remains honestly?
After oblivion that exposes itself in blemishes,
Just like a hammock on a flat hilltop that stretches time, a riddle that sits like rush hour somewhere in the middle of a stop and look sign. Stop and look but please do not touch.
Wait, yes wait to be licked by someone else, or dragged by a world full of slogans and instruction manuals printed in Spanish.
Is anyone listening besides you?
I could say that I have no regrets and flatter the wind with lustrous lies full of blush to try and console even the lowliest beggar. But by who's decree?
We are on the precipice, the verge of truly knowing ourselves, even from such a short distance, honey!
This has nothing to do with permission, fore go the dandelions and roses, the ungracious tide sea that lashes my brow.
I feel like my skin has been rubbed raw by pewter spoons, that their is indeed no reason to celebrate the sawdust, baby!
I can think only of you, the way the moon falls apart like asiago, like old bones clanging when held under your gaze of toxic powdered intensity, your telescopic vanity that establishes sandbars fro fish to swim on.
We may still have the sun made up of corrugated Styrofoam cups painted orange
and yellow but and yes I mean but, everything is leaking collusion, sulfuric acid tears of lead, like a river corroding it's own banks and crippling its desire to sing.

On the Road

To You

I could run like an envelope
shortcut through
the windy plains
but I am not
sure I could
make it
soon enough
I need to run
closer to you.

I could shoot like an arrow
diving over rainbows
of gold dust
dodging sagebrush
and dolphins
but I am not
sure
I could make it
soon enough
to you.

I could swim
the Grand Canyon
like a kite
hurdling
eagles and
boulders
but I am not
sure
I could make it
because i need you
here with me
now.

I could travel a
million minutes
in a boxcar
like a hobo
along rusty rails
but I am not
sure
I could make it
even though
the road is wide open.
I need you now.

I could run like an envelope
shortcut through
the windy plains
I need to run
get closer to you.

Kevin Harling

Evening

Weathervane Words

Today
the elastic wind
sang a love song,
swallows swam
on auto pilot,
drifting
across the
ocean sky,
humming soft
somethings
to the wind.

Today
the memory of flesh
spoke to me about
yesterday like a
pin cushion
with short sharp
jabs,

asking me to remember
ghosts,
faces that have
long since faded
into the dust,
like so many other things
we find it easier to bury
on shelves
in dark closets.

Today the sky wept
like a child
lost in its own
house,
tears rolled down the clouds
like lace love letters
undelivered,


today whispers
like the rain showers
weathered by their own puddles,
weathered by wrinkles
and regret
indigo
and coming undone,

today feels like a gust
of cold arctic air
warm to the touch
of these bitter
hands,

today is like a blister
bleeding and bruised
by hours that have
forgotten how
to sing,
the words tainted
by the weathered
intentions
and what was really
meant to be said.

Weathervane you sit
stoic and silent
never faltering
not bothered by
what is going on
all around you.

I wish I could be
a weathervane.

Kevin Harling

Ode to Farewell

Mahogany
covers not only the interior
but the exterior,
lichen and steeped
with thoughts,
so many thoughts
unpronounced
and yet like moss
clutching and clinging
to the vine
of this place.

I bid you adieu
my wind and sun,
my ocean pearl,
my coral and
blue sky.

I wade as a peacock wades
turning time upon
its own
hands
suggesting,
painting
and dancing
in the shadows.

I say goodbye to
complicated knots
and grooves
like a smooth panel
of dust that
sheds its
fingerprints
like a ghost.

I remain as I have
always remained
in lines not
confined to a page
but to the air
like a butterfly
painted vermilion
soaring lofty
above the clouds
angelic.

I decree this end
without tears
for I cannot
show my remorse,
nor can a child
who loses his
way in the
night
overrun
by pillows.

Grooved mahogany
hangs from this
window,
the panes of what I
have written
like the ledger of a
soul searching,
reaching not for the end
but the beginning.

I wave like the ocean
in cresting blue sighs
with a sadness
that tickles
my bosom,
this heart that has
bled ink
yellow and red
at the same time,

Goodbye
my companions of
stone and ivory,
I breath a farewell
tainted not by rust,
but by the heart,
a heart that beats
like a melancholy
of whispers,
and dreams
of tomorrow.

Farewell
as the door
closes its eyes
and releases its grip
upon the ashes
hand,
there is nothing
left but to
depart.

Kevin Harling.



Oak

In limbo like
the elephant sunlight
lingering cloud blue
your posture elevated
and aloof, full of tusks
and brackish branches
of ivory.

How mighty you stand
holding back the wind
with your fingers
of gold leaves,
gathering breath
as if you were catching
dreams.

Today dawns like
your eyelashes
indigo light
and fluttering
like the somber hopes
of birds who nest
within your girth.

I touch the bark
wrinkled skin
and imagine a world
where you no longer
stand wishing wind
away like a fan
that scatters and scurries
looking always for
the promise of
tomorrow.

Kevin Harling.


Auburn

I see faces red hair and curling
downward towards
the sun
silhouetted by
light that percolates
and froths
at the neck.

I see the way the air
sighs invisble
barely caressing
your attitude as it smiles
secretly.

I see the ghost of yesterday
reflected in the sunlight
demanding to be heard
as if it was mute,
the sound deafens my outlook
and abates my mood
with silent whispers
of joy.

I see the way red cheeks
puff with laughter
and exhale
in a boom
of teeth,
enamel and
suggesting things,
things I dare not utter
in public,

I see behind today
like a rainbow of
delicate compassion,
shy and yet
somehow
the hours speak
not in minutes
but in seconds
of sheer delight.

I see crimson skies
highlighted
like a firefly
highlights the road
that lies ahead,
optimism brims
over my cup
like a clear blue
wish,
and when I stop and still
my heart
I see auburn.

Kevin Harling.


Human Directions


West of here to the north
mouth
of the sky,
fingers point
east,
trying to reckon with
the sand that spills
like water from
a collander.

Tomorrow dawns
queasy
like a hiccup
jostling
with the white
satin sheets,
stalling like the air
full
of circumstances
beyond anyone's
control.

The road
leads everywhere
but nowhere
and still
the concrete day
vaults forward
like the answer to some
dainty question
proposed in jest
about the economy,
thta seems to be
chasing its own tail.

You have to wonder about
maps and grids
formulated
in miles
the eyes cannot see
and the heart and mind
struggle to recall
even vaguely.

It is easy to get lost
in a wilderness of streets
intersecting,
peopled by vehicles
that run on propane
air, by
depopluated forests
that look for excuses
for thier nakedness,
by the sky that cries
not a blue cloud
and then
politicians argue about
zoning by-laws
for rich tycoons
who dismiss
the environment
like a menu item.

It is all about heading
somewhere else
leaving the safety of
the familiar and putting
yourself
out there in the great blue beyond
searching for tissue
souvenirs and
polyester photographs
to serve as vacant
reminders.

It is about caring
for the weak
and less fortunate
not by force
but by choice,
about issues that span
every horizon
where borders cease to exist,
about humility
and questioning motives
not how much money
can be made.

Directions
that fill the expanse
painting the horizon
white and not grey,
for within the murkiness
everything gets lost
in a fog.

Kevin Harling.

A Poets Journey

It would be easy to sit on the perimeter untouched by life, but the sky decrees that the poet immerse himself in the perfume of the clouds.
Nocturnal light cannot shroud the tears of existence, the dead vegetation will not remain buried for long, walls were never constructed to withstand the bittersweet sting of truthful observation.
It is imperative to wade above the knees in the murky atmosphere, extracting with eyes wider than open, revealing every nuance no matter how subtle or subdued, showing its colour regardless of how beautiful or ugly. Every story has a right to be told.
It is necessary that the inhuman becomes human, that when the hands touch the pain, the ink does not belittle the suffering or the joy. It should never be diluted or bleached.
Integrity demands no compromise, it is not the time to shrink or begrudge the responsible duty to which one finds themselves a part of.
It is to such places that a poet is drawn, rendering the significance with tourmaline fingers, savouring the dew and soaking in the petals of life, like a bird of flight that is not afraid to land and stay awhile.


You are the Light

I light a candle to silence my heart
when night becomes a pillow of sorrow
when in the wind I catch your whispers
when the sun heats my soul with you,
but I cannot touch you.

I light a candle to celebrate the days
that you drifted like a feather of air,
soft and tender.

I light a candle today my breath of sea
that nestled deep within my coral flesh
and held my wishes like a precious stone.

I light a candle because you never flickered
you nourished my life with dreams and love.

I light a candle for tomorrow so I dare not
forget, your face of graceful white.

You who adorned my eyes windows with joy,
who held onto my hopes and fed them,
who always said goodbye as if it was hello,
who when it rained subdued it with rainbows.

I light this candle for promises and vows,
for the mourning light that I look for,
for the yearning that never fades.

I look for you in the hallways shadow,
wishing to see ghosts, and when a smile
crosses my brow, I taste your words.

I light a candle for you, for you live
in everyday I endure without you.

You are my light, my candle.



The Poet

I once wallowed between living, assuaged by a love imprudent. I kept an inconsequential leaf of crystallized silica to cleave my eyes to life.
I acquired favour, I was in the store of longing,
I breathed desires most foul waters, the barbarous warfare of disguises and aliases, I lived in a world where the flower was composed of seaweed, the lily,
devoured me like fire in a flaming quiver, and wherever I walked my spirit slipped toward the teeth of the gulf.
This was how my poetry sprang to life, hardly released from the thorns, held aloft and disciplined like isolation, or its most well kept flower secluded in the garden of shamefulness until it was committed to the ground.
And so alone like the brackish water that resides in its furthest reaches, I fled from palm to palm, to every person's station, to daily hatred.
I knew that was how they survived, showing only what was necessary, like fish from the most bizarre depths, and in the unfavourable regions I found death. Death opening windows and ways. Death dragging its cold fingers along the walls.


Today

I went for a walk before the sun had a chance to rise, so I put it in my pocket.
The sky was looking down with worry, cheeks full of puffy clouds, pouting.
I had to chuckle to myself, in a whisper really as I
wanted my secret to remain just that.
I felt the heat in my palm as the sun stretched its
legs, relaxed by the security of my skin.
I debated on how I could have done such a selfish thing, and when reason surfaced, I knew what had to be done.
So I took it out of my pocket, and making a wish, cast it high into the heavens.
As I pondered this morning, I got a chuckle and the sun smiled at me.


Ancient mists speak about destiny whisking the wind to faraway places.
Hills cannot hide from the sky, nor can a man being pulled by his land of calling.
I never chose the path it chose me and once held it would not let go.
Breath white and full of mystery suspends the passage of time, and for the briefest of moments
love held my hand.
It is the only thing worth living or dying for.


A Witness for the Prosecution

Like a larvae I have spun
my web of intriguing thoughts
purple and indifferent to
how the sun felt about
the moon.

I administered guile
with a syringe and injected
oranges with gelatin,
disregarding the instructions
printed in Spanish.

I discovered hope
in brown paper bags
at the grocery store,
of all the places,
they could not hold a lot!

I witnessed loneliness in
a Koi's eyes peering
at the sky from
its glass blue depths,
questioning its
opaque bubbles.

I saw rain delivered
by the postman
deviating from his
usual route, oblivious
to the way the water
was speaking.

I found peace in a
discarded trumpet in
a dumpster just
off Main St. and I
wondered what it was
like to make no sound.

I have witnessed love
in a myriad of colours
and shapes that looked
more like bandages,
and yet when properly
administered the sores
eventually healed.



What If

Zirconium skies swim in the clouds hope
asking unsuspecting questions
about how angels
talk,
foraging for answers
in the breaths exhaled
by whales.
Pods of people scurry about
in the rain exchanging
gossip like umbrellas,
architecture stands silent
looking on the way ghosts do.
Days meld into each other
like a loons song melts into the lake,
rippling like a cold chill
that warms the bone.
What if all of this was true,
what if armadillos sold
real estate on the savannas
smoking fat Cuban cigars.
What if the psalms were
actually recipes
for making stardust
and religion was actually
something made of plastic
recycled from myths.
What if water was actually
dried paper that was dehydrated
waiting for the touch
of something wet.
What if time was
going backwards
on a trampoline,
like a clown
who had forgotten
to put on his makeup,
lost and bewildered
by all the lights.
What if...


Once

I once held the plight
of a mockingbird
in my palms,
saw its face
bruised by kiwis
that looked
maroon.

I once cradled a crocodile
in my bosom of blue
twisting all his shame
with my tongue,
the words covered
by the sky's moss
light green.

I once gathered bees
in a jar full of spleens
and the tangerine yellow
seeped out of the lid
and the buzzing
went silent within.

I once tasted a frogs regret
all croaked and sullen
like pulling pollen
from a dark lake,
and the fish stood
idly by chattering
with gills.

I once saw the moon laugh
at the night
spooning adjectives
and snickering.

I wondered what was so
funny.

Once I spoke Hebrew
to a cluck of dolphins
and got no response,
should I have been
surprised?



Handcuff my eyes still blue and speaking calm
let the clock go mute and the water whisper silent
wind of my mind listen to solitude sky and when
everything seems perfect rest in the beauty of
sand....


I took the eyes out of the blue door yesterday
and opened another closet of dust, its settling
behind me in the corner like a mussel dream, I
am deciphering my next move, so please give me
a minute....



A Heart After a Long, Drawn Out Ending

Sides, we both took sides opposite one another,
setting up shop in corners, on the periphery, as
if closer was something that only happened on
shelves, where the dust is allowed to settle.

How could we expect a different outcome? Set up
like the sun for failure at the outset. Choosing
allies like cheap commercials, so quick to oppose
any sort of compromise, loosing our way in the
fields behind fences.

It was draining trying to keep up with the Jones,
in their picture perfect castle with the uni-block
driveway and California shutters made of pearls.
As if what the outside looked like made any real
difference, a competition of sticker prices and
Suv's made by Mercedes.

It was long and drawn out, the ways we waged war,
behind phone sets that had no cords. In secret,
plotting to out due each other at the BBQ with the
best cut of meat.

That's the way the heart feels,
winded and charbroiled,
totally out of breath and not sure
of anything anymore.



Melancholy

Words fall from the ceiling like stucco snowflakes
the red ochre miracles that were more like footprints
coming from your mouth.

Elephants are more quiet walking in high heels than
the drivel you spit out over supper.

Opinions that taste like rust served between two stale
slices of bread are swallowed reluctantly,
while you go on and on about the laundry left in the dryer.

Why doesn't the sound of your lips drown in its own innuendo,
weighed down by the anchored stones you throw around like kites.
I long for melancholy, how it sits waiting to be asked questions,
how it never demands anything.

Random Thoughts


Is it really Penguins dressed in candy cane
pajamas sitting having cafe au lait around the
Christmas tree in June?
No it can't be... HeHeHe


Take my hand and we will walk the water like
the wind, carefree and taking solace in the white
words we only need whisper, hello my friend
days of blissful smiling sea. Take my hand....


Sky aquamarine conch from here I see your face
smiling like today hours spent wondering
through glass pearl eyes longing to be free
fly away little bird....



All written by Kevin Harling

The World As Seen With A Pen

Complete Me

Write on my heart in italics
in bold fonts of your choosing
fill my empty spaces with color
scar me with your hands of calligraphy
tattoo my skin with your lips
soften me with your touch
fill my thoughts with your words
with the sound of your fingers
steal my breath with your mouth
uncover my depths and drape me
unfold my dreams and stain me
with the ink of your eyes
fill my pages with your stories
trace my flesh and bone
with the dye of you and only you.

Kevin Harling


Falling Down

It is all
descending
like the sky
sticking to my
lungs like
marmalade
and thumb
tacks.
Descending
like stairways
and thoughts
trickling
like sand
in bars
of erosion.
Coming closer
and nearer
to the coral,
my shoals
breached
by linen
white
lily
and lotus
breath
that feels
like
crayon.
It is all
descending
like time
black and blue
with passing
aged by truth
and blistering cold
that agitates
nostalgia.
Its all falling down
like a drape
a final curtain
one last bow
upon the
chin.

Kevin Harling


Clarity in a Glass

Opaque truth, maritime
arriving like an angel, transparent
tempered by whistling mouths
fall over me like perfume
dowse my nocturnal hours
scuplturing time with finite purpose
cradle my heart with prophetic kisses
touch me with truth in sheets
pure white and accessible
wrap me with delicious comparisons
pomegranate, with insights like a comet
conquer the stars and night without arrogance
fill the spaces with abandoned hours
of nothing but truth like glass.

Kevin Harling


Loam

Impervious
acrylic
memory
stood
in the
mirror
windows,
somewhere
close to dawn,

dusk showed its
face
auburn
and standing
like a silhouette,

shrouded by
shadows
of light
moving
towards noon,
and

the moonbeam
glass
that dissolved
into nothing
turned its cheek
like pollen
quietly whispering,

honey,
golden strands,
sand and moss
and leaves,

spoke,

everything is
falling down
like gravity
undressed by
satin,

meeting the
loam in a handshake
of grass,
bones
green with
envy eroding
this mantle,
wishing that
it had become
an island,

the margins
exist
and preclude
assumptions
or contracts,
everything is
disclosed like
the sunshine,

water, random
beads and,
drops its
hopes
on the faces
of those
etched
by stone,

like monoliths
chanting
sky and stars
and ceremonies
that go in the
garden, eden,
lily afternoon
hands,
that look like
they are praying,

everything is kneeling,
crumbling
like stale bread
but never
submitting defeat.

Impervious.

Kevin Harling


Oh Enchantress

Oh enchantress, twilight,
trembling miracle of light
shaped by fragrant beauty
the smell of flowering rain
touch me in the dark spaces
with small light-blue eyes
study my phantom frame.

But leave my poetry alone
do not disturb its tender ashes
its tendons and cheeks, its gasps,
its perforated palpitating breath.

Oh enchantress, invisible,
like a glistening hemisphere of night
tentative and unnerved by laughter
listen to the orange lament.

Oh absentminded kisses
distant and divided into two
teeming with the stillness of necks
turn the glacial solitude upside down
shatter this pollen waist
undress these phosphorescent hours
with udders of sleep.

But leave my poetry alone
its laurel towers, its germinating flour,
its wooden girth and abandoned merchandise.

Let its scarlet surface take shape
let it pour down fertile
broken apart by the earth
giving a voice to the sulfur emptiness
dissolving like a rain of reconstructed syllables
like songs of wheat, winter, oats
like a landslide, let it topple over
let it transform the ground with umbrellas
in intervals, like a pause of cold air
like a ghosts breath, let it whisper.

Oh enchantress, bedroom,
entangled vegetation
lagoon of skin and sky
sleek silky sweat mountains.

These words must not perish
for they are beyond silence
untouchable balconies
innocent bystanders of dew
topaz flashes of light, adolescent.

Leave my poetry alone
its patient leaves of crimson
its secret islands
its volcanic petals
its violet underground
its hurricane voices
its consonants of floating flesh
timid.

Leave it alone.

Kevin Harling


Opus

Precipitation
thats what this feels like
colloquial and bunching
around the edges,

rendered,

like a knot of olive trees,
the diffidence of the wind
ancient and worn smooth
by its own air,

imprudent chairs
and pregnant windows
like the light
that is rooted
in apples,
domesticate
the sky
with tendrils undisclosed,

rewritten,

like a veranda,
the immensity
of foam
magenta in its vigil
touching the
echoing pink-pebbles
with jasmine
degrees of silence,
the mulberry face
of time
made of domiciles
of chocolate
where jelly fish and geckos
gargle iodine
in uninhabitable
chapels and mosques.

I feel the chamomile
envelope of the generations,
isolated like the pansies
in late november,

I feel the chestnut
embrace of the sea,
like a chrysalis of lemons,
like the aroma of crickets,
like the rhombus
that finds itself
in a very difficult position,

I see the porcelain veil of
translucency that is
spoken in yellow decrees
like a buzz of erasers
pivoting on a delicate
gold wind.

Kevin Harling


Ode To The Poet

Are you only flesh?
Are your limbs made of verse?
Are you an aviator of love and beautiful things?

I wonder what your words unlock
within your mantle of imprisoned night.
Whether your days are filled with starfish skies.
If your petals like hands can elude the dew.

Are your bones composed of pollen?
Are your legs more like a conflict of earthly virtue?
Are you populated by flowers?

I reach for your ancient strings,
to touch your fragrant solitude.
To imagine your distance with verbs
full of light.
I try to reconstruct your feathers,
taste your solitary wine,
to feel your sulfur chains.

Are you a stone dove?
A stiff sea or a wind full of moons?
Are you a sentinel of salt?

I am looking to chisel your joy,
to hammer your statue mouth,
to crawl inside your threshed skin
like a hummingbird searching for nectar.

My poet,
time sculptures your footsteps.
We walk towards your autumn,
extracting your theatres.
We spend hours in your trembling dawn,
waiting.
Waiting for your resurrected roses,
your porcelain visions.

Are you without a voice?
Are you between the earth and the sky?
Are you without wings?

Kevin Harling


The Geography of Being Human

By way of osmosis
the light disolves
assimilating my olive
skin.

The leaves of my pain,
coral chemistry, lofty and
undiscovered in recent excavations.

Be very careful with
the contours of my fleshy geography,
my cenotaph and monuments
of tarnished bronze.

Logic should dictate and disclose
the inscriptions,
the lines I scribbled in the sandy
darkness,
the maps I coloured in for
passing tourists.

Be very careful
not to dislodge the boulders
for I wear my stones like wreaths.

I am antiquity in a book
with fragile bone white pages,
hidden in papyrus caves.

Be careful how you rescue
these shapeless elements,
the architecture of my singed heart
hears and whispers without distinction.

I have crossed the barren wilderness,
exposed my geometry with uncivilized lines,
the tentacles of truth pulling like a mirror.

I am not demanding , I am waiting
once these words are spoken where do they go?

Kevin Harling


Painting The Truth

Let me paint the truth
filling the canvas of honesty
with each word
layering one upon the other
with an uncompromising faith.

Let me portray the landscape
with an abstract uncertainity
holding true to it's form and function
let me describe in exquisite detail
everything I see there,
never wavering in my purpose
to accurately colour
the blank and empty space.

Let me with every line
brush stroke with my palette
blending and mixing,
let me sketch freely and roughly
drawing out what lies underneath.

And above what is really there
let me with a realism carve out
some meaning from what it
is that I survey.

Let me do it deliberately
without distraction.
Let me find the art
the beauty and the brilliance,
...and let it radiate outward
from within.

Kevin Harling


If Neruda Spoke

I am colorless, the sorrowful
words that whip by in winds,
the iridescent things that
whisper, the etched brittle
emotions that take form in
shadows. One minute bleeds
into the next, the meddle
is welded as sparks cry.
Your diamond resilience,
this seagull sky. I am
whittling the now in
intricate lines. My
eroding charcoal mask,
fades. I stall, seconds
galloping to nowhere fast,
ships tossed about on an
ocean half mast. My trans-
lucent colors, your opaque
gaze I cannot see through.
This vast expansion of a
page, these sublime details
charmed by time. My granite
heart clearly entrenched,
the wings of grace that fall
like an avalanche of glass.
All is lead. A molten river of
lead. I can sift but i cannot
sort it out.

Kevin Harling


A Poets Conundrum

By what standard can a Poet be measured?

Is it by a heel of light they judge?
By a prenatal deployment of paper and ink?
By sacrificed teeth graciously removed?

Do lifeless stones have feet, or clashing buffaloes
wings?
I ask you

Do stars cry with a despair that even black space
cannot ignore?
Does a scream of laughter arrive uninhabited by lips,
or does a river suffocate with air?

I ask you

When dawn transfers its fingers to night,
like a song palpitating westward among
a celestial flock of birds, does the day
precarious in its travels weep in its
ending?

I ask you
By what standards can a Poet be measured?

I ask you?

Kevin Harling


Words of Derision

Words like an abacus
calculating thoughts into figures
words that abandon numbers
words that abate like thoughts full of fodder
words that abdicate just by definition
aberrant words that assassinate character
words with hands covered by blood
like a red sheet full of lies
words abandoned by meaning
words that will not abide
defying words
words used to abstain
words that abstract
that we use to take away from
absurd words like fingers that rust
corroding what is said
to the ways we express how we feel
like acid rain
words like breaths of asbestos
words full of chagrin
words like a cesspool
words without creed
that we use to collate
words that crease thoughts
twisting and bending them to our own ends
turning them upon themselves
in the name of vanity
in the name of bribes like teeth
biting remarks full of disdain
the gesturing tones we trample with
with absolute disregard
words full of pompous mouths
like a shower of poisonous arrows
words that argue like bondage
words without flesh
crucified by sin
by not accepting our crosses
words that impale like a bed of nails
like coercing bones
words that gut
the way we dissect another's feelings
corrosive like stale air
words full of pyre
meant to set hearts ablaze
this world is filled by such words
renegade and confrontational
syllables and consonants of derision
meant to subjugate to enslave.

Kevin Harling

From the Waterfront, Toronto Summer 2009

Two Bamboo Sandals

Two
bamboo sandals
abandoned
and left
homeless,
it seems an odd
place to start,
I will freely
admit at the outset
I have no degrees
or certifications,
no diplomas
adorm my walls.
Their are no ribbons
or medals
for valour,
no accolades.
I am a hush a whisper
mostly silent
and unbecoming,
unpronounced
and unfamiliar,
Yet that clanging
still resounds
and is reflected
back upon its face,
the mirrored
ceiling
that looks at the floor
meditating about
ochre and cappucino.
Ice fills the gaps
of cubes of porcupine
blue and lime
soothes the air
like carbon.
I see you walking
in like an apron
terra-cotta vase,
complacent
and oozing water
that
gushes like dew
somehow.
The wind says its
name, chiming
bells and knoll
like the window
lake of fingers
that cannot help
but probe.
Did you see me?
wandering like a lost
sandbar,
lamenting the horizon
and the empty chairs
on the deck like a lost
humpback whale.
The patio for two
reservations of red
roses and bordeaux satin
kisses slightly chilled
and a tall glass and,
stir me but don't shake me
ajar, the table
you
tapped your nails and pins
upon like a chorus, demanding
water.
The rainbow wrinkles with
regrets and solitude.
I will take the latter.

Kevin Harling


Sherbourne

I have heard
every obscenity
spit out, uttered and spoken,
pronounced with accents
from I am not sure where,
heard it drawl and troll as if
shipwrecked in mid sentence.

It calls from the street
that seems to move
with its chatter
gossiping as if
it rollingly walked,
collecting things,
memories.

I have indeed breathed
its whisper, often
contemplating not the sky
that ebbs only,
but why the red
flows like a river of slander?
bleeding like autumn.

Indian summer sighs its
heavy burden
weighed down by leaves and the
rustng of open wounds and libel.

I have indeed heard every obscenity
the days are embossed with such wasteful
words,
It makes you wonder why all the
grumbling?

Kevin Harling


Looking for Depth

I have tried with repeated attempts
to comprehend the distance,

tried to circumnavigate its jasmine boom,
to correlate its brow and horizons,

but to no return, somehow,

its breadth eluded me like an
inexplicable shoulder,

feigning any touch and resisting all
embraces.

I tried to make a consort
of the sky,

its hue of inconsolable blue
that perfumes the air with lavendar,

tried to ponder the winds mouth,
how it kisses the earth with
immaculate lips,

but such things defy and are far
to lofty.

I have tried to domesticate water,
swallowed oceans of salt,
lamenting its loss, but

the anenome deter such collusion
like tides,
they abhor their breath
being rewritten.

I have raised the anchor
of sorrow
setting sail to places
painted by peacocks,

endured the vortex of understanding
in the form of a whirlpool,

searching for archipelagos
of lemon and bamboo.

And yet, still
I dare not forego the journey,

these trepid steps
into the dew, the loam,

advancing forward,
foregoing the stubborness
of diamonds,

and instead seeing the beauty
in porcelain.

In the end it is the words
that are preserved
like gelatin,

a few lines that translate
the dimensions and
shades of these thoughts,

and nothing else.

Kevin Harling

Looking Around With Eyes Wide Shut

In Coloured Words

Are these words that fall from a sky filled
with umber silhouettes
these pebbles I cast on a sea of crimson
and orange and yellow
these whispers I release in clouds of grey
still somehow fondly recalled

in joyous wisps and cloud
these blue breaths of days not long ago

the black hours when you don't want to let go
the faces of ghosts all white and full of light
the smiles you never fully show
the red ways we hide, and we glow
the stones we turn over
in forests of green fields
and valleys and moats,
words of umber and a vast sky full of blue breaths.

Kevin Harling


Obsidian Falls

Upon a mantle of tresses
upon a lattice grooved by hands
upon the sound of black silence
obsidian the texture of salt
ingrained and worn smooth by hands of rain
coiled and patient like a church
with granite pews and a nave filled by shadows
with stone hands resurrected
in the sound obsidian makes
in the absolution of erosion and prayer
like water spilled upon the altar
obsidian
obsidian and the sound it makes
kneeling in opposition
in the coveted distance
condemned by dreams spilled in vain
or night of vanity
condemed in the foliage
of nameless sins
condemned in the midst of
ashes mourning
in the the shape of the igneous
obsidian gathering
in stones
obsidian
in a steady stream of circumstances
under the breast of heaven congealing
obsidian falls in columns
metaphorical and withering
between the pallid absence galloping
tears of obsidian
white
obsidian falling in stone waterfalls
like an apse filled by ghosts
obsidian.

Kevin Harling


A Thought

Blue plumbed lines sift
through the window
lit up by the notion
that everything is
just white.
Tomorrow blinks
like the ashtray by the window
asking for forgiveness
and one more
breath.

Kevin Harling


Canvas

Watercolour words
drip
like paper
foraging
for ash and birch
wading like a
train of bees,

pollen
butterfly
sentences forgive
the dawn
its subtle grace,

white
veiled
truth peers
out from
the minutes
exposing the ghosts.

In blurry
blue dots
the syllables
bleed,
haunted not so much
by night
but by the nocturnal
passing of time.

The owl
sifts the light
in flight
fleeing
the dew
tasting eternity
in the lulls
that vault
between
here and now,
between
yesterday
and today.

Everything has been painted.

Kevin Harling


Opulent Wishes

Aegean eyes of emerald blue
satiate the wind
caressing its spanning breath
with whispers.
From the shores
across waves that wonder
the questions pervade my senses
like the heart that knows
no rest.
I cannot correlate
or let alone fathom
how far the miles that separate
the stars from the moon.
I feel you kiss the beach
your fingers tracing
my mouth with salt.

The conch cringe,
the urchin lust,
this crawling flesh of timbers
shivering to be touched
by the distance of oceans.

How vast the duplicity
of reality
nothing can coerce such things.

Salmon flesh aches
the soul is fired by dreams
the night is young
and one day all will
be revealed.

Kevin Harling


Spherical

Elastic hues of orange
and
precipitous vegetation
surround the nape
of this shoal.

Everywhere stars
are teeming with
luminescent virtue,
twinkling
lights of yellow
that blister the night.

Guile becomes
a cloak,
indigo,
and becoming
more white.

The truth exists
in the soil
permeating
the feet.

Vague is not an option,
nor does
water reveal its depths
quickly.

In circles
we navigate
the breaches
of skin,
searching for the flesh
pink and swelling.

The apple has been bitten
its core exposed by
teeth,
Eden pangs the
heart,
drawning me deeper
swallowing the air
and soul
in a rush of wind.

Kevin Harling


Beyond Above

From the veranda
above the sea
blue
piers and wharfs
neglect the tide,

suggestions
that creep
like rain
into the horizon,

coral
and abated by
the cool lavendar winds.

This vantage point
slips its knots
slowly
meandering in an ebb
of flowing sky,
crimson and untouched
by fingers that
reach upward
iridescent.

Dreams surface
like a mirage
mirrored by flaws
and circumstances
like ankles
hidden from the sun.

Unity exists
beyond the above
between the
earth and heaven.

It is a direction
a destination
and a home.

Kevin Harling


As For Excuses

As for excuses and excesses, and
after certain philisophical reflections
meditating with a choking sensation
of melancholy, parting in the middle
with eternal complaints, banished and
distracted, speaking without inter-
uptions and silent immolation thinning
out,
the sentiments indossolubly bound by an
exquisite candor stooped over and bordered
by pavement and cafes, framed by balconies
and jasmine, narcissi and roses,
this homage of wheedling benignity,
reverberating under the lofty vaults,
Andalusian and committing sacrilege,
descending with sudden resolution,
in the stillness of a church, in a perfect
representation of annihilation, in the
gossip of indifference, in kneeling prayers,
into a chapel full of balustrades, like
painted breath punctuated, like an irresist-
ible argument, demoralised and weeping with
fatigue, cowardly and docile, climbing up to
the window, decanted in infusions, and elab-
orated by hands of irreverence and caustic
purpose.

With an azure infinity, adulterous and compromising
swaying overhead, in scales of resin and turpentine
filling funnels slowly undressed by patience,
palpitating like immense black waves embarassed,
turning to rancor, subjugated and tempered,
tempered by heartache.

Kevin Harling


Now or Never

Trill of light
Smell of stars
Black eyes of the sea
Ancient wind.

Inaugurate the motionless,
show destiny its time,
distinguish its heart,
with perpetual beats.
Pacify fear and its hands.
Comfort like night,
with a sky full of nocturnal birds.

Chirp of life
Languid earth
Salt of dawn
Whispering willow.

Expand the cistern of the air,
teach its roots,
with memories alive.
Wipe away the stain of transparency.
Swaddle the day with soft touches,
with unabridged breath and lives.

Hammer of reason
Shoulder of sky
Sliver of ashes
Haunting moon.

Dress the disenfranchised,
show distance its limits,
measure its span and circumference
with multiplying spring waters.
Open paths downstream.
Inhabit the minutes
with an ebb and flow of stones.

Unyielding thorn of love.
Comprehend the foliage,
mill together hazelnut and complaining.
Combine ankles and sawdust,
recognize bread and lament,
drown these grumbling footsteps.

Begin to show yourself,
like an estuary of eyelashes
transfixed by threads passing.
Like a tower of receding doors
silent as a rainfall of scissors.
Open up your entangled vines
your precipitous black metaphors.

Begin to show yourself.

Kevin Harling


Sound

Orange
orchid moon
sings at the
level
of baritone,
reciting
psalms and
recollections
of dust
with mossy
interiors.

Mitigation
seats itself
firmly at the
table
guarded by
padded chairs
and silhouettes
of bats.

I think
Catwoman
walks
on tightropes
made of nylon
tied together
like white
promises
and lust.

I get lost
in the dimensions
falling out
of the margins
and spilling
my ink
with hands
trembling
from the touch
of cold water.

Everything is wind and chatter
it echoes in corridors
and sentences
that have forgotten
how to speak.

Kevin Harling

Inspired By Elytis

Ode To "The Monogram"

Are you listening?
when epiphany molts like blood
upon the sleeves of fate
like the face of fury and handles,

Are you listening?
to sound that wades like night
these ivy lips call out to Zeus
like a lion reborn in the stars,

Are you listening?
you who made my mouth salt
acrid and barren, tempest
you who laughs with my heart,

Are you listening?
can you fathom my words of silk
my loss that scoffs emerging
soured by leaving, by departures
by eulogies that mock this parting
can you taste this like all our yesterdays
that haunt the moonlit seas,

Are you listening?
the one who soothed and impaled my sorrow
with your timid and tepid goodbyes
can you feel my limbs gasp
in breathless strokes and sheets
can you?

Are you listening?
my bitterness,
sweet love who holds my wishes
in days sailing like a windy gale
who sank my ocean with depths of kisses
and embraces that taint my walls with satin,

Are you listening my beloved?
you sold the stars like ashes
broke my knees with cold black stares
like ice to my eyes I wince laughing
can you hear me?
can you tear what is left of tomorrow
from inside my heart and ears,

Are you listening?
i am torn by your interiors
chained by the sweat of your galloping fingers
plagued by your nails on my skin
at a loss for memory and the sound of the sea
for the lashing of entwined legs
that gather around waists

my ancient love, my somber goodbye
Hello

Kevin Harling

Searching the Skin for Answers

Thus Far

Everything that is
is and the same time
is not.

Like the wind that fills
my breath
with the sound of conch,
I feel the axle of earth
grind like a millstone.

I cannot fathom Heaven,
neither can I touch Eros
for the dawn and dusk
bleong to doves.

I hera the sound of topsoil,
the nondescript summer winds,
the undulating jib of water,
my hopes take refuge there.

I cannot grieve liberty
nor shall I confess to the moon
for my memory is full of excuses
to not speak, immobile and mute.

Who wrote the script of air,
where sleep deprived swans enchant?

I see mauve relaxing its colourless green
removing its apron and consecrating the
ground with her nocturnal mouth.

I am a descendant of futile prayers
whispering immutable lamentations
that fall upon the deaf ears of the escarpment.

I cannot taste the earth's flesh
for the bllod of self separates us.

Everything that is
is and at the same time
is not.

I am merely a man, searching for himself.

Kevin Harling


Vertigo

Words full of vertigo
crawl from the
bridge of my
mouth,
and as
thoughts wind
and spill
like the
sensation
of falling,
vertigo green panic
unglues the sky
clouds scrammble
for cover
the colour is sheer
blue murder and,
I remember being
afraid to whisper
in the dark,
I hid under my bed
shaking the wait.
Vertigo tears fell
on the panelled floor
of pine in pools.
It was vertigo words
that lashed out my way,
words full of vertigo
and I lost my balance.

Kevin Harling


Meandering

Uncommon steel lilies
floated in the sky
diaphonous
and
revealing nothing
but stale wind,

worshipping
that sounded
peculiar like
breaths made
up of aluminum.
I could touch

touch
the marble interiors
of my thoughts
being whisked
away
to some faraway
place
vagrant and responding
to atoms as if they
spoke.

Here among the venom
all vanity is displaced
like water
shedding its transparent
blue face,
here ruin is a fabric
that transforms the
landscape
making it fit
for human habitation.

Tissue comes to mind
delicate and interwoven
like arteries
of white blood cells
and skin.

Sauntering,
time dwindles
like a pin,
hours turn
into leaves
of crimson and gold
and
footsteps of ink
fade with the tides
ebb and flow.

Kevin Harling

Rambling into the Wind

Under

From the basement picture shingle
this floor we are standing upon in
the solitude moonlight window sill
and seeping water grass yellow blue
the greening effect of residues and
what sits beside you corner shade of
the issues pressed glass and veneer
shellac and forest vine root do you
become delicate in the light shadow
face pink and discreet do you know
from beneath the stairs door and tomorrow
is just a door we can walk through.

Kevin Harling


Evening Songs

Raven thigh night sheer black
crawling like my skin, seconds
echo like sand ceiling sky and
blushing palms congregate land
valleys of light and arching sun
the moons shadowed face and mirror
looking for the sins and, hands
entwined secrets touch and sssh.

Kevin Harling


Above The Clouds

Seconds aloof trampled just like the paper
fingers and hands that spill on the table
dice rolling clouds and how to hold them,
the
losses translated not by degrees shades green
tourmaline trampoline and the gondolas view
from the terrace of tuscany and bartered by,

appointments missed vanishing like ghosts days
hours windows the debates you chose the wrong side,
and what you missed eyes black and confused,

sitting waiting blue sky moving the hills you
just can't seem to rise above pastures moss
and all the lichen gathering winds and storm,

I profess no stars or oceans demise but wonder
outward peering eagle and soaring high above
water, wind fire and earth all the way to Heaven.

Kevin Harling


Chemistry

Titanium curtains
adorn the window
wall sitting vertical
in a horizontal
sort of way,
the day falls
like the leaves
outside the shuttered
view of my glasses
of sun,
a cup brimming
with sunlight spills
over the sides
and everywhere
red blots the lines
covering the trellis,
I ponder the rain
that feels like tin
against my ankles,
I ponder the hours
of salt that taste
like brine
eroding my complexion
of the place,
I ponder the shadows
light in the mirror
on the ceiling
the way it adjusts
the perspective angle
and,
I
admire the sparkles.

Kevin Harling

Etchings of the Real

Show Me

Show me forbidden and allow me to enter its gates
holly and while the vines of ivy cling like wrought
iron
show me the secret doorways key and let me
traverse its parameter with peripheries,
with language and stones,
let me spill ink as if it could speak an entirely new
language,
without adjectives trying to be objective.
Let me caress the panorama embroidering mercury
with syntax covering the geography undulating,
let me undo the coves and island peninsula with
rectangular angles and spheres of unimaginable colours.
Let the ink course like a river of blue
bleeding the page like the growth of something new
molten phoenix fire,
etching a landscape of mango groves and tall grass.
Let the stars survive the seas urchin gaze and
when night falls like a fleece blanket,
then let me suggest how black feels and
the chills upon my brittle skin.

Kevin Harling


Grieve

Black and white bone chin I grieve for them
and in the interim second daylight sun now
you have to move along and on, but don't look
back shadow spilling rain and clouds of gray
on your knees this pain horizontal, I shudder
for you and remember yesterdays smiling halo
life is scurrying through night and blood red
opinions and how do we let go of ourselves?
Black and white flesh and inbetween doors
we just cannot get past, what is it you believe
dream and eyes that blink to see layers milk
white and saturated by truth window soul I see
its not all black and white when we grieve.

Kevin Harling


Tomorrow

Ivory towers scrape the sky looking for excuses
trying to peer into the future,
the clouds are arrested by the premise that
today will be any different than yesterday.
Seashells sound the tides muted roar begging
for forgiveness, bowing down on watery knees.
The earth prays in solitude whispering to God.

Everything is about questions that have no
clear answers, no easy endings.
I cannot see the air nor can I touch its flesh
such things seem to elude me, but
one day perhaps, tomorrow's matters may become
more lucid,
perhaps what once seemed impossible will be
possible.

Kevin Harling


Tracing the Truth

By the holiest of decrees
like the wind of heaven's breath,
this finds its way to birth,
crimson October mornings only suggest
tracing days life with solemn honesty,
disregarding not just the possibility
but also the vanity of such thoughts.
I will not profess to hold the key
to any secrets but I will pursue
truth with white as my saber,
angels to the left and right
and glory filling the sky.
Harmony just like a child
spreads its charm like sunshine
and the rays to which
this owes its promise
adorn not only these words
but also the future to where
they will spend eternity.

Kevin Harling


Walking Away

I see you wading water walking towards the horizon
apparition on your eyes sparkling blue
and in the residual mists,

I stand watching from a distance
silhouette of a thought
ghost fingered and reaching for your brow,

sky and the sunsets in my mind
tuesday and
washing away like the linen and,

the effects still linger
river bending around the window
shutter point of view drifting,

like ash and the embers still burn
spinning around fire and warm breeze
wednesday afternoon and you say I,

haunt the days like a vagrant attitude
only an hour ago tomorrow green and envied
without regrets and so on it goes

like a shadow highlighted by the light
we seem to shine upon it and when its all said
and done another week has gone by goodbye.

Kevin Harling


Embrace Me

Watercress hues
of green
colour the
sky of
these feelings
orange,

revealing like satin
sheer and sensible
the insensitivity
and
forgotten like
the picnic
lunch
due to the
afalfa and cranberry
cocktail
made of mostly
vodka,

and the maid polished
the silver
to make it look
uniform,

and when the sun shone
through the window
pastel and
uneven all
the cracks appeared
on your chin,

mantle of pink
and all the flesh
became tangerine yellow,

and the song was
playing over and over again
skipping like a rope
I tripped over only two hours ago,

so embrace me
not because I am here
but cause you want to
hold me cause it feels just so
and when my eyes speak
don't try to find the stars
I am right her
so embrace me.

Kevin Harling


Dream

I want to sound
every syllable
taste its flesh
in my mouth,

grant it its due nature not secondhand
but firstly grasping fleshy peach
and imagine its distance blossom
search the shadowy silhouette song
and within the melody stand like
a redwood cypress hands held high
and reaching towards the blue
establish the ground firmly
fresh and whisper nothing and everything
at the same time and hold the silence
within my voice and colour the waters
green and weaving threads gold sigh
the sky clouds and wind and besides
when it all comes to rest be the night.

Kevin Harling


Permafrost


Lichen fog
like yesterdays moss
foliage green
and unresponding to your dream
of what the kitchen would
or really should
look like in granite
or polished titanium.

Everything has been grazed over
like a receipt from dinner
and you said or so you say
that the text would have confirmed
the reservation
at the trendiest nightclub
on saturday,

sends chills down my spiny column
just to think about it
hugo boss suit and the credit card
maxed out to the limit and then
the cocaine door
your nose walks through
in the 2 storey bathroom
and what do you remember anyway
hungover sunday champagne breakfast
you could not get up for.

Cold steel blue is what I feel
and you change the sun to rain
sill ledges and veneered shutters
vertical my perspective
is way out of whack.

Kevin Harling


Tracing the Interiors

Infinite flower born to dawn,
I sit beneath your crevice
of scarlet,
trying to decipher the heights.

Orange childhood and petals
like mouths bequeath the dew,
and settling like soft manners,
voices and bells
angels
and,
wind that dare not speak,
this dawn is ascending.

Unquencahble eucalyptus
and rosy red paraffin cheeks
ask so many questions,
trying not to disclose a
blush.

Ivy that smells like a winery
of vines that cannot find the sky
through all the blue:
talking about pomegranates
and the procession of time.

It has to be about distance
the way it excludes the colour yellow
and starfish stranded on beaches,
its about sandbars.

The way the hours spill like
grains of sand.

Because I have the desire to cast ink
like pollen volatile.

Two oblong smoke stacks
sing in the distance
smeared by the sun's haze,
like a triangle
waiting to be completed.

I could draw upon the alphabet
with stars and fluttering leaves
trying to have a conversation, and

somehow the clouds become an ocean
all fluffy and blue, and like a chorus,

as if you were an angel, lofty
and walking above the ceiling, white words
and,
and sheer, I remember

Guiness falling from the taps
like waterfalls waiting
to glisten upon the rim of
some stained tall glass, and
I see the whispers, and
Is anyone listening?

It feels like a blanket
of Kryptonite descending
upon my brow, your navel
like the light
switch
being turned on.

Faraway and yet becoming nearer
the eyes turning into mirrors,
suggestions, becoming clearer.

Kryptonite like clarity
finally had some cheeks,
pink and swollen, full of agendas

and, propositions, imposing,

Were they just passing comments?,
and,
pretending not to impose upon
the lashes mascara
and smiles

as if the pendulum actually
had a dial,
and it was spinning out
of contorl like the other, and

Wasn't it always about the distance?
Trying to enclose the hours, days,
weeks and, when somebody else
tried to emulate,
brought the bag full of bones
and, china the way it crinkles
the closet shelves.

It was about your focus
the way it perforates the bottle
about the crocus and the crocodiles.

I feel it echo like an, like a
inquistion on the radio,
at the bar at 3am.

It all tastes like granite
smooth, not touched by feet,
and,
cold,
very cold,
peopled and,
sterile like a
syringe.

The breeze alters the horizon
and planters wither away,
everything is being whittled
like the sound of erosion
and a bike.

Kevin Harling